BT and Customer Bereavement
h1360
Posts: 5 Forumite
BT's woeful customer service has been exposed yet again. What a surprise. After the death of my mother in 2017, so far it has taken them two years three months NOT to sort out its own mistakes. To add to the stress and distress of a death, BT apparently has a bereavement department with a mission to cause as much misery as possible.
In relation to the demise of a long-term customer, BT ignores its own records and policies, and, it seems, the Ombudsman and Citizens Advice. Instead of resolving problems, it cuts off a line without warning and then threatens legal action and credit rating downgrading. All this before probate has been granted, and against someone who has never had a BT account.
I could continue for about 50,000 words, but hopefully someone at BT reads forums and will sort out this embarrassing shambles.
In relation to the demise of a long-term customer, BT ignores its own records and policies, and, it seems, the Ombudsman and Citizens Advice. Instead of resolving problems, it cuts off a line without warning and then threatens legal action and credit rating downgrading. All this before probate has been granted, and against someone who has never had a BT account.
I could continue for about 50,000 words, but hopefully someone at BT reads forums and will sort out this embarrassing shambles.
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BT do seem very keen to move an account across to anyone who talks to them regarding a bereavement. They did that to me, and I ended up liable for 8 months of charges for TV, Internet and phone on a property I didn't live in. It took me half a day being passed from one department to another and me threatening to take the issue public before they relented.0
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BT do seem very keen to move an account across to anyone who talks to them regarding a bereavement. They did that to me, and I ended up liable for 8 months of charges for TV, Internet and phone on a property I didn't live in. It took me half a day being passed from one department to another and me threatening to take the issue public before they relented.
I can’t say I have found that with the 2 estates I wound up. Service ceased from the point I rang them, with closing account sent to me. In both cases the deceased were the sole occupants so no one to take over. The OP refers to the line being ceased without warning, which indicates it was still being used after the death of the original subscriber, so someone should have been paying the bill, it could not be classed as an estate expense with BT being expected to wait for probate for payment.0 -
Keep_pedalling wrote: »I can’t say I have found that with the 2 estates I wound up. Service ceased from the point I rang them, with closing account sent to me. In both cases the deceased were the sole occupants so no one to take over. The OP refers to the line being ceased without warning, which indicates it was still being used after the death of the original subscriber, so someone should have been paying the bill, it could not be classed as an estate expense with BT being expected to wait for probate for payment.
It didn't help that we had a fault on the line and I could hardly here what she was saying. We wanted to keep the line going for a bit as mobile reception is terrible and we were at the house a great deal sorting things out. (They were part way through the job to fix it when Dad died)0 -
BT transferred the deceased's account to me as executor and I closed it down almost immediately. In other circumstances one may want a working phone in the house, so one has the option. TBH I cannot see what the problem is if the executor is on top of things.0
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BT transferred the deceased's account to me as executor and I closed it down almost immediately. In other circumstances one may want a working phone in the house, so one has the option. TBH I cannot see what the problem is if the executor is on top of things.
Absolutely. That's just what I did. Executors (myself & another who reserved powers) both 200 miles away, as was one of 2 beneficiaries. A working phone was essential for those who had to make several visits, to clear the house and get it ready for sale.
Actually I found BT bereavement team quite helpful.0 -
OK, 15 years ago now, but when Mum died we needed to use her phone while sorting things out (including at the time ringing some of the family who were in Poland). The day before we handed the bungalow back to the council housing association we rang to cancel and were initially told we needed to give them 30 days notice. Having explained why we were cancelling (normal customer service, not their bereavement department) they cancelled immediately, disconnected the line the next day, and forwarded the final bill to myself (as co-executor). No complaints - some of the banks were a different story of course.0
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I found BT "reasonable"
They said they would close the old account down with all the adds on; broadband etc immediately and I promised as executor to pay the outstanding bill immediately myself.
Where I had a problem was that I wanted to restart the line immediately in my own name with the same number just as a pure landline only. I wanted this to put an answerphone on the line and then I can remote pickup any messages for the deceased.
Nope - says BT - cannot do this - you have to restart the line with a random number allocated to it and then once it is up and running you then have to contact BT to put in an order to grab back the old number which was returned to the number pool - and hope in the meantime no one else did in the 1 week this all took to do.
This is what I had to do with an "interregnum" in the middle where the old number went to number unobtainable.
The only way of continuing immediately with the old number was to transfer all the deceased's contract over to myself on a continuing basis and of course I'd then be liable as executor for cancellation charges on the Broadband/BT sport and the rest which I did not want.0 -
spenderdave wrote: »OK, 15 years ago now, but when Mum died we needed to use her phone while sorting things out (including at the time ringing some of the family who were in Poland). The day before we handed the bungalow back to the council housing association we rang to cancel and were initially told we needed to give them 30 days notice. Having explained why we were cancelling (normal customer service, not their bereavement department) they cancelled immediately, disconnected the line the next day, and forwarded the final bill to myself (as co-executor). No complaints - some of the banks were a different story of course.
Same here. I was initially told that as account was in my name, I had to give 30 days notice. When I pointed out, quite forcefully, that it was only in my name @ BT's insistence, that notice period should not apply. They then agreed to cancel from midnight the following day:)0 -
Another four months and nothing from BT. The tactic seems to be to ignore complaints and hope people just give up and go away.0
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