Surprise on BT bill, retrospective price rise

king312

Hello, I look at my bills every few months all of them together. I have just looked at my BT landline bills and noticed that my February bill is higher.

1. This is because they have increased the prices on my package
2. They are retrospectively charging me for January

I called and told them I was upset about this, They told me they emailed and wrote in November but on looking deeper they had emailed me December and gave me a date and time. I found this surprising and upsetting as I expected the price changes were for new customers and not old plus they sent an email to my spam email box and nothing was available on the customer account page about this - which I felt was reasonable for them to do, if not have a copy of the email they sent available.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/broadband/2017/11/bt-to-hike-prices-in-january-

I asked if I could leave and they told me it has to be within 30 days. I said this is within 30 days of me knowing and finding out, she disagreed and said it would cost just over £150 to terminate my contract. She recommended I use a mobile phone as they are cheaper than landlines, despite me barely using the landline!

Is it worth me complaining and trying to get out of the contract? https://www.broadbandchoices.co.uk/guides/help/cancel-contract-price-goes-up

Chrishazle

If you called the automated 0800 customer service line and asked for customer service, try calling again and saying "Contracts" - worked for me, got straight through to a UK adviser and got help. Only times I've tried "customer service" I could not understand the strong Indian accent of the guy that answered!!

JJ_Egan

OP you could have a look at all the identical posts saying never informed of price rise .
Might give you a better idea of a get out for the jan 4th price rise or not.

austinali

I purchased BT broadband and line rental on a 12 month contract on March 2017. On December 2017, they announced the £1 line rental increase and using Martin Lewis's tips, I decided to use the price increase as to leave BT. Before I did this, I spoke to a BT staff based in Accrington. They confirmed that I wont be charged for leaving. I therefore left within the 30 days period.


However, on Friday 19th January, I received a final bill of £96.03. I was baffled with this bill. I called the number on the bill and was connected to someone based in India. Fantastic! The BT staff explained that I was charged due to leaving BT early and also because I did not return the router. I explained that a BT staff from Accrington told me that I wont be charged for leaving early and he did not mention anything about the router. She apparently updated my account and arranged for the router to be collected by courier which it was the following Monday. She even advised me to cancel my direct debit which I did.


However, I received an email today morning (15/02/18) from BT, saying that they are still waiting for the £96.03 and if I don't pay by March, it will be passed onto the debt collection. I therefore called the number on the email and this time, I was connected to James from Swansea. I explained everything to him and he had to speak to the 'router returns' department even though I had a receipt from the courier. He put me on hold for about 6minutes and then told me that he would call me back in 5 minutes. He eventually called back after 20minutes and told me that he is still on hold with the router returns team and will call me back. He did not. Can anyone help me please?

[Deleted User]

If you leave early due to a price increase you don't need to return the router/hub.