Bt callout charges (merged threads)

gilfachboy

good for you, i had my MP looking into my problem with BT over a charge for work done on their master socket due to a damp socket so BT said. I still ended up paying the full amount. So much for MP's. I wish i had thought about asking for the socket as proof. anyway from next friday i'm gone from BT bandits.

normanmark

gilfachboy wrote: »

good for you, i had my MP looking into my problem with BT over a charge for work done on their master socket due to a damp socket so BT said. I still ended up paying the full amount. So much for MP's. I wish i had thought about asking for the socket as proof. anyway from next friday i'm gone from BT bandits.

Surely trading standards would be the better people to deal with as opposed with your MP?

jhp

gilfachboy wrote: »

good for you, i had my MP looking into my problem with BT over a charge for work done on their master socket due to a damp socket so BT said. I still ended up paying the full amount. So much for MP's. I wish i had thought about asking for the socket as proof. anyway from next friday i'm gone from BT bandits.

At least BT allowed you to use another ISP and alternative call supplier over their network. I dont see your new supplier rushing to do this.

gilfachboy

jhp wrote: »

At least BT allowed you to use another ISP and alternative call supplier over their network. I dont see your new supplier rushing to do this.[/quote

how long have you been working for BT. only employees of Bt could reply with a remark like that

Drunkstar

But it is a good and valid point.

I have been working for BT for about 3 years.

Heinz

gilfachboy wrote: »

how long have you been working for BT. only employees of Bt could reply with a remark like that

What a strange thing to say.

The statements are true - and very relevant. BT is required by the regulator to offer such facilities to customers and it's no surprise that no other provider does so.

starving_artist

Seiken wrote: »

A BT faults or service advisor cannot book an engineers appointment without having a box on their screen appear giving them a mandatory statement explaining about any possible charges to read to you similar to the Distance Selling Regulations all sales advisors have to read you too so that's quite confusing how that's happened. ........ BT have to advise you 10 working days in advance of any amount being debited from your account so if you saw any one-off charges on your bill you could phone up and have your enquiry looked into and your direct debit suspended in the mean time, although they may ask you to pay the non-disputed amount via credit or debit card.
.

I had a similar experience. Fault was at BT exchange but engineer turned up unannounced wanting to check my handset after line had been fixed. £99 charge appeared on my next bill. Was told it would take 10 days to query by which time it would have been debited from my account. Not helpful to my cashflow. Discussed option of suspending DD but would then have been charged extra for not paying by DD. Few days later they cancelled charge before debit was due. Was not impressed.

Seiken

starving_artist wrote: »

I had a similar experience. Fault was at BT exchange but engineer turned up unannounced wanting to check my handset after line had been fixed. £99 charge appeared on my next bill. Was told it would take 10 days to query by which time it would have been debited from my account. Not helpful to my cashflow. Discussed option of suspending DD but would then have been charged extra for not paying by DD. Few days later they cancelled charge before debit was due. Was not impressed.

Unless your Direct Debit was cancelled you wouldn't be charged, and even then, only on your next bill, not that one. Payment Processing fees do not feature on accounts with direct debits on them.

That's really crappy that you weren't informed though.

mumma2one

I have just heard from my mother, we had a storm last week and on that night her landline stopped working, if I tried to ring it said that there was a fault on the line. She reported this to BT and an engineer came out to fix it.
She has been charged £223 which she cannot afford!
I have looked on the BT website and found this:

Do I have to pay for a fault repair? We can repair many line faults at the exchange or on the network. Others require a visit by a BT engineer. There is no charge for these repairs. We will only charge you when one of our engineers visits your property and finds that the fault could have been fixed by you. For example, if your phone is broken or has been left unplugged.

Well the phone was not broken or left unplugged or anything else we can think of that she could have "fixed" herself.

Apparently £116 of this was for the call-out alone!! But if the statement above is correct (as I say I found it on the BT website this morning) then she should not have had to pay at all!

I cannot understand this...can anyone help?

Seiken

Phone BT, file a dispute with the call out charges and pay the undisputed amount on the bill, the billing department will have the repair charges sent off and checked to ensure the charges are correct and will stop follow-up on the charges until you are made aware of the findings of that investigation. They'll probably take a contact number and advise you they'll get back to you in 5 working days to let you know what's up. Billing department advisors aren't trained to read fault reports so this is why they can't help you themselves, trying to read a fault report is madness, they just bang random keys on the keyboard I think.