ADT Alarm BT premium phone line

Willowycat

Hi, I have recently taken power of attorney of my 90 year old mum's finances and discovered that for 15 months BT has taken just shy of £22,000.00 from my mums account. When I queried this I was told it was an ADT premium line, it had been dialling every 10 minutes 24/7 @ .30p a go. My mum does not have a contract with ADT, it was an inherited alarm when she bought the house 12 years ago and she has never used it. She also took over the old telephone line.

It seems some equipment must have developed a fault which started in October 2023, this could be BT's or ADT's and ended January 25. She reported a fault to BT as every time she made a call or we called her there was a buzzing on the line, an engineer came out, I think in January 24 and said it was a fault at the exchange. However it carried on buzzing every 10 minutes  when she was on a call and she ended up  just living with it. BT say they called her about possible fraudulent activity on her line, I don't know if they mentioned the sums going out of the bank, but if they mentioned ADT she would have said she has nothing to do with ADT and surely BT should have stopped the charges.

In January this year she was contacted by ADT, I have no idea who told them to come out, but they came and disconnected the alarm and the noise stopped, at around the same time BT came out and cleared bushed away from the poll, so I'm not sure which cured the fault.

As I am trying to recover the money, BT are blaming  ADT and ADT as they have no records for my mum are denying they came out to power the system down. My mum  did not keep any record of the visit. The communications ombudsman is looking into BT and I'm not sure what what we can do with ADT, it seems insane that this could have gone on for so long. For some reason all BT invoices were emailed (even though my mum doesn't have a computer) and she clearly didn't examine her bank statements.

Anyone had experience of this and can suggest where to go, I honestly don't have much faith in the justice system, I'm sure there will be some legal technicality where both large companies will be able to justify their action and my Mum will be blamed and they will take the rest of her savings on court costs. 

Keep_pedalling

It would have been the ADT equipment that would have made the calls. What number was it calling?

Section62

Willowycat said:

Hi, I have recently taken power of attorney of my 90 year old mum's finances and discovered that for 15 months BT has taken just shy of £22,000.00 from my mums account. When I queried this I was told it was an ADT premium line, it had been dialling every 10 minutes 24/7 @ .30p a go. My mum does not have a contract with ADT, it was an inherited alarm when she bought the house 12 years ago and she has never used it. She also took over the old telephone line.
....

(Genuine question)  Is there a reason why your mum didn't notice the £22k being debited from her account?  Was this by direct debit?

DullGreyGuy

Willowycat said:

Hi, I have recently taken power of attorney of my 90 year old mum's finances and discovered that for 15 months BT has taken just shy of £22,000.00 from my mums account. When I queried this I was told it was an ADT premium line, it had been dialling every 10 minutes 24/7 @ .30p a go. My mum does not have a contract with ADT, it was an inherited alarm when she bought the house 12 years ago and she has never used it. She also took over the old telephone line.

It seems some equipment must have developed a fault which started in October 2023, this could be BT's or ADT's and ended January 25. She reported a fault to BT as every time she made a call or we called her there was a buzzing on the line, an engineer came out, I think in January 24 and said it was a fault at the exchange. However it carried on buzzing every 10 minutes  when she was on a call and she ended up  just living with it. BT say they called her about possible fraudulent activity on her line, I don't know if they mentioned the sums going out of the bank, but if they mentioned ADT she would have said she has nothing to do with ADT and surely BT should have stopped the charges.

In January this year she was contacted by ADT, I have no idea who told them to come out, but they came and disconnected the alarm and the noise stopped, at around the same time BT came out and cleared bushed away from the poll, so I'm not sure which cured the fault.

As I am trying to recover the money, BT are blaming  ADT and ADT as they have no records for my mum are denying they came out to power the system down. My mum  did not keep any record of the visit. The communications ombudsman is looking into BT and I'm not sure what what we can do with ADT, it seems insane that this could have gone on for so long. For some reason all BT invoices were emailed (even though my mum doesn't have a computer) and she clearly didn't examine her bank statements.

Anyone had experience of this and can suggest where to go, I honestly don't have much faith in the justice system, I'm sure there will be some legal technicality where both large companies will be able to justify their action and my Mum will be blamed and they will take the rest of her savings on court costs. 

What do you think either party has done wrong? 

BT have provided you a line with an agreed schedule of prices for calls depending on the number called. You have hardware installed that makes an automated call every 10 minutes to self report. BT doesnt differentiate if it's a human pressing buttons on a phone, a dialup modem calling a number or an alarm box calling home. Ultimately you are responsible for the kit you have connected to your phone line and the calls it makes. 

