being charged £2,197.94 without an explaination and fully irrated after calling them

mleader1

29/01/2014 update:

I have reported police and ActionFraud to take action on this. I have also cancelled the direct debit and asked the money taken to be refunded from HSBC which they did (and HSBC's comforting conversation which make me thinking how could customer services be so different!).

The very irritating part of the whole mess is that each time when I called BT (since last week when I received the bill) they kept telling me the direct debit has now been suspended and they will investigate till the truth that on Monday that my money was taken by them! When I called Action Fraud updating on this, what they told me was that BT may have kept directing me to the wrong person and I need to find a way to speak to someone more senior (which I have no idea how could I do that!!).

Luckily all seems to be in place now. Police and Action Fruad now is involved, I got a phone number speaking to BT security & fraud who told me they will work together with police to invetigate. Money is going to be refunded by today by HSBC because it was taken by direct debit; I have also got the landline disabled for any out-going calls so nobody will be able to get through (shame BT cannot redirect whoever calls directly to 999!)

After all this and up till now I finally realized how vulnerable a customer could be when dealing with big company like BT. I questioned the last person I spoke from BT, why when I looked onto the online service that I had just registered, I can easily spot from their nice graph and statistic showing 10,075.67% change of bill total nicely highlighted in red, couldn't themselves had any incident warning system finding out this issue for their customers? and the person told me sadly that BT actually don't!

Hopefully everything will get sorted out soon.

Thanks for feeding me up with ideas from MSE.

---

=---
I guess this is my first message on MSE and I'm using it here because I found nowhere else I can seek for help!

I use BT business landline at home for my home business and use only their broadband really. The landline bills I receive over the years are roughly around £21 and all of sudden it goes to £2,197.94 for last month!

I called BT 3 times - the first 2 calls I made they told me they will investigate and have already got my direct debit payment suspended so that the payment won't get charged till it is resolved. They also confirmed my mobile number and said they will contact me as soon as possible to get it resolved! I believe it and relaxed about a week and this morning when I check my business bank account, I got two thousand pounds loss (£2197.94 charged by BT!)

I couldn't calm down and I called them asking why it happened and why it was charged and why nobody tells me a REASON!

Although I don't believe the rocket high bill was definitely not caused by me, but I swear I had never had any problem in the past few years and I definitely don't make hundreds of international calls to countries that I don't even know the name of! It defintely should be either a BT techincal error, or a hacker hacking to my phone???

Please help me to thinking logically!! I'm mad, realy mad and don't know whether I should call police or seek for legal advice at this stage!

visidigi

You didn't actually tell us what the bill is for.

You can invoke the DD guarantee and get it reversed by your bank very quickly, the problem you then have is BT could put a marker on you for failing to pay, they might say they won't but BT is BT and I wouldn't trust a thing they say.

Are you saying the £2k+ bill is for international calls? Need more info to help...btw don't call the police or legal advice yet - yes its a bad situation but its not worth getting so irate over right now - not without getting more of an understanding what's going on.

mleader1

Yes the bill is landline bill.

I just registered the online billing service since I received the ridiculous bill and here's the call details:


UK Phone line £0.00 International £1,813.62 Premium rate £0.00 UK mobile £0.00 Other £0.00

Regular charges



£18.00

Usage charges



£1,813.62

Total not including VAT


£1,831.62

Total VAT


£366.32

Total current charges including VAT
= £2,197.94

DUTR

mleader1 wrote: »

Yes the bill is landline bill.

I just registered the online billing service since I received the ridiculous bill and here's the call details:


UK Phone line £0.00 International £1,813.62 Premium rate £0.00 UK mobile £0.00 Other £0.00

Regular charges



£18.00

Usage charges



£1,813.62

Total not including VAT


£1,831.62

Total VAT


£366.32

Total current charges including VAT
= £2,197.94

So next look at the itemisation for the International calls.

visidigi

Okay, so international calls. Any breakdown of the calls made?

Do they give you the days/times? Do you employ anyone who might have used your office resource without your knowledge?

mleader1

that's just 1 of many pages on the list! - content lenth limit I could not pasted them all....

