BT unclear charging practice

Fredolsen

We moved to sky for calls, broadband and tv and had the BT line connected etc, etc.

We set up a monthly direct debit to pay the quartley £11.00 odd for the stand alone line rental and though all was ok.

Seven months down the line we have been told that our £11.00 a month is going up to £24.00 as the existing does not cover call charges.

My initial reaction was "what call charges" as we go through sky talk for this but it turns out that the odd charge for a call has not been part of the sky package (not skys fault) and now they have decided to relclaim this amount which is around £55.00 worth of calls in seven months.

Cannot dispute this but I is it not strange that the company are charging you only in part for a service and then decide much later that they need to charge you more.

We assumed (I know never assume) that any applicable charges will automatically go out each month as part of the direct debit but NO, this is only for the line rental.

I guess I just want to remind people with similar set up that this could easily happen to them as you would think that if you set up a direct debit to pay the varying bill each month then all would be ok but no.

Just cannot understand how you can enter into a contract to pay for services but you initially only seem to pay for half the service.

There you go, thats my penny worth

olly300

You need to get your phone bills out and have a look at what calls have gone through Sky and what calls have gone through BT.

If calls have not been routed by Sky and they are suppose to then you need to contact them in writing and find out why not.

Heinz

Fredolsen wrote: »

Cannot dispute this but I is it not strange that the company are charging you only in part for a service and then decide much later that they need to charge you more.

Line rental is paid in advance, call charges (obviously) are charged in arrears.

You need to change to 'Whole Bill Direct Debit' rather than being on a fixed monthly Direct Debit.

Fredolsen

Thanks Heinz, your absolutley correct. We assumed that when we were originally with BT for the complete phone service, monthly charges, rental, calls etc were taken out each month automatically that, this was to be the case here. My main gripe is that thye have waited seven months to tell us that they are upping the monthly amount as we have not paid any call charges. It's only £55.00 of calls so we will pay this as a one off and redo the direct debit, which we thought was for line rentaal and any "odd" charges". Cheeky BT have said that as a result of the extra amount each week we will be giving us free weekend and evening calls, so as we have already got the with SKY I don't see the point. Just wish SKY could find someway of not being tied to BT. Thanks again

Heinz

Fredolsen wrote: »

Just wish SKY could find someway of not being tied to BT.

It's not a good idea to move your line rental away from BT IMHO and, in any case, Sky has just signed up to use BT for Sky Talk calls - so you're using them for line rental and, indirectly, for your calls too!