BT Charges

[AnimalMagic]

Back in Oct 2007, BT restricted my line for not paying their £4.50 charge - the balance of the bill had been paid. I had already disputed this charge with them and this action would be a breach of the OTF debt collection guidelines. Can anyone make an intellegent suggestion as to a reasonable claim for damages for their breach of contract/breach of OFT guidelines?

Has anyone actually been to court against BT yet?

[Son of Shoestring]

Originally Posted by AnimalMagic

Back in Oct 2007, BT restricted my line for not paying their £4.50 charge - the balance of the bill had been paid. I had already disputed this charge with them and this action would be a breach of the OTF debt collection guidelines. Can anyone make an intellegent suggestion as to a reasonable claim for damages for their breach of contract/breach of OFT guidelines?

Has anyone actually been to court against BT yet?

My situation may mirror yours soon.

I have been refusing to pay the £4.50 penalty fee (plus the £7.50 "late payment" charge) since it came into being. Each time I receive a BT bill, I write to them explaining that under UK contract law I dispute the charge and ask the to demonstrate that it is lawful (that it reflects their true costs and is not just a profit multiplier). They have no done so, or even tried to. Lately they have stopped answering my letters (always sent recored delivery).

My latest bill has been paid in full -- except for an accrued sum that is composed of penalty fees and late payment charges. I wrote to them again, as usual.

I now have received a red demand letter.

If my phone line is restricted or cut-off I do intend to pursue a legal remedy -- hopefully in the small claims court.

I, too, seek guidance on the best approach.

Suggestions would be appreciated.

Shoestring

[maggie]

Well my phone has been restricted for non payment ,bt say,of my telephone bill,of which at least £30 or more is made up of charges.
I received a letter from them yesterday,stating that they are terminating my contract on the 31/01/2008,due to non payment,and they will request ,as part of their contractual agreement for the provision of a telephone service,me being charged for the full term of the rental agreement for all my serviceas and the loss of my telephone number.
I sent them an e-mail last Friday,pointing out that the original contract between them and myself,taken out over 26 yrs ago ,I did not agree to,or sign,to have these charges forced on my account.I also told them that I would be reporting them to OFCOM, as at this moment ,I have been unable to ring out,or receive any calls for the past 2 weeks or more,and my father in law,has a lifeline,to which our number it dials ,if he is taken ill,as he is disabled.
They haven,t had the decency to reply to my e-mail,and they state that my broadband,the only thing I have at the moment,will also be terminated on the 31/01/2008.
I think it,s disgraceful.

[chickaroo]

join the club my phone has been restricted now for a week ive paid the bill my next bill came and is due to be paid on fri when i rang up they said cause my 1st bill was late they were obtaining a cease on the line i would be disconnected but once i pay my new bill due on 1/02/08 i can re apply for a new line what utter crap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! oh and pay reconnection fees hmm lovely

[maggie]

I was charged reconnection fees last bill.The amount of e-mails I,ve sent complaining on these charges,and letters ,is beyond a joke.I know I owe a little money on this bill,apart from the amount of charges,but once upon a time ,you were able to ring up and pay by a certain date.I tried to do that this time,but it was an out and out no,their only interest was in having the details off our bank card to set up a direct debit.
I will not be forced into setting up the D.D.

[Son of Shoestring]

I'm hoping someone will com forwad with knowledge of the small claims court procedure to advise the best basis of taking BT to court to reclaim any charges they coerce from customer who must pay these unlawful charges under duress.

I am content to be the test case, but I would appreciate some assistance in preparing court papers etc.

Anyone here able to help please?

Shoestring

[Son of Shoestring]

I have now spoken to Ofcom, Otelo and the BT Complaints Review Team on their direct number (provided by Otelo) under the procedure Otelo say I must follow before they can get involved.

I now must pay the outstanding sum (all charges) or BT have stated they will cut my phone line off. I have told hem I will do so - but under duress and without prejudice.

Next step is the small claims court.

[Mark_Blackpool]

Originally Posted by maggie

I received a letter from them yesterday,stating that they are terminating my contract on the 31/01/2008,due to non payment,and they will request ,as part of their contractual agreement for the provision of a telephone service,me being charged for the full term of the rental agreement for all my serviceas and the loss of my telephone number.

I'm assuming that what then happens is that you get a final bill, you don't pay it, the debt goes to a debt collection agency, you refute it, they send it back to BT, and then BT determine whether or not to sue you (probably not for a fairly small sum)

At that point I guess the question many are asking is: who would win that case?

