1.3m BT landline customers face bill hike of up to £54/yr - MSE News

Former_MSE_Naomi

BT is to move 1.3 million home phone customers onto its 'Unlimited Minutes' calls plan in September, meaning they'll be able to make unlimited landline and mobile calls at any time but will have to pay up to £54/year more...

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'1.3m BT landline customers face bill hike of up to £54/yr'

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Weebets

I was currently paying £38.46 for Fibre 1 with unlimited anytime calls on an 18 month contact and also received an email informing me that they are closing my current plan and moving me to an Unlimited Minutes package costing an extra £4.50 a month. I phoned BT and told them that I was thinking of doing away with my landline as my mobile contract gives me unlimited texts and calls to all UK landlines and mobiles. I was informed they cannot do this as you still require a landline for your broadband. To cut a long story short I now have the same contract with the calling plan removed and my new price is £30.37 monthly.  
If I want to have the 700 minutes a month added it will cost £7 a month making a total of £37.37 a month which is cheaper than I was already paying.
It doesn't really make sense but at least I am paying £8.09 less a month !!

oldandwizend

Not sure facts quoted are 100% accurate re 700 minutes/Pay As You Go statement; at least for all customers. I was on Unlimited Calls add on. When I received email from BT I logged onto my account and removed this add on. It said that I was now just on Unlimited Weekend Calls package (no added cost for this) with no need to renew contract! I also took the opportunity to analyse my landline calls (how many people ever do this?) and realised how little I used my landline. With unlimited calls on my mobile, and provided I steer clear of 0345/0845 during the week Unlimited Calls package is certainly not required. All I have to do now is to convince rest of family, and remember myself, to not use landline except at weekends! As I say this may depend upon your current contract and which services you have; I have phone, broadband (Halo) and Family mobiles all with BT ( got a really good deal and only one bill to worry about!)

ecraggs

Having recently renewed BT contract for line and broadband the plan changed and they gave me Anytime calling with my new contract. I don’t use the landline to make calls because I have unlimited on my EE Mobile contract. The contract renewal was somewhat misleading. I find this typical of BT. They tell you about their best offer which are always going to cost you more and bury the options or don’t make them clear. When I received the latest email telling me that they were going to change my plan and that it is marketed as a benefit and I don’t need to do anything to take up this offer. Buried further in the email was I could change to 700 minutes anytime for zero cost. Bit confusing about how to do this, but that’s no surprise for BT. Phoned BT to discuss while changing plan and the Rep agreed that the letter could have been written better. Nice lady who opened up a complaint for me about the bad layout of the letter content. Next thing the complaint is closed. I don’t know where to find the response. I’ve put in a complaint about the complaint process. Let’s see where this goes!

Barnsley_Taff

I too had one of these emails about cancelling my present contract and starting another at an added £4+ per month. 

1.  I queried the status of the email because it had some of the elements of a scam.  Although it quoted the correct last four digits of my BT account number it opened with a simple "Hello", and not with my name as is usual with genuine correspondence from BT.  It also did not give a name of a BT manager who had sent the email, as is usual with correspondence from BT.  By webchat the BT adviser confirmed to me that BT had not contacted me about this matter and that the email was a scam and advised me to report it to BT.  The website he told me to use was only suitable for reporting scam telephone calls so I had to hunt around to find an email address to forward the BT email to.  I received a reply telling me that the email was in fact genuine, but the reply did not address my point about the email not addressing me by name, or naming the sender, thus giving me doubt about its validity. 

2.  Following a problem with BT some time ago we agreed a new 18 month contract starting in September 2019.  As far as I am concerned this agreed contract is still in force and the proposed change change is a breach of that contract by BT.  I have challenged the legitimacy of the proposed change and I am awaiting a response from them

JJ_Egan

Check that contracts T&C for something like we reserve the right to raise prices in contact .

BT are sending out genuine price increase emails , see BT community see the web in general see MSE .

jarr

Barnsley_Taff said:

I too had one of these emails about cancelling my present contract and starting another at an added £4+ per month. 

1.  I queried the status of the email because it had some of the elements of a scam.  Although it quoted the correct last four digits of my BT account number it opened with a simple "Hello", and not with my name as is usual with genuine correspondence from BT.  It also did not give a name of a BT manager who had sent the email, as is usual with correspondence from BT.  By webchat the BT adviser confirmed to me that BT had not contacted me about this matter and that the email was a scam and advised me to report it to BT.  The website he told me to use was only suitable for reporting scam telephone calls so I had to hunt around to find an email address to forward the BT email to.  I received a reply telling me that the email was in fact genuine, but the reply did not address my point about the email not addressing me by name, or naming the sender, thus giving me doubt about its validity. 

2.  Following a problem with BT some time ago we agreed a new 18 month contract starting in September 2019.  As far as I am concerned this agreed contract is still in force and the proposed change change is a breach of that contract by BT.  I have challenged the legitimacy of the proposed change and I am awaiting a response from them

You honestly think managers individually send out emails? 🤣 Go online and read the terms and conditions. They say prices may change. All companies do it. So no need to be a drama queen about it. 

JJ_Egan

A BT contract includes the following .

Other terms, prices and products, like BT TV or BT Sport, might also change at any time while you've got a contract with us. But we'll always let you know about important changes before they happen

wellsm

I just spent 38 minutes on the phone either waiting to talk to or talking to a BT representative.

I wanted to give 14 days notice of a switch to another supplier (as stated in their recent email/letter).

However, I was told that I couldn't not change supplier because, even though the call package was being changed by BT, I still had a Broadband contract which runs until May 2021. If I DID decide to change supplier now then I would have to pay an early cancellation fee of £150.

Anyone had a similar experience?

JJ_Egan

Suggest you read the Ofcom rules on in contract price increases to see if you are right .

BENSONDOG

Beware. I attempted to amend my products online to move to the 700 minutes package. As I was about to submit the change I noticed a pop up ' You have a discount on line rental which will be removed because of the changes' .. Grrrr. now waiting for some sort of answer from the 'help desk' A stupid time to make contractual changes bearing in mind the lack of staff manning phone lines due to Covid19