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Can BT add up?
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Matt168
Posts: 7 Forumite

in Phones & TV
Catching up on my admin at the end of May, I noticed that a recent BT bill did not add up. The two services came to a lower total than the amount charged, by the princely sum of 3p. I called BT and they said they would investigate, let me know what had happened and refund the difference. None of that has happened so far.
Has anyone else come across this? I can't believe it would be a unique situation - if they repeated this error over enough accounts it will add up to a reasonable amount. It would be nice to know that I can trust them to take the correct amount for my bill.
I'm curious if this breaches their DD guarantee too? They have taken the amount shown on the face of the bill, as per the screenshot below, but the bill itself was wrong. It doesn't even agree on their summary of the recent bills at the right of the total.

Has anyone else come across this? I can't believe it would be a unique situation - if they repeated this error over enough accounts it will add up to a reasonable amount. It would be nice to know that I can trust them to take the correct amount for my bill.
I'm curious if this breaches their DD guarantee too? They have taken the amount shown on the face of the bill, as per the screenshot below, but the bill itself was wrong. It doesn't even agree on their summary of the recent bills at the right of the total.

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Comments
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It'll almost certainly be a rounding error and the exact amounts of the service on a pedantic level will be something like £39.9949205, and the mobille is £15.5359391.Much like energy providers don't just charge 7.5 per kWh of gas, it's usually something with about seven decimal places after it, but the amount is rounded up (or down) and presented to you as a 2 decimal place.Over time accumulation of rounding errors will occasionally tip an extra penny or two appearing usually a few bills down the line.0
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Neil_Jones said:It'll almost certainly be a rounding error and the exact amounts of the service on a pedantic level will be something like £39.9949205, and the mobille is £15.5359391.Much like energy providers don't just charge 7.5 per kWh of gas, it's usually something with about seven decimal places after it, but the amount is rounded up (or down) and presented to you as a 2 decimal place.Over time accumulation of rounding errors will occasionally tip an extra penny or two appearing usually a few bills down the line.I’m a Forum Ambassador and I support the Forum Team on Debt Free Wannabe, Old Style Money Saving and Pensions boards. If you need any help on these boards, do let me know. Please note that Ambassadors are not moderators. Any posts you spot in breach of the Forum Rules should be reported via the report button, or by emailing forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com. All views are my own and not the official line of MoneySavingExpert.
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Neil_Jones said:It'll almost certainly be a rounding error and the exact amounts of the service on a pedantic level will be something like £39.9949205, and the mobille is £15.5359391.Much like energy providers don't just charge 7.5 per kWh of gas, it's usually something with about seven decimal places after it, but the amount is rounded up (or down) and presented to you as a 2 decimal place.Over time accumulation of rounding errors will occasionally tip an extra penny or two appearing usually a few bills down the line.0
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Computer says no
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I would understand that if they rolled the roundings in to the totals for the relevant services. While I often see bills for other services that have unit prices that don't match the line charge, presumably due to those accumulations, I have never seen one that just doesn't add up. If it's an itemised bill, surely the bill value has to match the service subtotals?
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They still can't find an explanation on this. I can't imagine mine was the only bill where this happened but all BT customers are going to need to check the arithmetic on their bills and hope the error only produces small overpayments instead of substantial ones.0
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Half a million customers at tuppence a go equals £10k, nice work if you can get away with itNever under estimate the power of stupid people in large numbers0
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matelodave said:Half a million customers at tuppence a go equals £10k, nice work if you can get away with itJenni x0
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If you want a broadband provider that can add up try Plusnet ..🙂0
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Olinda99 said:If you want a broadband provider that can add up try Plusnet ..🙂0
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