I had a letter today telling me that due to my not reaching my Nominal Spend with my landline for the last year ( which was installed and set up a year ago when I moved into our current home ), I would duly have an additional £243 added to my next bill.
Funny I thought, there wasnt ever any nominal spend with my previous landline and all I asked was to have a line installed and to carry on with my previous arrangements.
Well, for some reason, the person who set the new account up took it upon themselves to put a customer who spends maybe a max of £10 a month on phonecalls, usually much less, not on a tariff similar to the one they were on ( and specified that they did ), as it worked well for my useage at the old property but instead sign me up for one that gives me 500 minutes a month ( which id never use clearly ) and a minimum annual spend of £500.
Since my years bills rarely exceed £250, this was insane.
I never asked for it and even the phone bills dont specify that the tariff had been changed.
I know BT has a reputation for cock ups, but have I any hope of rectifying this as I dont have £243 just lying about?
According to the letter, Im tied into this telephone hell dimension for another 12 months yet, so presumably the same will happen next November too.
I feel very mislead by the person who set this account up as they clearly ignored what I asked for, especially since I clearly stated I didnt use the phone much, so she clearly had the IQ of a cabbage, either that or there is a target driven initiative by BT to get people signed up to this plan and she thought I wouldnt notice...
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If they have no online, or written form then there is no written contract.
This means it was a verbal contract, tell them you did not enter into any contract like that, and they need the recording of the call to prove it.
You need to put the bill officially in dispute* while its being sorted out, otherwise they will issue reminders, interest and possible mark down your credit score.
*tell them you are not paying because xxx
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"For security and your protection and for staff training this call may be recorded" - ask for a transcript of the tape
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Can i just say at this juncture that i hate BT
Im in the fiordtunate position of actually telling them to remove their elecktrickery out of my void about 5 years ago and they cut me off the same day,i then moved to virgin and although i dont like hippies or indeed beards i find my internet superb and chep
For work unfortunately i have to be a member of the closed shop bt line and how they charge is scandalous,they even charge an extra £9 if one dares to pay by cheque
My brother has a bt phone at home and he often tells me of the scandalousk letters they send him telling him they are changing how they bill how many calls he must make to so and so etc etc,ive pleaded with him to go to the post office but hes a man of dont mess if it aint broken,me? i would rather eat fairy dust
I know this doesnt help you but boy do i feel better
Up the mobile phone is all i can say
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The escalation procedure's clearly stated in the front of the directory (or used to be).
1. Tell BT you want to escalate it to a higher level. Get names and departments.
2. After a reasonable time, go to OFCOM (or whatever they call themselves today).
I had to use this procedure a couple of times when I worked for them!
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Thanks lads, ill give it a shot on Monday. Always something isnt there.
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Do BT staff get commission for signing up people to these tariffs, (with or without their consent)?
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It's not just BT, i use a credit card for internet purchases and took a same name one out when we started banking with them a few years ago.
One of their callcentres phoned me and got me to agree to some sort of automatic cover that would only be chargeable on outstanding balances, seeing as we pay fully by DD every month it wouldn't cost me a penny.
Yep stupidly i believed the lying toe rag, and there was a minor charge for each of the few times the card was used despite his assurances.
That's OK it hasn't been used since, their loss.
Hope you get it sorted Stu, i detest these sharp practices.
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If someone deliberately misleads you in order to gain money, is there an official term for that?
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>> If someone deliberately misleads you
politician?
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If I get any of these "offers" over the phone, (rare TPS registered), I always tell them to mail me the details. They usually don't.
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I wonder if Tony Blair ever worked in a call centre. Im sure he would fit right in :-)
I was asking because should I want to make a polite and accurate dig at BT, what would the charge be?
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Drop the BT CEO and email - you might be surprised that this gets things sorted. I got frustrated with the call centre staff a couple of years ago and ended up sending a polite email to the CEO. I got a reply and a senior manager then got involved.
You have obviously been put on a tariff that is inappropriate. And why would someone with a need for as many minutes as this contract assumes not go for an all inclusive deal for a few pounds. I have unlimited calls with BT and a fast Internet connection package too and I'll never spend £500pa! I'd have to make lots of international and 0870 type calls to go over.
