BT's single package, comes with two bills!

[MechJerk]

I have just been on the phone with BT and I'm confused. When I signed up with them I was told that I would pay £12 for 3 months and then £17.88 there after and I would get:

Broadband
Free Evening and Weekend Calls
BT Vision

I was told this was BT totaly broadband option 2...

For the last two months the £12 has come out and I've been happy, but today a bill arrives for £78! I phone them up and they tell me that this is my charge for broadband. I thought I was paying £12 for my broadband but apparently this was for my phone. Has anyone else had the same problem?

As for BT Vision that never arrived and was told it would cost me over £20 extra for that!

I'm not happy at all, does anyone else the same problem?

[PGH7447]

From their website

£10.99
per
month1

for the first 3 months, £20.99 thereafter (18 month contract)
15GB monthly usage allowance

So depends on your usage but the bill would go up anyway

Without knowing what you actually signed up for, whether it was on the phone and they"Cut you a deal" or over the internet cant really say

[MechJerk]

BT has changed the offer since May, but I understand that I will have to pay more after three months.

I simply saw an advert in a magazine and phoned them up, they said I would paying £12.00 for three months and then it would go up to £17.88, nothing else. There own literature at the time says £12.00 for BT Broadband, Free Evening and Weekend Calls and BT Vision.

So I have paid two lots of £12 to them, but today a bill for over £70 arrived with a different account number on it. I phone them up and they say this is the charge for the Broadband for the period May to Jun at £31.13 and also advance charge for Jul to Sep of £31.12. I ask them what the £12 and they start to talk about there system not being able to merge the two accounts.


Baiscly it would appear I am paying £12 for the phone and £15.56 for my Broadband even though they said I was paying the £12 for both!

[locutus]

looks like they've done a sneaky one on you, 2 issues here.

1st, one of the requirements for broadband is BT line rental, this is chargable seperately from your broadband at £11.00 per month (10.50 if you go paper free)


2nd, The broadband comes with BT Broadband Talk (free evening and weekends calls made using VOIP a virtual 2nd line that uses your broadband connection... you need to plug a phone into your hub to utilise this!) and they have also added either free evening and weekend calls to your standard line, at a cost to yourself, OR you are paying for the evening and weekend calls package. You will need clarification on exactly what you have with BT, then you will need to complain that this was missold to you.

Best place to complain would be in writing to:-

Customer Service Director
BT plc
Correspondence Centre
Durham
DH98 1BT

[majik]

Hi

Bill for over £70 is your broadband and phone as its paid quarterly (so every 3 months) this is your line rental,broadband costs and phone calls

£12 per month is for BT Vision as im guessing you have a entertainment package or a tv package of some sorts.

Account starting GB is BT Vision account and account stating SM ?? is normal BT Account

For reasons only BT know they Cannot/Will not just issue one bill for braodband and Vision has to be 2 seperate bills so they keep telling me anyways.

[locutus]

Without actually seeing the accounts in fron of me (as I used to be an ex BT employee) I cannot say which is on which system.

Acount starting GB is an account on the geneva billing system, that is an account on the new BT system called Oneview (can be phoneline and/or vision). The other is the old billing system called smart, the 2 letters represent the area of the country you are in, My bill (if I were with BT) would have SL as the 2 letters as I'm in the Sheffield Leeds billing area (sorry I don't know what the SM stands for) and at present broadband is ordered on this system, but also phone lines can be ordered on this system. See why it's confusing here?

For the past few months BT have been trying to put all these on 1 system but have been having many computer problems. Eventually it will all come on 1 bill.

The OP's main trouble, having seen an offer for £12 for 3 months and then £17.88 thereafter the OP decided to go with this deal, but in the small print of the broadband advert it says BT line rental required. It wasn't clearly explained that line rental was still payable seperately.

[majik]

well i got everything installed about 10 months agao and i have 2 seperate bills and always have done.

BT Vision is billed monthly if you have a additional tv package. Do you have any additional channels ??

BT Broadband/Telephone is billed quaterly in line with most phone lines i beleive, this will include all line rental,phone calls and broadband fro the dates listed.

You say you have been paying £12 a month for 2 months. Sounds like the entertainment package where you pick 2 out of 5/6 options for a monthly fee of £12 (If so this will be your BT Vision account)

[locutus]

£12 per month is also the amount for line rental with the 50p for online billing discount and the £1.50 charge for not paying by DD.

Without seeing the bills or the accounts it is impossible to say what they have done.

Best course of action is to write to the address I posted saying the package was missold.

[majik]

But all Line Rental/Phone calls and Broadband is billed quaterly in line with normal BT procedure and most telecoms. So any monthly charge would be related to a TV Package.

Line rental is £11 per month and if you go paper free then you get a reduction of £1.50 per quater (50 pence per month) so would then cost £10.50 per month.

