Fraudulant BT price hike?

Briskly

Just had a letter from BT to my  frail 94 year old Mum. It details the new price hike of 14.4% but erroneously applied it to her pre-paid line rental saver, making the hike about 30%. It took about 3 hours on the phone to BT and conversations with several clueless people to try to correct this. Have raised a serious complaint to BT - it seems thousands have been sent this incorrect letter/message. BT should be hammered for this.

HaroldWhistler

Briskly said:

Just had a letter from BT to my  frail 94 year old Mum. It details the new price hike of 14.4% but erroneously applied it to her pre-paid line rental saver, making the hike about 30%. It took about 3 hours on the phone to BT and conversations with several clueless people to try to correct this. Have raised a serious complaint to BT - it seems thousands have been sent this incorrect letter/message. BT should be hammered for this.

I concur. That is completely unacceptable. I was under the impression that anyone who pays "Line Rental Saver" is paying the whole year in advance and thus being given a discount. Since it is something that has already been paid for (in the past), there is nothing to apply a "price increase" to. At that rate, they would charge a CPI increase even to those customers who have already left BT having paid for their service in the past! 

southsidergs

There's a thread on this on the BT community forum, TBH I don't know why they persist with calling it line rental saver as it causes people like the OP to scream fraudulent when it's not at all!

To the OP your mum will be paying for a bb & line rental package @ a monthly cost (using 29.99 as an example) she then chooses an OPTIONAL line rental saver which takes 19.99 off that figure each month. The 14.4% is added onto the 29.99 figure then the 19.99 is taken off that still so it's not fraudulent at all. In effect your argument is "My mums not paid anymore for line rental saver upfront but BT should be giving her more than 19.99 back each month going forward"

Briskly

Sorry but it is fraudulant. BT were going to take a 14.4% price hike on a service that had already been paid for. Would advise others to check for this as the money would have gone out if I hadn't spotted it. 

southsidergs

No they weren't, the line rental saver doesn't pay for the line rental in full for the year, the clue is in the name line rental "SAVER" it's not paying for line rental in full in advance ergo it hasn't already been paid for

Briskly

It is paying for the line rental fully  advance and this was told to me. BT have admitted it is a huge mistake they have made. We will see what Ofcom make of it. Update have just read that the Ombudsman ruled on this last year and told BT it was illegal practice and they had to stop it. 

iniltous

BT have undoubtedly made a rod for their own back with LRS , the scheme is open to interpretation, it’s true that the original LRS was a discount based on paying 11 months line rental upfront the incentive being that you got 12 months line rental ( so effectively 1 month free ) LRS hasn’t worked this way for many years….it’s now impossible to say what the line rental cost is when broadband is also being supplied, and LRS is only available to customers that take broadband.
An example , using an arbitrary cost of £30/month  for line and broadband what are the individual component costs ?, it’s not necessarily the case it’s £20 LR and £10 broadband, and given that someone on the exact same package may pay more or less than that, the only difference is that they had better or worse negotiating skills , so say they are charged £25 or £35 ,  in the case of £35 is the extra £5 for line rental or broadband, in the case of £25 is the extra £5 discount off broadband or LR ?…the fact is there is no individual component costs , you pay a service charge.

LRS is now a stupid name for something that in effect is simply 12 discounts of £19.99 ,( so a value of £239.88 ) for an upfront payment of £219.84 , so a saving ( not a line rental saving , just a saving ) of near as makes no difference of £20 .

BT are ‘guilty’ of making this relatively modest savings appear as if it’s still based on line rental , by retaining the name LRS , when it’s only available for line and broadband customers and they don’t have an item on the bill called ‘line rental’ , to leave the name as LRS , does in the public’s mind suggest that the £219.84 upfront payment has ‘paid’ for a years worth of line rental when it hasn’t, so it’s understandable ( and foreseeable ) that increased costs will irritate customers who think something already paid for has an extra charge.

Anyone who challenges this probably will get a refund ( there are examples from 12 months ago when the increase was less , because inflation was less , getting refunds ) ,  not because they have been charged again for something they had already paid for , but because of the half ar$ed way it’s described and implemented , 

razord

Briskly said:

It is paying for the line rental fully  advance and this was told to me. BT have admitted it is a huge mistake they have made. We will see what Ofcom make of it. Update have just read that the Ombudsman ruled on this last year and told BT it was illegal practice and they had to stop it. 

I remember this exact thing happening when I was with BT like.. 7 or 8 years ago. It took a fight to customer services and escalations to finally get the difference refunded.

What_time_is_it

I am having this issue with BT too.
Has anyone managed to get the increase removed from their bills? @Briskly, @razord ?

herdwick50

I complained to BT over the phone but this was ignored and  the case was closed.  The email they sent to close the case gave options to reopen the case and one is to complain by email which I did. I soon got a  telephone call from BT to say I would not have to  pay the price increase on the line rental I had already paid and I was given a new calculation for my monthly price increase which was correct. I would advise anybody going down this route to ask for a confirmation email as I did not get one and the case has now been closed again.  I hope this helps.

What_time_is_it

Thank you @herdwick50.
That's very helpful, and I am glad to hear that you got a positive outcome in the end.