---

Charge Type Date Time Called number Units Duration
(HH:MM:SS) Cost (£) International CallsFri 10 Jan21:45:4400212659732120
00:05:584.840
International CallsFri 10 Jan21:27:1900212659732120
00:16:1713.640
International CallsFri 10 Jan21:27:0900212659732120
00:00:030.840
International CallsFri 10 Jan21:26:5500212659732120
00:00:020.840
International CallsFri 10 Jan21:26:3900212659732120
00:00:030.840
International CallsFri 10 Jan21:26:2100212659732120
00:00:080.840
International CallsFri 10 Jan21:06:2500212659732120
00:19:3516.040
International CallsFri 10 Jan21:06:1400212659732120
00:00:020.840
International CallsFri 10 Jan21:05:3400212659732120
00:00:170.840
International CallsFri 10 Jan21:05:2400212659732120
00:00:030.840
International CallsFri 10 Jan21:05:1500212659732120
00:00:020.840
International CallsFri 10 Jan20:48:5200212659732120
00:15:3412.840
International CallsFri 10 Jan20:30:0100212659732120
00:18:1715.240
International CallsFri 10 Jan20:29:2700212659732120
00:00:210.840
International CallsFri 10 Jan20:16:3000212659732120
00:11:319.640
International CallsFri 10 Jan20:16:1600212676701509
00:00:060.840
International CallsFri 10 Jan20:15:4200212676701509
00:00:180.840
International CallsFri 10 Jan20:15:0500212659732120
00:00:050.840
International CallsFri 10 Jan20:14:4300212659732120
00:00:070.840
International CallsFri 10 Jan20:14:2000212659732120
00:00:130.840
International CallsFri 10 Jan20:14:0200212659732120
00:00:110.840
International CallsFri 10 Jan20:13:5300212659732120
00:00:020.840
International CallsFri 10 Jan20:13:3900212659732120
00:00:020.840

Quentin

visidigi wrote: »

.......Do you employ anyone who might have used your office resource without your knowledge?

Or does your cleaning contractor employ someone wanting to make international calls?

mleader1

No I don't have employees. I use Skype with my contractors and we only meet in the city for most times. There was a physical phone on my landline last year but I removed it I guess in April or May because the stand holding the phone was broken... So basically i don't believe anyway can make calls from here!

I guess these calls are definitely not man made. Look at the number of calls! 595 calls and one after another to same number.

Need to calm down a bit and figure out how exactly it happens... clueless!

Calfuray

00212 is Morocco, if that helps.

molerat

Is your computer left permanently switched on as the calls listed above are out of office hours. Do a full virus scan of your computer. Alternatively someone has broken into your line, have you any junction boxes outside the building.

mleader1

29/01/2014 update:

I have reported police and ActionFraud to take action on this. I have also cancelled the direct debit and asked the money taken to be refunded from HSBC which they did (and HSBC's comforting conversation which make me thinking how could customer services be so different!).

The very irritating part of the whole mess is that each time when I called BT (since last week when I received the bill) they kept telling me the direct debit has now been suspended and they will investigate till the truth that on Monday that my money was taken by them! When I called Action Fraud updating on this, what they told me was that BT may have kept directing me to the wrong person and I need to find a way to speak to someone more senior (which I have no idea how could I do that!!).

Luckily all seems to be in place now. Police and Action Fruad now is involved, I got a phone number speaking to BT security & fraud who told me they will work together with police to invetigate. Money is going to be refunded by today by HSBC because it was taken by direct debit; I have also got the landline disabled for any out-going calls so nobody will be able to get through (shame BT cannot redirect whoever calls directly to 999!)

After all this and up till now I finally realized how vulnerable a customer could be when dealing with big company like BT. I questioned the last person I spoke from BT, why when I looked onto the online service that I had just registered, I can easily spot from their nice graph and statistic showing 10,075.67% change of bill total nicely highlighted in red, couldn't themselves had any incident warning system finding out this issue for their customers? and the person told me sadly that BT actually don't!

Hopefully everything will get sorted out soon.

Thanks for feeding me up with ideas from MSE.