Bt callout charges (merged threads)

oap

Thank you for the link to Ian Livingston, I have just sent an e mail, we are at the end of our tether, after dozens of phone calls and e mails, they have charged the £99 on our bill, apologised as it was their mistake, and intend taking the money anyway added to our phone bill which is due now, and will give it us back in March 22nd Bill, we are incensed, how can they take the money we do not owe from our direct debit and then refund in March, so I have sent an e mail to this chap and will see what happens

Tried to speak to a supervisor this morning, could not do, tried to get to billing, I have never been so cross in my life, how can they take money we do not owe and keep it for three months then refund it.

regards oap

oap

:eek: For anybody who may need these pages in the future, sending an e mail to Ianlivingston as per the kind post from Espresso, the matter has been resolved with an e mail and a phone call apologising and that they will not take the money from our direct debit this month and just take what we owe on our phone bill, BT is faceless, and we have never been so frustrated in our lives.Absolutely shocking.

Without this link we would have got nowhere. What we had decided to do was tell our Bank that money had been taken that we did not owe and they said they could get it back for us in 24 hours, however, this has not been necessary, but thank you Espresso for the link, which has been an absolute Godsend. Another annoying thing was that they said they would take the ninety nine pounds, then credit us, as our bills are never that much, it would have been JUne before we got the whole amount back!!!!

Cheers, oap:T

oap

Final outcome of this was that they did not take off the vat, and it was still included in the bill amount after the deduction of the £99, however, another call to the ceo office put this right, and it had actually been done by the billing, so in the end our final total was £52.37 instead of £166.23!!! And they did it this month, this could only have been issued by the ceo office, abroad have not the clout to do this!! Their rule is charge and it give it back in the future........

We have told everyone we know if they ever get out BT for a call, to make sure everything in the house is all right, and not let the engineer out of the house without asking him his name, and if possible getting it in writing that it is not chargeable and it was their problem.

It would appear that Openreach, the BT arm of repairs after telling you in the first instance there may be a charge of £99 if the fault is yours and you have to accept this, that when it is not your fault they may FORGET to tell the Billing!!!

Hope this helps anyone who may come up against this at some point.

Regards oap

Frank_Prenesti

My phone went dead in July. I contacted BT and asked them to check the line. It was fine their end, so they suggested I try another phone and get in touch with them if it did not fix the problem. I did this and it was still not working so I called and they suggested an engineer's visit. I did stress that I was concerned about the £130 fee if my equipment was faulty, but the woman in the call centre said she thought this would be unlikely as I had followed all their advice.

The engineer came, tested the line, said it was fine and that none of my home equipment was causing a fault and that I should try another phone. He also said there would be no charge for the callout.

Bought a new phone, which works, then got my bill. The fee had been billed to me, so I called and complained. The call centre woman said the engineer had advised me of the charge. I said this was a "barefaced lie" and told them he had said no such thing and had in fact been in the house for about 10 minutes and said the opposite. I held this line until I was "transferred" to someone in another department, who told me the fee was correct, but that on this occasion it would be waived. I specifically asked him to confirm that this meant I would only have to pay my regular line rental bill, which he did and then said a letter confirming our conversation would be sent to me within 5-7 working days.

That period passed on Friday and I just had a suspicion I'd been fobbed off. Checked my bank account and they had indeed taken the fee from me.

I'm livid, but don't want my temper to cloud my judgement. I'm also reluctant to deal with an overseas call centre again after being lied to. Is there anyway of dealing with someone immediately to resolve this, or is a letter to the complaints centre in Durham my only option (this could take two months). I really want that money back.

