BT - One-off charges

AudioJohn

I have a BT land line, but route calls via Talk Talk.

On my recent BT bill - there was a One-off charge of £2.55 with no explanation of what it was for. On enquiring - I was told that it was for the 1571 service, if no calls are routed via BT.

They said that if a number of calls were routed via BT - this charge would not be levied.

Has anyone else noticed this - and what is the best course of action?

Heinz

Welcome to the MSE forums AudioJohn.

BT announced (back in August I think it was) that they would charge subscribers who don't make at least 2 chargeable calls per month via BT £1/month for the 1571 facility. At the same time, they announced they'd now be enforcing the same rule for Caller display and charge £1.75/month for that.

Easily overcome - make 2 x evening or weekend UK 01/02 calls of less than an hour with the 1280 prefix each month - total cost 2 x 4½p = 9p for both - bargain!

pepsi_max2k

>> At the same time, they announced they'd now be enforcing the same rule
>> for Caller display and charge £1.75/month for that.

oh great, that right messes up my voip ideas then... i was gonna change my dads phone over but he only makes about £5 of calls a quarter on BT; changing him to use voip only would mean £5.25 a quarter just via the bt clid charge :rolleyes:. can't get rid of it as he uses it all the time, only option would be remembering to make 6 phone calls a quarter myself through bt or setting an ata to do so, or somehow setting up the ata to send the first 6 calls via bt which sounds so complicated it's probably not possible... makes you wanna leave bt altogether

Ypaymore

pepsi_max2k wrote: »

makes you wanna leave bt altogether

At least they provide virtually free caller display,and allow you to cps your calls. I dont see any other supplier rushing to do the same.

PasturesNew

Ypaymore wrote: »

At least they provide virtually free caller display,and allow you to cps your calls. I dont see any other supplier rushing to do the same.

Which might look like a benefit if I could understand it.

1] caller display ... how does that work then? How can you tell who is calling you when all you can do is hear the phone ring?
2] allow you to cps your calls ... er, do what?

utilitybroker

PasturesNew wrote: »

Which might look like a benefit if I could understand it.

1] caller display ... how does that work then? How can you tell who is calling you when all you can do is hear the phone ring?
2] allow you to cps your calls ... er, do what?

1. Your need to acquire a phone with a compatible screen,or a seperate caller display unit to use this facilty. It will allow you to see the number of the person calling.However Caller Display cannot disclose the number if the number is withheld or unavailable.

2. CPS stands for Carrier Pre Select . Basically it allows you to use another supplier other then BT to carry your calls,and get lower bills.
Read this post if you interested in doing this.
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=1598074&postcount=3

Heinz

PasturesNew wrote: »

2] allow you to cps your calls ... er, do what?

Carrier PreSelect is explained in layman's terms HERE.

barncopxx

AudioJohn wrote: »

I have a BT land line, but route calls via Talk Talk.

On my recent BT bill - there was a One-off charge of £2.55 with no explanation of what it was for. On enquiring - I was told that it was for the 1571 service, if no calls are routed via BT.

They said that if a number of calls were routed via BT - this charge would not be levied.

Has anyone else noticed this - and what is the best course of action?

I too noticed this charge on my last bill - as I have a digital answering machine that I haven't used I simply rang BT to cancel the 1571 service. Robbing so and so's. If they simply competed and price matched other companies they wouldn't be losing so much business and having to resort to such desperate measures.

hra_2

I have been charged for Caller Display despite my latest bill showing my total number of calls in the quarter was 9.

On phoning BT Customer Services, I was told the issue was that these calls were 1471 Call Return fees and did not qualify. However I cannot find anywhere, including in the Terms and Conditions, where this is documented, and neither could BT.

My calls were all chargeable and clearly listed under "Cost of calls" even if they were not conventionally dialled or CPSed. Does anyone here know where this restriction is published, and whether there are any other restrictions which might catch people out?

pepsi_max2k

>> Does anyone here know where this restriction is published

hopefully not in some code a lazy programmer wrote querying a database purely for regular self-called calls and not bothering to access the 1471 call lists? then again, i don't suppose bt would complain about that :rolleyes:

KorkyKat

Would I be right in assuming that this so called 'One Off' charge is only for one time and not once a quarter?

Thanks