BT - A "customer" for a matter of hours but still costly

gcbrit

Hi all,

I confess I had a moment of madness on the 15th August for which I am now, it would appear, literally paying for.

I made the decision to join BT on Saturday 15th August and signed up for BT TV, Broadband & Phone. I paid upfront for the Line Rental Saver (£183.48) and the BT TV activation fee (£49.00) and was given an activation date of 1st September. After further investigation of what I had actually signed up for, my mistake I know, it became apparent to me that the BT Sport channels would be streamed via broadband to the otherwise aerially connected TV box. My main reason for joining BT was so that I could watch rugby, but I didn’t fancy doing that over a standard broadband connection with all the presumable buffering & poor picture quality that would entail.

So I decided to contact the customer services (UK) and ask when the 14 day cooling off period would commence. Would it be on the 15th August when I had signed up or, as I wrongly presumed would be more sensible, the 1st September when the services would start and I would therefore be able to see how the channels faired? I was told that the 14 day cooling off period would start from the 15th August despite that being 17 days before I would have any clue as to how BT’s services would perform. With that being the case I told the agent that I was not willing to risk being tied down to a service that may well be below standard. In fairness she seemed to understand my position and said that everything would be cancelled and the money I had paid upfront would be refunded, which happened on the 18th August.

End of story. Well, maybe not. Since the refund I have received a Final Bill, dated 23rd August, through the post. This bill shows my upfront payment of £232.48 and the subsequent refund for that amount but they have also included a One-off Charge of £49.00 for “the standard cost of your BT TV Activation” for the 1st September. Obviously as I had only been a “customer” for a matter of hours and had already had the BT TV activation fee refunded, plus it was still August, I was somewhat perplexed.

Onto customer services (India) to try to resolve this. The first chap I spoke to I could get no sense from. After being put on hold several times, for which he always apologised, I was disconnected whilst on hold again after over 30 minutes of the call. Instead I was connected to a lady who requested my account number and I requested the chap I had already been speaking to. She said I had obviously been disconnected and requested my account number again. I asked where the other chap had gone and she demanded my account number again if I wanted any help. I told her what would help is not spending over 30 minutes on a call and then being expected to go through it all again. [BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPP] She cut me off! I was very calm and hadn’t sworn or shouted or anything like that, so now I was rather miffed, to put it lightly.

I searched online for a UK number for BT, any number, and came up with the BT Switchboard. I called them and said that I wanted to sort out my bill and make a complaint (for being cut off). The lady I spoke to blurted out something and before I knew it I was being put on to someone else. A chap answered and the line was a lot clearer than my previous calls to India, so I was hopeful that I was through to someone in the UK. But alas no, I was onto India again. However this chap gave the appearance (verbally) of showing some interest in my predicament and to cut a long story short said that he could see that they had incorrectly placed the BT TV activation fee back onto my bill. He said that it would need to be manually refunded as it was “a lot of money, nearly £50” and that he would call me at the same time the following day to confirm that it had been removed. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, I received no phone call and BT has since taken £49.00 out of my bank account today, the 1st September.

Now I guess the long fight to get this money back begins!

karvala

Thanks for reminding me how happy I am that I no longer have anything to do with this bunch of criminals. Write to the head office, make an official complaint, escalate the complaint, write to the ombudsman, hassle them. I did before leaving, and eventually got compensation as well as a full refund. It's a load of hassle, though.

poppasmurf_bewdley

You can't blame BT for you not knowing that the 14 day cancellation period starts from when you order the service. Otherwise it would be a 26 day or 32 day or whatever day cancellation period.

JJ_Egan

OP should have checked the BT Sport first as BT sell the product for some non fibre connections .The presumption that it would have buffered etc may be right or wrong but worth checking . I know at least one standard up to 8 meg connection that has excellent BT Sport service and will be watching the old boys from the Stoop this evening .

brewerdave

I thought that BT TV was only available to order now, if either you had an Infinity fibre package, or as an add on for Sky ?
If you just have an aerial supplied TV and standard adsl broadband, surely the TV service was a missale??

@ JJEgan -I know that some people got BT TV on ADSL before the policy changed.

macman

Perfectly possible to stream TV over a 'standard' broadband connection, whatever that is. It will usually work OK with a line speed or around 2.5MBps, so, unless your predicted speed is lower than that, you have cancelled for no good reason.
Most of the costs are incurred before your service commences, so to expect BT to give you a free 14 day 'trial' period with the service live are unrealistic.

VisionMan

brewerdave wrote: »

I thought that BT TV was only available to order now, if either you had an Infinity fibre package, or as an add on for Sky ?
If you just have an aerial supplied TV and standard adsl broadband, surely the TV service was a missale??

@ JJEgan -I know that some people got BT TV on ADSL before the policy changed.

BT have both Fibre and ADSL Multicast connected areas but BT's general rule is that if an area has both Fibre and ADSL Multicast services available they will only provide BTTV over fibre.

BT would have checked both the OP's line and speed before the order was placed to see if it was suitable for multicast TV reception and as the order was placed and accepted it is. 3.5Mbps is the minimum speed required.

spyhunter

VisionMan wrote: »

BT have both Fibre and ADSL Multicast connected areas but BT's general rule is that if an area has both Fibre and ADSL Multicast services available they will only provide BTTV over fibre.

BT would have checked both the OP's line and speed before the order was placed to see if it was suitable for multicast TV reception and as the order was placed and accepted it is. 3.5Mbps is the minimum speed required.

The minimum line speed required to get BT sport over ADSL is 5Mbps

https://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumer/terms/BT-Sport-TV.html