BT Disconnection Scam?

karvala

macman wrote: »

No, the account holder is the only person who can cancel them. BT can stop drawing on them, but that isn't the same thing as cancellation-if that is done, the DD remains active and can be 'resumed' at any time without the account holder's approval.
DD's can be cancelled simply by one click in your online account, so if the OP didn't do it, then the bank are liable.

I'm afraid you're wrong. I have in front of me a list of all direct debit activity on my bank account produced by the specialist department in the bank, and there are two types of cancellations that have taken place - "Cancelled by Customer" (i.e. the bank account holder) and "Cancelled by Originator" (i.e. the company who sent the direct debit mandate to the bank). This was also confirmed by the specialist staff at the same time that they confirmed that the bank cannot cancel it without authorisation from one of those two parties. This is the same across members of the direct debit scheme - either the customer or the company, but no one else, can cancel a direct debit.

karvala

UPDATE

So BT have decided to play a game of short yardage with this. They are still not admitting the fault, but have now decided to remove the late payment charge and hope that I will now be satisfied. I'm not.

You guys are going to have to wake up and smell the coffee on this. My bank has now kindly provided both written evidence (which has been sent to BT) that the DD was definitely cancelled by BT AND offered someone to testify this to the ombudsman should it prove necessary. I have had to waste a lot of time on this, I have been lied to and insulted by your staff on the phone during the process of having my phone reconnected, and had to try five different methods of making a complaint before getting a response.

I am not going away and I am not going to accept the idea that my time is freely available for BT to waste whenever you feel like it. If I have to spend time fixing your screw-ups, I expect to be compensated for it.

(1) You cancelled the direct debit without good reason.
(2) You lied on my bill telling me that the direct debit was still in place.
(3) You disconnected my phone without sending me any form of reminder bill, letter, e-mail or even speaking to me on the phone. You have even admitted this, claiming that one phone message was left and that's it, which strangely never appeared on my phone and which you have so far failed to provide any evidence for.
(4) You lied on the phone telling me that I cancelled the direct debit (I have provided you with written evidence that this is untrue), and insulted me by suggesting that I was trying to get out of paying my bill.
(5) You failed to provide an adequate complaints procedure in accordance with your code of conduct, requiring multiple attempts and excessive amounts of my time to have the complaint registered.

If you think get a free pass at FIVE separate failings like that, think again. The compensation claim now stands at £85 (the extra £10 is for the written evidence that it was you who cancelled the direct debit). Pay it, issue a letter of deadlock, or face legal proceedings.


P.S. Nice try at covering your tracks by restarting the direct debit with the previous number (which the bank tell me is against DD rules), thereby trying to overwrite the DD record. It worked for the standard record of DD activity as produced in a branch, but all requests are logged by the bank's specialist DD unit I'm afraid and they provided me with the evidence. I suspect the ombudsman will be interested in that too.

ValHaller

karvala wrote: »

UPDATE

Good on you. Keep this thread updated with what happens. I am interested.

karvala

FINAL UPDATE: this case has now been settled with a reasonable compromise.

I refused their previous offer of just cancelling all the charges as outlined above, and insisted it be escalated. A much more sensible customer service manager finally took over the case, gave up the pretence that it was all my fault, and offered cancellation of all the additional charges and £20 compensation.

As they wanted to charge me £10 just for evidence that they had called me, I felt that in addition to the £20 I should be paid an extra £10 for providing them with evidence, i.e. administrative charges are a two-way street; customers should not be expected to work for free while BT charge for the same work. This was agreed, bringing the total compensation to £30.

Not as much as I much as I originally wanted, but considering that my phone was reconnected the same day and all additional charges have been subsequently refunded, I think it represents a reasonable compromise, and it's good to send BT the message that if they can be reasonable, so can their customers, so I've agreed to that.

It's a pity that it takes such an effort before one gets to communicate with anyone with a modicum of common sense and decency; it wastes BT's time and money as well as that of customers, and trashes their reputation, so it's a pretty dumb approach but still.

Message to other customers suffering problems: (i) be clear and detailed about what the problem was and why this is unfair towards you; (ii) be clear and realistic about what you want as a resolution; (iii) be persistent and don't take no for an answer.

karvala

Well it turns out that wasn't quite the final update, because I've just received my bill, and - surprise, surprise - there is no sign of the promised credit.

So BT are apparently so incompetent that they can't even successfully pay compensation which they owe due their incompetence. So now I have to waste yet MORE time trying to get what is owed to me.

BT_company_representative

Hi karvala,

I'm happy to help sort everything out from here. You'll find my contact details in my profile.

Cheers

Robbie

karvala

And on and on it goes. After failing to credit my account with the amount, I asked for a cheque instead. Was told that they would credit my account with £12.50, which was the current amount owing, and then send me a cheque for the remaining £17.50, which would take up to 10 working days.

They did indeed credit my account, but 3 weeks later is there any sign of a cheque? Nope. You would think there would be at least one person out of the thousands who work at BT who knows how to write a cheque and send it to a customer, but apparently not. It really is like someone rounded up the dumbest people in Britain and put them all in one company.

My lawyer will now get involved in this, and what would have cost BT £30 is now going to cost them hundreds at least, because I am sick and tired of wasting my time asking people to do their job properly and keep their promises.

BT_company_representative

Hi Karvala,

Just dropping a line to let you know my offer of help remains open. You can get in touch using the contact details in my profile.

All the best,

Robbie

Quentin

BT_company_representative wrote: »

Hi Karvala,

Just dropping a line to let you know my offer of help remains open. You can get in touch using the contact details in my profile.

All the best,

Robbie

All very good for the BT online image

But what about you/bt cynically ignoring this problem:


You didn't help all of us wanting to escape BT's price increases by wrongly and badly misinforming us (to BT's advantage) that any of us who had paid 12 months line rental in advance would not be getting a refund, thereby managing to put many off exercising their rights to cancel without penalty!

Then adding insult to injury by wishing us "all the best"!

BT_company_representative wrote: »

Hi guys,

We have asked for information on this for you and LRS is a non-refundable product as you state, so we are very sorry but you would not get a refund pro rata if you chose to cancel your contract. Our price change does not affect your agreement with LRS as it is already pre-paid, LRS is not going up in price in January......

All the best,

Robbie

MSE members subsequently found this to be untrue, and even though posts have been made to you pointing out this "misinformation", you/BT chose to ignore them, meaning the myth/lie was allowed to continue, and many are now tied in to BT's increases they could have avoided had they been told the truth in the first place!