Switching calls from BT - a warning

nanokitten

I switched my phonecalls (not line rental) from BT to sky about 6 months ago. Sky assured me that the transfer would happen automatically and I needn't do anything.
BT contiuned to bill me for line rental and sky for calls, perfect.

However, it was not until recently I noticed that my bills from BT were rather high - £15.50 inc vat. which I couldn't understand - the advertised line rental price is £10.50 for DD customers, 11 with paper billing.
My bill, (which I am charged for) does not state / itemise which services I have been charged for.

I called them up and it turns out that I am still being billed for the international call option plus some other option, dispite not buying my calls from them anymore.

They have promised to recify the situation and I am satified wth the outcome.

However, I wonder how many people are in the same situation, This is probably a sistemic error rather than a one off. I found it quite difficult to find the price of line rental on the website and the pricng structure did not appear to be very clear. That plus the lack of information on the bill made the error hard to spot.
I think BT may have been either very lazy or very sneeky, all those little £4.50 per months probably add up.

utilitybroker

Why blame BT? after all its your responsibility to ask them to remove any add ons you dont need,and to ask them to put you on Option 1 if you cps your calls away from BT. If you dont ask they cant guess your intentions as to how you are going to place your calls,and you would probaly be the first to complain if they removed an add on without you asking.

Having said that it is indeed well worth checking if you have cps your calls that you have downgraded to option 1,got rid of bolt ons you dont need,and are not paying the full whack for caller display etc.

Heinz

But thanks for raising the issue nanokitten - my '6-steps to reducing costs' post did only advise "(don't pay extra for their International or CallMobile Add-ons, they're not worth it)" but I've now added an extra sentence to encourage people to be more careful about residual costs when they opt for a CPS calls provider.

BritBrat

I never had to be told when I changed, I just rang BT and did it.

Steve_xx

BritBrat wrote: »

I never had to be told when I changed, I just rang BT and did it.

What didn't you have to be told? What was done when you "just rang BT"?

normanmark

Steve_xx wrote: »

What didn't you have to be told? What was done when you "just rang BT"?

I'm guessing cancelling the add-on's on his BT account? Unless im reading a different thread?

BritBrat

Yep and they managed to do it quite easy.

nanokitten

Why blame BT? after all its your responsibility to ask them to remove any add-on's you dont need

It's always nice to see someone sticking up for the poor little multinationals utilitybroker!
I would point out to you that BT has apologised whole-heartedly and promised me a full refund. There was no suggestion that it was my own fault or that I should have un-subscribed personally.

Maybe I should have been more careful, but what I was saying is that sky told me that the transfer of my calls would all be taken care of automatically.

I think it is reasonable to expect that when BT was notified of my request to terminate its provision of my calls that this would be considered to include redundant call related services. The international calling was not a separate service which BT provided but merely a subscription to a discount scheme which became obsolete on cancellation of my calls.

To be honest I had no idea I was still signed up to the international calling as my bill does not indicate this. The only way for me to ascertain which services I was still subscribed to was to wade through the menu system and sit on hold for 20 minutes.

This was not intended as a rant about BT, but to highlight the issue to other moneysavers in good faith as there is little motivation for them to change the system, or improve the clarity of the bills as they make a profit from this oversight.

One can almost imagine a sister website - moneymakingexpert for big companies - "loophole - keep charging for services after your customer has changed supplier" lol

Steve_xx

nanokitten wrote: »

It's always nice to see someone sticking up for the poor little multinationals utilitybroker!
I would point out to you that BT has apologised whole-heartedly and promised me a full refund. There was no suggestion that it was my own fault or that I should have un-subscribed personally.

Maybe I should have been more careful, but what I was saying is that sky told me that the transfer of my calls would all be taken care of automatically.

I think it is reasonable to expect that when BT was notified of my request to terminate its provision of my calls that this would be considered to include redundant call related services. The international calling was not a separate service which BT provided but merely a subscription to a discount scheme which became obsolete on cancellation of my calls.

To be honest I had no idea I was still signed up to the international calling as my bill does not indicate this. The only way for me to ascertain which services I was still subscribed to was to wade through the menu system and sit on hold for 20 minutes.

This was not intended as a rant about BT, but to highlight the issue to other moneysavers in good faith as there is little motivation for them to change the system, or improve the clarity of the bills as they make a profit from this oversight.

One can almost imagine a sister website - moneymakingexpert for big companies - "loophole - keep charging for services after your customer has changed supplier" lol

I disagree with you on this one. If you have retained BT for your exchange line provision, but have decided to route your calls via another operator then you can still force calls via BT by prefixing dialled digits with 1280. BT are not to know that you no longer wish to retain your add-on services. For all BT know you could have decided to route your national calls via another operator, but you may still wish to route international calls via BT because it may be cheaper to do just that.

jhp

I dont see how you expected BT to guess your future calling intentions.

When i moved my calls from BT to another supplier last year,the new supplier sent me a welcome letter and suggested that i moved my BT Package to Option 1,and removed any add ons i did not still need. I dont suppose Sky bothered to tell you that.
If you call Sky they will have you believe they dont provide landlines yet,but this is not correct either.