[sandraroff]

my daughter is having a problem with BT right now, a bill they cant pay with lots of charges on it. the phone has been cut off and the 'contract terminated'.

she wrote to BT almost a month ago, by recorded delivery, offering to pay £5 a week because thats all they could afford, along with other creditors as well, and BT replied by saying that their debt collection agency was now involved. my son in law, bless him, panicked when he read the debt collection agency letter (ring us within 3 days or we will issue court proceedings) and phoned them. tried to tell him never to phone them and that they are lying, but he did it anyway. and even though he has explained their dire financial situation, they are saying he has to pay £21 A WEEK which is just completely out of the question. i am not sure whether or not he initially agreed to that on the phone, but i am going to be doing them a breakdown of income letter tomorrow in the hope that they will agree to the £5 a week. IF he did sort of agree to that sum, what can we do about it?? any advice here would be great. and what can we do about the charges that have been added?thanks.

[FANTASY CHARGES]

REMEMBER that some of your payment is a pre-payment is it for the rent of the line (or whatever) in advance so have they made it clear that the £4.50 fee relates soley to the bill for the phone as opposed to the line rental as well ---- ia m trying to split hairs here : to work an angle



what i am saying is perhaps they might have a right to charge you £4.50 for the amount of phone units charged ONLY : but since they are relating the £4.50 to the whole amount ( because their is a pre-payment angle) they might be in the wrong ?????

just an idea !!

[Son of Shoestring]

Originally Posted by FANTASY CHARGES

REMEMBER that some of your payment is a pre-payment is it for the rent of the line (or whatever) in advance so have they made it clear that the £4.50 fee relates soley to the bill for the phone as opposed to the line rental as well ---- ia m trying to split hairs here : to work an angle



what i am saying is perhaps they might have a right to charge you £4.50 for the amount of phone units charged ONLY : but since they are relating the £4.50 to the whole amount ( because their is a pre-payment angle) they might be in the wrong ?????

just an idea !!

Thanks FC. I have transferred to another provider and only now use BT for line rental. They still charge the £4.50 --- and the additional £7.50 late payment charge.

The matter is now going forward to court.

[goodwill]

The £4.50 non direct debit 'processing' charge is actually a rolling monthly penalty charge (£1.50/month). It has very little to do with the BT bill or what's on the bill.
It's most certainly unfair but whether it's illegal or not I don't know.

from their standard reply letter:

We have introduced these changes because it costs more to accept non-Direct Debit payments from customers. This is not just because of the cost of taking the payments, but because on average customers are more likely to forget to pay or not pay, and this leaves us with bad debt of around £100 million a year.

They have calculated that on average each of their 5 million non direct debit customers are responsible for bad debt of (£100m / 5m) = £20/year = £5/quarter.

The actual figure BT decided was £4.50/quarter or £1.50/month.

[Son of Shoestring]

Originally Posted by goodwill

The £4.50 non direct debit 'processing' charge is actually a rolling monthly penalty charge (£1.50/month). It has very little to do with the BT bill or what's on the bill.
It's most certainly unfair but whether it's illegal or not I don't know.

from their standard reply letter:

They have calculated that on average each of their 5 million non direct debit customers are responsible for bad debt of (£100m / 5m) = £20/year = £5/quarter.

The actual figure BT decided was £4.50/quarter or £1.50/month.

Which raises the question of why I, a reliable payer, should be penalised for the performance (or lack of it) of other bill payers? How can it be my problem? Also, BT always charge an additional £7.50 per quarter for "late payments"...

£7.50 annualised = £30.00 x 5 million (presumably?) = £150 million PLUS above £90 million = £240 million to cover a cost of £100 million (supposing that is true to begin with!).

In other words its a profit creation scheme and all there blah blah is a smokescreen to cloak this.

But thanks for that anyway and could I ask you to be kind enough to post the whole letter you received unabridged (obviously x-ing out private information). Or I could PM you with an email address to send a scanned copy if you prefer?

Thanks again.

Shoestring

[goodwill]

I didn't actually receive it. It was posted Odd Fellow here:
Penalties for not paying by direct debit

Thank you for your correspondence. Every single customer is important to us and we take your views seriously.

I am glad that you have written because there has been a lot of confusion about what we are planning and l am grateful for the opportunity to put the record straight.
It is true that from May 1; BT is introducing a fee for customers who do not pay their bills by Direct Debit or Monthly Payment Plan. This is not a penalty charge but a discrete fee for methods of payment which cost us more to process.