iniltous

You are in a tricky position here, the 'call out free' is designed with your circumstances in mind, the end user has faulty equipment and it takes a engineer visit from BT to tell you something you could have easily found out yourself by trying another phone (or two as it suggests), the call centre staff and various self help things, online, freephone number and article in the phone book all explain this..,
if the call centre staff didnt give you this info then you could have a 'technical' get off with it, the engineer shouldnt say if charges are raised or not, its upto 'back office' staff who read the notes on the closed fault and decide from the notes if charges are applied...
in your case I'm afraid you really are bang to rights, a chargable case.
if you knew the potential for charges and tried another phone do you still have two faulty phones (as you say when you bought a new one it worked)...you could re try the faulty phones and if one now works its possible your fault was fixed as part of a larger fault, but you didnt realise (so were unable to cancel the visit) until the engineer turned up, but if your two original phones are still faulty and thats all the problem was,you may have to pay

mobile48

Frank_Prenesti wrote: »

I held this line until I was "transferred" to someone in another department, who told me the fee was correct, but that on this occasion it would be waived. I specifically asked him to confirm that this meant I would only have to pay my regular line rental bill, which he did and then said a letter confirming our conversation would be sent to me within 5-7 working days.
.

If the fee was waived even if valid why was it collected?

A water company gave me false information on the phone to collect a bill and I was told by Consumer Advise the Water Company could not do this under new Unfair Trading Laws. As a result the company cancelled the whole bill. Obviously this experience is totally different to yours but it does show things are now different for companies.

You may also be worrying for nothing. BT recently agreed to a credit on my account and promised to send letter to confirm it also. Both are also late but when I complained I did get an email to confirm the credit would be applied to put my mind at rest. It sounded to me like the person who agreed the credit could not themselves place the credit on the account and this needed to be done of by someone else - it seems this process can take some time. In my case as the letter sounded like a credit note I would not expect the letter until after the credit had been applied.

Mark_In_Hampshire

Frank_Prenesti wrote: »

My phone went dead in July. I contacted BT and asked them to check the line. It was fine their end, so they suggested I try another phone and get in touch with them if it did not fix the problem. I did this and it was still not working so I called and they suggested an engineer's visit. I did stress that I was concerned about the £130 fee if my equipment was faulty, but the woman in the call centre said she thought this would be unlikely as I had followed all their advice.

The engineer came, tested the line, said it was fine and that none of my home equipment was causing a fault and that I should try another phone. He also said there would be no charge for the callout.

Bought a new phone, which works, then got my bill. The fee had been billed to me, so I called and complained. The call centre woman said the engineer had advised me of the charge. I said this was a "barefaced lie" and told them he had said no such thing and had in fact been in the house for about 10 minutes and said the opposite. I held this line until I was "transferred" to someone in another department, who told me the fee was correct, but that on this occasion it would be waived. I specifically asked him to confirm that this meant I would only have to pay my regular line rental bill, which he did and then said a letter confirming our conversation would be sent to me within 5-7 working days.

That period passed on Friday and I just had a suspicion I'd been fobbed off. Checked my bank account and they had indeed taken the fee from me.

I'm livid, but don't want my temper to cloud my judgement. I'm also reluctant to deal with an overseas call centre again after being lied to. Is there anyway of dealing with someone immediately to resolve this, or is a letter to the complaints centre in Durham my only option (this could take two months). I really want that money back.

It's odd that the engineer said there would be no charge. When you report a fault, you're advised to check your own wiring (extensions) and handset first, because if you instigate a call out when the fault is in fact with your own equipment, you're quite rightly (IMO) charged for the call out even if no work was performed, other than to confirm your handset is to blame - the engineer has still come out to your property, and identified your problem.

So BT are quite right to levy that charge. However, as you say, they did agree to waive it, which is generous of them, but if you did not get that in writing (e.g. a reply to an email) and simply discussed it verbally, then you may have a hard time proving what you were told on the phone, because the charge is valid in this case.

The thing that does sound fishy and iniltous is quite right here - is that you tried two handsets first, the third one works. Now if you plug the first two back in and they now work, it does make you wonder if something else was to blame.