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I'm sorry to hear about your misfortune with BT.
My wife had a similar experience with Vodaphone where she inexplicably ended up landed with an expensive tarif after a call centre drone had phoned her up.
After they threatened her with legal consequences for trying to cancel a contract which she believed hadn't asked for, she decided to sit it out for the 2 years minimum contract period before leaving Vodaphone at the first possible opportunity. Even then they tried to prevent her cancelling. We get our own back by telling everyone about it.
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What tariff are you on? (should be shown on your bill).
I have never heard of a landline tariff such as the one you describe.
As someone else said, even with broadband and unlimited calls to UK, Europe and some international calls, the annual cost with some telcos is way below your £500 deal.
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I get 8 meg broadband, line rental, free unlimited uk calls 7 x 24, and free international to the top ten countries, for 288 quid a year.
Why would I -or any domestic user, sign up to a deal like the BT one you are on?
it sounds like a commercial tariff. They are not classing you as a business are they?
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Yes it is a business line, that Im ok with. My last line at my old house was and I simply paid line rental and about £2-5 a month call charges on top with some VAT every 1/4.
That was OK, happy with that as it included a Yellow Pages entry.
What I cant fathom is why this woman who set it up, despite my very clear instruction and underlining of the fact that I made very few calls on my landline and I really only wanted it to facilitate the internet connection and a Yellow Pages entry, took it upon herself to ignore what I was already happy with and sign me up to the most useless and expensive tariff I can imagine.
At no point did she say ' you will need to spend every waking hour on the phone to get your moneys worth and if you dont, we will charge you anyway for your insolence '.
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John,
I just checked my bills. Nowhere on it can I see any mention of what tariff Im on. Nor can I see from an older bill with my previous account what the tariff was before I moved house.
Real slick operation they run, making sure the customer doesnt know whats going on at all times!
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>> That was OK, happy with that as it included a Yellow Pages entry.
You need to rethink that, Yellow pages is fast becoming irrelevant.
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Our Yellow Pages goes straight to the recycling. We Google such details or use sites like 192.com. Can you opt out of Yellow Pages?
I was serious about emailing the BT CEO. It worked for us.
Maybe you should have had a personal line and charged the business for use?
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It does pick me up a few contacts, the Yellow Pages entry.
Im going to pay local advertising again next year, so I will look at the phone situation next year when this current contract is up ( unless they let me out of it to appease the situation, but seems unlikely, id be happy with being put on the correct tariff and this bill for £243 disappearing ).
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>> it sounds like a commercial tariff. They are not classing you as a business are they?
Maybe? He does have his business. My package with BT for unlimited UK calls and Total Infinity broadband is about £36 per month. But still not £500pa. In our previous house for reasons I don't need to explain we ended up with both a BT landline and TV/phone/broadband with Virgin. So I still spend less than then with this faster package.
Something needs to be sorted for the OP!
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While their £4.50 payment processing fee gets right up my snorkel, letting them have access to my funds via a direct debit would be right out of the question.
I really must move elsewhere.
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Here are details of BT's current business accounts. No mention of any nominal spend.
business.bt.com/phone-services/phone-lines-and-calling-plans/phone-line/
You should be able to access you account details on line. Always a good idea to review form time to time.
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What you have not clarified (or have I missed it?) is what format the Yellow pages advert is? or is it just an online listing. If it is a even a small display advert that could easily account for your charges. Most posters seem to have missed this point when comparing their annual spend.
Yellow pages entry does not come cheap!!!
It sounds as though you subscribed to a special linked marketing deal - although possibly an inappropriate one.
If you were including a YP advert in the deal it obviously becomes a business package.
Last edited by: pmh on Sun 14 Nov 10 at 11:23
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pmh you've picked up on the important point here.
I've recently been looking at BT business lines and seen plans with minimum spends of £500. I think you must be on the BT Business One Plus plan. Thes are not really suitable for a one man low income business.