In summary; the effect on any individual customer will be either 50p up or 50p down a month. Let me explain why. The £4.50 a quarter increase will be offset by a £3 a quarter cut in line rental for non-Direct Debit customers so the net effect is £1.50 a quarter or 50p a month. Non-Direct Debit customers with both phone and broadband from BT will see a cut of 50p a month, because broadband pricing is going down by £3 a quarter.

BT's fee for non-Direct Debit payments is amongst the lowest around. For example, Virgin Media charge £5 a -month. Many companies, such as Gar phone Warehouse, will only accept customers who agree to pay by Direct Debit.

I also want to reassure you that the fee will not apply to customers on BT's special rates for low income and vulnerable customers, such as In Contact Plus, the Light User Scheme and Pay & Call.

We have introduced these changes because it costs more to accept non-Direct Debit payments from customers. This is not just because of the cost of taking the payments, but because on average customers are more likely to forget to pay or not pay, and this leaves us with bad debt of around £100 million a year.

At BT; we are committed to offering our customers a wide choice of ways to pay their bills; 23 at the last count: Whilst we encourage choice of payment, it is worth pointing out that Direct Debit has benefits for customers. It saves time and is convenient. It means that your BT bill is one less thing to worry about.

If you choose to pay by Direct Debit, we try to give you ten days from the time of receiving the bill before processing the Direct Debit payment giving you plenty of time to ask questions, and we tell you on the bill when the amount will be taken from your account. There is also a Direct Debit Guarantee which protects you and your money. If any error is made by BT or your bank or building society, you are guaranteed a full and immediate refund from your branch of the amount paid.

We will also waive the non-Direct Debit fee if you choose to switch to Direct Debit or Monthly Payment Plan after receiving your first biII after May 1st.
_
If you do not have a bank account, but would like to take advantage of Direct Debit or Monthly Payment Plan, a basic bank account is now available to almost everyone in the UK through the Post Office or many high street banks. You can contact the Financial Services Authority for a list of current basic bank account providers.

I hope this lengthy explanation has been useful. As I said at the outset, we do value your custom however you decide to pay your bill. We are also committed to offering our customers great value which is the reason last summer we announced over £200m of price cuts and from June 1 we are extending our special offer of free evening and weekend calls as a 'thank you' to our loyal customers.

Yours sincerely



pp
Gillian Lewis
Head of Complaint Management, Customer Services

An article of general interest:

Dutch directness boosts BT - Times Online
February 11, 2007

So why penalise those who want to pay their bills by cheque? BT announced last week that customers will now have to pay £6 extra if they don’t make direct-debit arrangements.
“Look,” he bristles, “either we are a company or an institution. If you want us to be an institution, then maybe we’ll run the social services. Direct debit makes life easier, saves us truck loads of money and is better for the environment — none of that paper trail.”

Originally Posted by Son of Shoestring

In other words its a profit creation scheme and all there blah blah is a smokescreen to cloak this.

Absolutely! Customers who pay by direct debit are more profitable to BT. They are conning people by using the 'bad debt' excuse. The 'bad debt' only exists on paper (admin costs and real bad debt is factored in to the retail prices).
They are trying to force customers onto direct debit not to mitigate losses but to increase profit.

[JOSH_IOU]

Originally Posted by Son of Shoestring

Which raises the question of why I, a reliable payer, should be penalised for the performance (or lack of it) of other bill payers? How can it be my problem? Also, BT always charge an additional £7.50 per quarter for "late payments"...

£7.50 annualised = £30.00 x 5 million (presumably?) = £150 million PLUS above £90 million = £240 million to cover a cost of £100 million (supposing that is true to begin with!).

In other words its a profit creation scheme and all there blah blah is a smokescreen to cloak this.

But thanks for that anyway and could I ask you to be kind enough to post the whole letter you received unabridged (obviously x-ing out private information). Or I could PM you with an email address to send a scanned copy if you prefer?

Thanks again.

Shoestring

Its a Service Charge :o

[maggie]

Hi Sonofshoestring,
I received an answer from B.T. ,by e-mail yesterday.I will post their reply and the reasons they state for the charges,when I have 5 mins to myself .a little later.
Maggie

[Son of Shoestring]

Thanks Goodwill. I have an exact duplicate of that letter received from BT when I first objected to the £4.50 penalty (just wanted to be sure there weren't different letters being sent out...).

Thank you also Maggie. I look forward to reading it.