BT home phone billing problems

siviusx

I've been trying to sort out my personal BT mess since September of this year. For one thing, it took well over a month to get my phoneline activated; at one point they simply canceled my original order without informing me and I ended up getting a phone call from Open Reach asking why I'd canceled when they were almost done installing the line. .... 18 hours on the phone later, a new order, and lo and behold, by the 12th of October I almost had a working phone line. I still required a second engineer's visit after that because of some issues with the wiring to the exchange, but everything was working by the 15th.

My current problem is: they're not billing me. You might not think that's a problem--free service is kind of nice--but I'm worried about what it means for the future and I'm convinced they're at some point just going to disconnect my line because I haven't paid for it.

I called BT about this in November. First billing date was designated as being in December. I questioned this because I already owed them about 140 pounds by then--"shouldn't my first bill come sooner?" Nobody could answer that question. They told me to wait until the 10th of December.

As of yesterday, I still had not received a bill. I'm leaving on a 4 week holiday soon so I rang them back up. "Next billing date is January 10th". I apparently still don't have any outstanding charges. Nobody can tell me what my account number is. I kept getting transfered back to the "new customers" line (ie 0800 0223089) even though I made it very clear to them that I'd had a working phone line for well over 2 months now and wasn't a new customer anymore.

Earlier this morning, after about 8 hours of being on hold and being yo-yo'd back and forth between 3089 and regular billing about the problem, I get a phone call from someone telling me that they're sending me a copy of my bill as soon as possible. A copy of what bill, I asked. They couldn't say. I indicated I'd be leaving on vacation within the next 3 days and so I wouldn't receive the bill on time. I asked if I could pay for it by debit card over the phone. That wasn't possible; I was transfered back to billing, who couldn't see a bill.... therefore still no payment.

I'm really at my wit's end here; you'd think that BT would be more receptive of customers who actually want to settle outstanding debt with them, but apparently I'm asking for the impossible in wanting to pay for my installation charges and line rental. Nobody can tell me what my account number is--some people can't see it; some people can see it but can't tell me--and nobody seems to know exactly why it is I haven't been billed at all yet.

I'm convinced I'm going to get disconnected over my Christmas vacation simply because I won't be around to check the post--I'll be on a different continent--which is the exact thing I was trying to avoid. Any ideas on what else I can do to prevent that? I can ring them from abroad to see if I can pay for any outstanding bills, obviously, but I won't have the bill number or my account number at hand (they'll be gathering dust in my British mailbox) and from my experiences with BT so far, I expect that is going to cause short-circuiting in the robots they have working in the billing department.

[Before anyone suggests setting up a direct debit to sort this out, I also called and inquired about that 12 million times, but apparently can't set one up without, you've guessed it, an account number. Which I don't have! As they won't bill me!]

BritBrat

Put £50 a month away in a savings account earning interest then when they ask for payment you will have it and maybe a bit spare.

I would make sure you keep notes of times/dates and people you spoke to and I would also write a letter recorded delivery to the CEO Ben and state you will be paying when you get the bill.

Then forget about it relax and have a nice holiday.

siviusx

Well, I've apparently finally gotten somewhere--after being transferred helpfully to a back office billing department, there was a discovery made that it looks as though I have two phone lines at this property. Apparently the first order that THEY CANCELED was never canceled at all!

It has been now and it was confirmed that I've not been charged for anything to date--not installation, not monthly connection, and not usage. This apparently needs to be sent to a specialist team and will take some time to investigate. They'll apparently leave a message for me and are aware of the fact that I'm on vacation.

Could be worse... I just don't understand how it is I have to call the same number 12 times to be transferred by 12 different people to 20 different departments before I finally reach someone who actually seems to be able to see what's wrong and start a process to get it fixed.