[locutus]

The new billing system will do either monthly or quaterly. So far only broadband is not on that system (and they're working on that so that all the products will be on system.)

[Surfer01]

Whichever way you look at it, BT has to have one of the most confusing billing systems going. We have a normal phone with the Anytime package and International call saver but with all the debits and credits I still cannot fathom how they arrive at the amount due at the end of the bill. If people have other extras like broadband etc it must be even more confusing!

[locutus]

yup, I agree. Here is a little background story about how this has all come about for ya (ignore it if you find this stuff boring). I apologise to the OP for the thread hijack.

BT used to be one big group, then it got split down in to lots of smaller bits by the monopoly and meargers commision. The 3 that are important to this story are:-

BT Retail (sells to us)
BT Wholesale (sells to other service providers and BT retail)
BT Openreach (the engineers that BT Wholesale send out to set up the broadband and phone lines)

Now, If a couple of years or so ago you called BT Retail and asked for broadband and a phone line, BT retails computers would order BT Openreach to go and sort the broadband compatable phone line, then order BT Wholesale to put the phone package and broadband on the line.

Now, OFTEL (as they were then) said this was unfair as other internet and telephone service providers had to go to BT Wholesale and wait for them to process the order and wait for BT Wholesale to order the BT Openreach to install the compatable phone line. This took an extra 10 days, meening that BT Retail had an unfair advantage. So, they put it in place that BT would have a year, and after that year BT would be fined for every new customer it connected if they still had this unfair advantage. So BT in it's infinate wisdom decided to create a totally new system that was compliant with the other providers. As usual with these things it has had teething troubles, this has lead to long delays (as the customer support and sales departments have had 2 IT systems to deal with, and customers accounts split over the 2 systems making it very hard to deal with things) The new system is gradually getting the bugs ironed out of it, and the older accounts transfered onto it, but BT keep getting hit with delays with this process and it is dragging on longer than they hoped.

The way things stand, BT are just seeing some light at the end of the tunnel, and all the problems are hoped to be sorted very soon with only 1 bill being issued, and only 1 system being used by the call center/order processing staff.

[legalpickle]

Originally Posted by locutus

yup, I agree. Here is a little background story about how this has all come about for ya (ignore it if you find this stuff boring). I apologise to the OP for the thread hijack.

BT used to be one big group, then it got split down in to lots of smaller bits by the monopoly and meargers commision. The 3 that are important to this story are:-

BT Retail (sells to us)
BT Wholesale (sells to other service providers and BT retail)
BT Openreach (the engineers that BT Wholesale send out to set up the broadband and phone lines)

Now, If a couple of years or so ago you called BT Retail and asked for broadband and a phone line, BT retails computers would order BT Openreach to go and sort the broadband compatable phone line, then order BT Wholesale to put the phone package and broadband on the line.

Now, OFTEL (as they were then) said this was unfair as other internet and telephone service providers had to go to BT Wholesale and wait for them to process the order and wait for BT Wholesale to order the BT Openreach to install the compatable phone line. This took an extra 10 days, meening that BT Retail had an unfair advantage. So, they put it in place that BT would have a year, and after that year BT would be fined for every new customer it connected if they still had this unfair advantage. So BT in it's infinate wisdom decided to create a totally new system that was compliant with the other providers. As usual with these things it has had teething troubles, this has lead to long delays (as the customer support and sales departments have had 2 IT systems to deal with, and customers accounts split over the 2 systems making it very hard to deal with things) The new system is gradually getting the bugs ironed out of it, and the older accounts transfered onto it, but BT keep getting hit with delays with this process and it is dragging on longer than they hoped.

The way things stand, BT are just seeing some light at the end of the tunnel, and all the problems are hoped to be sorted very soon with only 1 bill being issued, and only 1 system being used by the call center/order processing staff.

Sorry to say locutus, but I'll believe it when I see it. It's not that I doubt you, but I seriously doubt that BT is ever likely to get anything right!

I recently sued BT in the name of one of my companies. All the way through they made a variety of errors. The stupidest one was when the Judgment was made in my companies favour and they sent the cheque. The cheque had a cover letter addressed to me [my company] and behind that letter was a letter to another Claimant in Aylesbury [I'm in Manchester] from a different person in the legal team.

I sent her a nice cover letter together with the letter [retaining a copy] - there was nothing private in it, only a ridiculous offer and patronizing information - and she was thrilled. She called me thanking me profusely. BT legal team didn't seem to know where to put themselves! They wanted to royally screw me over but have no chance how to anymore! And this woman is making a complaint to the Information Commissioners Office. I got almost as much of a kick out of this as out of succeeding in my court action!

[borisbeaver]

BT Broadband charges you in advance.