The question is what happened in Oct 2023? Presumably the alarm kit is old and developed a fault, eg the battery no longer takes charge, it's mistaken this for the kit being tampered with so has called back to base. You dont have a contract with ADT so they dont care your kit has been tampered with. 

When you bought the house you bought the alarm system, it's up to you if you maintain it or remove it but leaving it connected without maintenance isnt the best idea. We had similar as soon as we moved in but as our alarm was never monitored it was just setting the outside bell off.  Wasnt a big effort to disconnect the system and just wait the 3 minutes for the outside alarm's battery to die. 

BT can only email you invoices if you give them an email. It's not for them to know how you access that email account be that a computer at home, your smart phone or a computer in the local library. 

silvercar

This is the sort of problem the money question pages of the press love to get their hands on.

Grenage

silvercar said:

This is the sort of problem the money question pages of the press love to get their hands on.

I was thinking the same thing.  They love things like 'pensioner swindled for £22k'.  Often when the press contracts the company for comment, things get quickly resolved.

silvercar

DullGreyGuy said:

Willowycat said:

Hi, I have recently taken power of attorney of my 90 year old mum's finances and discovered that for 15 months BT has taken just shy of £22,000.00 from my mums account. When I queried this I was told it was an ADT premium line, it had been dialling every 10 minutes 24/7 @ .30p a go. My mum does not have a contract with ADT, it was an inherited alarm when she bought the house 12 years ago and she has never used it. She also took over the old telephone line.

It seems some equipment must have developed a fault which started in October 2023, this could be BT's or ADT's and ended January 25. She reported a fault to BT as every time she made a call or we called her there was a buzzing on the line, an engineer came out, I think in January 24 and said it was a fault at the exchange. However it carried on buzzing every 10 minutes  when she was on a call and she ended up  just living with it. BT say they called her about possible fraudulent activity on her line, I don't know if they mentioned the sums going out of the bank, but if they mentioned ADT she would have said she has nothing to do with ADT and surely BT should have stopped the charges.

In January this year she was contacted by ADT, I have no idea who told them to come out, but they came and disconnected the alarm and the noise stopped, at around the same time BT came out and cleared bushed away from the poll, so I'm not sure which cured the fault.

As I am trying to recover the money, BT are blaming  ADT and ADT as they have no records for my mum are denying they came out to power the system down. My mum  did not keep any record of the visit. The communications ombudsman is looking into BT and I'm not sure what what we can do with ADT, it seems insane that this could have gone on for so long. For some reason all BT invoices were emailed (even though my mum doesn't have a computer) and she clearly didn't examine her bank statements.

Anyone had experience of this and can suggest where to go, I honestly don't have much faith in the justice system, I'm sure there will be some legal technicality where both large companies will be able to justify their action and my Mum will be blamed and they will take the rest of her savings on court costs. 

What do you think either party has done wrong? 

BT have provided you a line with an agreed schedule of prices for calls depending on the number called. You have hardware installed that makes an automated call every 10 minutes to self report. BT doesnt differentiate if it's a human pressing buttons on a phone, a dialup modem calling a number or an alarm box calling home. Ultimately you are responsible for the kit you have connected to your phone line and the calls it makes. 

The question is what happened in Oct 2023? Presumably the alarm kit is old and developed a fault, eg the battery no longer takes charge, it's mistaken this for the kit being tampered with so has called back to base. You dont have a contract with ADT so they dont care your kit has been tampered with. 

When you bought the house you bought the alarm system, it's up to you if you maintain it or remove it but leaving it connected without maintenance isnt the best idea. We had similar as soon as we moved in but as our alarm was never monitored it was just setting the outside bell off.  Wasnt a big effort to disconnect the system and just wait the 3 minutes for the outside alarm's battery to die. 

BT can only email you invoices if you give them an email. It's not for them to know how you access that email account be that a computer at home, your smart phone or a computer in the local library. 

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the points you made, it’s going to have to be BT that are pressurised to refund the charges they have made.

jbainbridge

I would approach BT and see if there is anything they can do.

After that email the CEO .. again asking nicely if there is anything they can do.

Finally, maybe get in touch with the press ... but you are really asking for a gesture of goodwill from BT as they've not done anything wrong. Though you might argue a bill of that size from a domestic customer is a bit out of the ordinary.

DullGreyGuy

jbainbridge said:

Though you might argue a bill of that size from a domestic customer is a bit out of the ordinary.

But it's not a bill is it? Its 15 months worth of bills added together 

Over £1k a month is still a high bill but nothing compared to £22k and ultimately they weren't spotting or reacting to the size of the bill each time