Something you've not mentioned Stu that might help confirm which plan you're on... what is your monthly package/broadband/line (direct debit I assume) cost?
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With my business line, for the past 8 years ive always had a free listing in the Yellow Pages, just a single line entry. Yellow Pages ring up every year top try and get me to spend money mind you.
Its always been part of the package and its automatic as I never asked for it but its useful. You can opt out if you wish to.
Yeah Fenlander, that load of jargon you just said is what they call this plan Im on.
I have no earthly clue what I was on before mind you, I shall dig out the paperwork and see if it sheds any light - prob is they may have renamed it before now.
Im not at home right now so not sure what the monthly cost is. My broadband is separate from my landline and paid separately, but the landline costs me roughly £60-70 a 1/4, mainly made up of line rental.
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A quick look on Yellow Pages suggests that these listings are free with them, so perhaps they buy the business details from BT in order to bulk up the book?
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Well if you are on the BT Business One Plus plan there are loads of benefits of little use to you like free phone calls between all your offices and staff mobiles, enhanced levels of repair service (!) and so on.
Whoever *sold* you this package was certainly trying for his bonus that day.
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I would be very surprised if when you 'signed up' that you were not sent a package of the the new contract details. Most things like this are highly automated and it would not be possible for the salesman to withold the details from being sent out.
Did you receive a thick wad of papers that you just binned, without reading, like most people?
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I still have all the paperwork sent, but when you ask for something, the expectation is that the person who knows what they are doing arranges it rather than disregarding your instructions and doing something completely different.
I dont understand the small print, its always written in such a way that the average person wont understand it and Im very much an average person. The difficulty for me is that it wasnt until a year later that the difference between what I asked for and what I received to make itself known.
I can only imagine there is a sales target at the heart of this.
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Is the letter demanding money a real BT letter?
Are the account details correct (not just your phone number), and their contact numbers too?
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The Yell thing sounds like a right carve-up. Had you thought of Checkatrade?
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Its a real BT letter. Ive had a closer look at the BT website and I can see now what this stupid woman did.
They do a basic business phone line, like I had before, so its not like the product was discontinued on the day I changed over.
No, what she did was sneak me onto this other plan and presumably hope I wouldnt notice - the line rental is identical so there was no likelyhood of me spotting a spike in my bills and I only find out a year later.
Is there any hope of rectifying this though, or is BT likely to just stick to their guns and plead innocence? Ive never dealt with them before with such a problem and Im rather expecting them to laugh and hang up, or do they have to take it seriously?
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After the woman on the phone switched your plan, did you get a letter form BT, and is there anywhere on this letter telling you what the tariff was, and the charges.
If you did get one, you dont have a prayer.
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I have found a letter congratulating me on my new account and it names the tariff although none of the terms and conditions.
I assumed this was the tariff I was on before because id asked to be on the same tariff and not knowing what it was called having had it for 7 years, I had no reason to suspect that the one the letter says Im on isnt the same as before - that was what I asked for.
Obviously my ignorance about the BT product range was taken advantage of, but are they allowed to do that?
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If it does not specify the terms, and the minimum spend, then use that as your argument.
Mention distance selling and incorrectly sold.
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>> Is there any hope of rectifying this though, or is BT likely to just stick
>> to their guns and plead innocence? Ive never dealt with them before with such a
>> problem and Im rather expecting them to laugh and hang up, or do they have
>> to take it seriously?
>>
We've had two not dissimilar problems, one with NTL and the other with British Gas.
The NTL one was call centre created (my nervous tic is staring at the mere mention of the company) and was never properly sorted out, we spoke with one call centre script reader after another ending up in them putting the problem in the hands of debt collectors...who finally had to admit there was no point in trying to extract payment in court for a service the company could not provide at our new address...i wish they had put us in court, the company failed to respond or acknowledge several recorded del letters even the gaffer whilst we were trying to sort their mess out, good riddance.
All that because one clot didn't register our imminent move on his computer, having said that the billing dept were really on the ball, the bills never stopped coming, pity they don't shift some of the accounts staff to customer services, a misnamed dept if ever there was.