Donate_to_Cancer_Research

We experienced some problems with our BT line which continued for a period of around 2 weeks. An engineer was sent out as we were informed that it was an issue with the wiring at the main station. He went away saying it was fixed but we were still experiencing a problem with our line. We called them back out as we were assured from the test it was an outside issue and that nothing was wrong from our side. On his arrival he tweaked the outside box and then asked to see the box in the house. He discovered that there was no master socket with a self test facility so replaced it assuring us there would be no charge to us for the box or call out charge. He wrote something down and said he’d mark it on his job notes to ensure no charge is given. We’ve heard nothing more about it and now have had a bill through for £127.99!!! :eek:

We were disgusted and devestated! Right before Xmas! My boyfriend is out of work so we're struggling as it is! Thought there would be no way of getting the money back!

Anyway through following some threads on here I emailed [EMAIL="'ian.livingston@bt.com'"]'ian.livingston@bt.com'[/EMAIL] and he directed me to the correct person to lodge a complaint for the residential department who this time was... [EMAIL="linda.deegan@bt.com"]linda.deegan@bt.com[/EMAIL]. She was soooo helpful and BT are now going to refund the money! Completely restored my faith in BT! I just wish all their customer services were so helpful!!!

:T :beer: :j

brewerdave

Donate_to_Cancer_Research wrote: »

We experienced some problems with our BT line which continued for a period of around 2 weeks. An engineer was sent out as we were informed that it was an issue with the wiring at the main station. He went away saying it was fixed but we were still experiencing a problem with our line. We called them back out as we were assured from the test it was an outside issue and that nothing was wrong from our side. On his arrival he tweaked the outside box and then asked to see the box in the house. He discovered that there was no master socket with a self test facility so replaced it assuring us there would be no charge to us for the box or call out charge. He wrote something down and said he’d mark it on his job notes to ensure no charge is given. We’ve heard nothing more about it and now have had a bill through for £127.99!!! :eek:

We were disgusted and devestated! Right before Xmas! My boyfriend is out of work so we're struggling as it is! Thought there would be no way of getting the money back!

Anyway through following some threads on here I emailed 'ian.livingston@bt.com' and he directed me to the correct person to lodge a complaint for the residential department who this time was... [EMAIL="linda.deegan@bt.com"]linda.deegan@bt.com[/EMAIL]. She was soooo helpful and BT are now going to refund the money! Completely restored my faith in BT! I just wish all their customer services were so helpful!!!

:T :beer: :j

Don't get too excited until you actually see the credit - I hope that you have got everyting in writing??;)

spike7451

Donate_to_Cancer_Research wrote: »

We experienced some problems with our BT line which continued for a period of around 2 weeks. An engineer was sent out as we were informed that it was an issue with the wiring at the main station. He went away saying it was fixed but we were still experiencing a problem with our line. We called them back out as we were assured from the test it was an outside issue and that nothing was wrong from our side. On his arrival he tweaked the outside box and then asked to see the box in the house. He discovered that there was no master socket with a self test facility so replaced it assuring us there would be no charge to us for the box or call out charge. He wrote something down and said he’d mark it on his job notes to ensure no charge is given. We’ve heard nothing more about it and now have had a bill through for £127.99!!! :eek:

We were disgusted and devestated! Right before Xmas! My boyfriend is out of work so we're struggling as it is! Thought there would be no way of getting the money back!

Anyway through following some threads on here I emailed [EMAIL="'ian.livingston@bt.com'"]'ian.livingston@bt.com'[/EMAIL] and he directed me to the correct person to lodge a complaint for the residential department who this time was... [EMAIL="linda.deegan@bt.com"]linda.deegan@bt.com[/EMAIL]. She was soooo helpful and BT are now going to refund the money! Completely restored my faith in BT! I just wish all their customer services were so helpful!!!

It's actually BT Openreach that do all the technical work & they are a seperate company from BT.Even tho a charge may not be applicable going by BT's guidelines,Openreach charge BT for any work & BT,being the lying scum that they are,try to pass any charge onto the customer in the vain hope that the customer wont notice.

https://www2.bt.com/static/i/microsite/help_and_tips/faults/faq/faults_faq2.html#faq5

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.

See what I mean....