MSE News: Post Office and BT cut landline-only bills

Bashworth

My mum has just paid for her land line for twelve months. Will she get a refund.:(

Bobbymax

Bashworth wrote: »

My mum has just paid for her land line for twelve months. Will she get a refund.:(

Don't count on it. I've just switched my elderly mother to landline only at the Post Office so rang an advisor to see if she qualified for the price cut - apparently not. No reason given, he just said no and rang off. Not great PR by any stretch of the imagination.

SteveB

iniltous, it is some years ago that I found that Openreach charged more for small exchanges, thanks for letting me know that they don’t now. I now presume the reason that PO won’t supply me with broadband is that TT doesn’t have their equipment in my exchange. I haven’t told them that I have broadband with another ISP. Either they don’t know or as they will not provide me with broadband, I am still offered the reduction.

Bashworth, I paid for the PO line saver and the letter they sent me says that I will get a refund of the unused portion on my first monthly bill.

Bobbymax, I would write to the PO and ask for a reason why your mother can’t get the cheaper line rental.

mark31_2

[FONT=&quot]I understand the price reduction is a result of Ofcom ruling that BT, who provide landlines, must reduce charges as they have been overcharging customers who have a landline only. They tend to be older and more likely to have had the line for many years.

The Post Office have cynically decided to bury the good news that the service that I buy from them (basic line rental) is reducing quite substantially to £11.50 a month, by placing the information well after telling me that they are upgrading my package to include "Unlimited Broadband" at "no extra charge". Apparently I "don't need to do anything". It's even up to me if "I don't want to use it". After all this, hafway down the page I find about about the "new Home Phone Package" that I can ring up to opt-in. Yes that's right- its the package I'm currently on now with a reduced price.

I believe the people Ofcom are trying to help, will be confused by this deliberately ploy and may end up paying over the odds yet again. When I rang up they also told me that they could't register me for paperless billing (to get the £11.50 price) until the switch-over so I have to make sure I go online after the 1st May to register.

I think Ofcom should look at this shady practice if they are serious :mad:about looking after the vulnerable.
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skintnortherner

mark31 wrote: »

[FONT=&quot]I understand the price reduction is a result of Ofcom ruling that BT, who provide landlines, must reduce charges as they have been overcharging customers who have a landline only. They tend to be older and more likely to have had the line for many years.

The Post Office have cynically decided to bury the good news that the service that I buy from them (basic line rental) is reducing quite substantially to £11.50 a month, by placing the information well after telling me that they are upgrading my package to include "Unlimited Broadband" at "no extra charge". Apparently I "don't need to do anything". It's even up to me if "I don't want to use it". After all this, hafway down the page I find about about the "new Home Phone Package" that I can ring up to opt-in. Yes that's right- its the package I'm currently on now with a reduced price.

I believe the people Ofcom are trying to help, will be confused by this deliberately ploy and may end up paying over the odds yet again. When I rang up they also told me that they could't register me for paperless billing (to get the £11.50 price) until the switch-over so I have to make sure I go online after the 1st May to register.

I think Ofcom should look at this shady practice if they are serious :mad:about looking after the vulnerable.
[/FONT]

Totally agree with this post and that OFCOM should be investigating.

My Grandmother is 90 years old, doesn't have a laptop, tablet, desktop. Doesn't even have a mobile phone and never has. She certainly hasn't ever used the internet and probably doesn't know what it is. To top things off she has recently been diagnosed with early stage dementia. We are currently going through the process of getting a LPA for financial affairs sorted and having looked through her latest phone bill from Post Office they have simply added "unlimited broadband" from 1st May then discounted the full amount off the bill so they can keep the line rental for her landline at the full whack (£16.99 a month). From what I can see they haven't sent any sort of information to her giving her any options to switch to the £11.50 a month tariff (although I fully accept she could've binned it as by the sounds of the post above she'd have struggled to see it in the small print - more likely she's seen the words "internet" and "broadband" and thrown it away which is what they want to happen obviously).

I have contacted Post Office stating what's going on but they refuse to deal with me. I specifically asked them not to contact my Grandmother yet they did exactly that and phoned her up and as a result confused her greatly. As soon as the LPA is confirmed I will be going after them with both barrels as well as referring this to OFCOM as their tactic is a disgrace. Doesn't bear thinking about the amount of people who will have been caught out in the same way. Totally shameful behaviour.

akh43

Bashworth wrote: »

My mum has just paid for her land line for twelve months. Will she get a refund.:(

I don't know how I missed this and only discovered the price change a couple of days ago on their site when looking at broadband, it was not obvious at first and I only found as I was not logged in to my account. Had I been logged in I am sure I would have been none the wiser of the price change.

I had paid the Post Office a year up front too, not due to expire until 29 December.

I rang them today and they offered to move me to the £11.50 with a new 12 month contract. Also managed to get a free month.

I also queried the broadband option at the same time, but said I wanted to check with Sky first who I am currently with for b/b (to see if they would give me a better price, which they did), so they know I have broadband elsewhere but have still given me the £11.50 a month. They said will credit back to my account the money already paid from now until end of December, which will then offset my future bills.

I have had nothing from Post Office to advise me of this price change, only their letter in May re call price increases, they say the onus is on the customer to ring them to change it. Makes me wonder how many others are unaware of this change.

TiJY

For the youngsters who think that cutting phone only prices is irrelevant, because they only use broadband and their mobiles - around 20% of the population do not have internet access. These include a large proportion of the elderly, for whom income is low and fixed, and the phone landline is literally their lifeline. For some elderly people, keeping up with modern life is very daunting and they have no desire to add to complications by going on the internet. My mum is one of these!! She has a Virgin Media phone only, and frankly they treat her like s**t! The PO similarly treated my late mum-in-law (again phone landline only) very badly. It is about time that landline providers woke up to how badly they are treating elderly landline only customers. And it should be up to the younger generation to respect the difficulties elderly people face, and to put pressure on the landline providers. So good for BT and the PO, even if their customer service often leaves a lot to be desired, and come on VM and the rest!!

JJ_Egan

You have her registered as vulnerable i hope .

[Deleted User]

TiJY said:
So good for BT and the PO

This thread and the price reduction it referenced was posted two years ago