The British Gas problem was different (though still a nightmare with CC staff) and was sorted properly because She Who Must escalated the calls and finally got a very competent female supervisor down Southampton way who took personal charge of the case and put things in writing and didn't stop till she'd sorted it out.
The BG result seems to be the best way, though quite how you find that elusive responsible individual is the first hurdle.
I'd put things in writing to them anyway, but don't forget to log each telephone call you make and the name of the recipient.
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GB sent the mods an email mentioning he had a letter copied on his PC from the net. I googled some of the words and found a copy of what he sent on-line. This saves me having to go through and edit out the swear words ;o)
www.derbygripe.co.uk/ntl.htm
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GB. I'll always think of the John when I see your posts. ;>)
Brilliant.
Reminds me of a letter I addressed to the 'organ grinder' of a company I shan't mention.
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I just remembered I had a recording (whether true or not is another matter) of a phone call from BT customer services to one of their customers on my old PC which I don't have anymore. Fear not, by the power of google, I've found a copy.
Warning: Contains strong language!!!!
www.btcomplaint.com/2009/01/angry-bt-telephone-call.html
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...Warning: Contains strong language!!!!...
I'm not impressed by a stream of threats and foul language, the lad on the other end of the phone shouldn't have to put up with it.
BT rang me a few times over a few days.
I told them to cancel the line, they didn't, but neither did they call back.
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Well, initial frustration of being bounced from department to department. On the third try having been cut off, I rang the number I was given directly and got through.
Ill give the chap his due as after explaining the circumstances ( moving, what I requested, my phone useage etc ) he said that it appears that I was mis-sold the package by the sales team. He has opened an investigation which will go back and look at the original order to see who it was who authorised it.
They 'offline team' ( ?? ) will also contact me within the next 2-3 weeks to reach a conclusion, he suggested most likely a shift to the correct plan and a financial adjustment reflecting what the bills would have been had I been on the tariff id asked for.
It was telling that he offered up the ides that id been mis-sold to, as if it wasnt uncommon.
Now just have to wait...
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Sounds good Stu, fingers crossed. It's easy to expect the worst and then feel a bit flat when they roll over. Still, a win is a win (not counting chickens).
John
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BT rolled over. A lady from India rang me to tell me that they were cancelling all reconciliation charges from my bill and as of today, I am on a standard BT business tariff.
She said that as a result of their investigation, they determined that I WAS mis-sold the product. Im very suprised they admitted fault for a start, let alone such a climb down.
Im frankly astounded that its been this easy. Now I will wait for the bill, due Xmas eve, to see if it has actually happened!
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Well done Stu, I bet that's a worry off your mind.
John
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well done stueieuie ;-)
we all thought you may have been hanging on the telephone liney
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Glad it worked out, maybe someone with a bit of common realised it might be more prudent to keep a customer.
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As I said, I await the bill. Frankly the woman on the other end of the line was clearly reading off a script. I know India and the like may be cheaper, but the poor woman wasnt really able to understand my questions, which sort of annoyed me a little though not her fault.
When you mess up, its always advisable to make sure the person you send to placate your customer is able to handle all issues this may throw up, including a firm grasp of the language.
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Just an update. Got the bill new years eve and they actually did what they said they would. All the charges were cancelled and I just got a normal bill, result.
Very happy with BT and their ability to solve the issue given their reputation which would suggest otherwise.
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>>While their £4.50 payment processing fee gets right up my snorkel,<<
It gets right up mine also! - and I`ve written and told them so several times - deaf ears!
Worse tho` is:
I had a "service" call from BG yesterday, trying to get me to move from quarterly billing - cash payment, to monthly D.D. The ploy he used was, as they were planning to introduce a cash/chq processing fee shortly, I would be saving x-amount per qtr (think he sais £3.60).
I`ve looked on BG`s website but can find no mention of it yet, but they have just announced that they are to give each of thier customers on thier "Essentials" tariff a £50 refund off thier winter bills, s`pose they have to finance it somehow!
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BT changing tariff without consent and stupidly - Zero
