BT - a new one on me...

[indebtstudent]

Good day hope someone here is able to help with this.

I am posing this message in order that I can help a friend of mine. I won't be dealing with this myself as I'm busy with other stuff at the moment. I confess I haven't done a search so this could be widespread and I've just not come across it.

Basically over a year ago this chap decided to swap from Virgin Media to BT. He paid a deposit of £50 for this (by debit card)

A week or two later Virgin Media rang him up to ask why he was leaving. He told them he had found a siginificantly cheaper deal, but Virgin decided that they could better this. I'm not clear whether Virgin or my pal let BT know but , in any event, whenever he contacts BT he gets asked for an account no and the staff can't locate him on the system because he doesn't have an account no.

Initially they said they could not refund as there was no account no and they would usually credit the amount back to the account. Once someone sounding knowledgeable said that the £50 could only be refunded after the contractual period had passed (12 months). Now personally I wouldn't have accepted this and demanded to be able to speak or write to someone in authority.

So fair my pal has written two letters to BT, contact Ofcom (or whatever there name is) by phone and letter. He has recieved no response, I have advised him to write a letter to BT threatening court action to be sent recorded.

I feel this could be sorted out so easily, if only he could deal with someone in authority. I am reluctant to advise court as he is a pensioner and I really can't commit the time to help him with this.

The amount is £50, but as far as I'm concerned £50 is £50. PLus lets face it BT can't argue they have provided no service.

Is this practice widespread? What is his best course of action?

I understand from my CAB work that regulators often insist you follow the complaints procedure of the company but, in this case, the company seems unwilling to respond.

If he did go the court route how precise would his POC's have to be?

In terms of evidence I suppose it might help to have a letter or similar from the bank stating that BT have taken this money from his debit card. There's no scope for involving the bank because of the time factor.

Any input welcome.

[buzby]

Well, you have to ask yourself, why did he pay BT to provide a service and go so far as paying a deposit, then not follow through? I would expect that ANY deposit would be forfeited if he did not complete his part of the arrangement. The same hold true whether booking a holiday, tradesman or anything else that involves a commitment.

It would cost £50 to take to court, with no guarantee of success (so doubling his loss). As he's changed his mind twice (once to leave VM, then again to cancel BT) there would have been some incentive VM gave to keep him sweet (hence why cancel?) so the pragmatic approach would be to offset this against staying, and perhaps not be so contrary in future?

[locutus]

I think I know what the £50 is for.

£50 deposit is applied when someone has a poor credit rating, and it gets refunded onto your bill in 6 months time.

Is your friend sure that it was debited and wasn't returned to his bank account? (if your friend visits his bank they'll be able to check, as I know card payment refunds can happen in a strange ways EG the payment is deleted off the statement instead of refunded)

I agree with Busby wholeheartedly with the court action thing. Gonna cost money and time for the sake of £50 and if your friend manages to get thrugh to someone that can sort this, he will probably get the refund much quicker and easier.

I'd also like to point out that last year BT rolled out a new IT system and your friend could be on either one.

Hope that helps.

[indebtstudent]

He is certain there has been no refund, I will certainly advise him to contact his bank, if only to confirm that the payment was definately made to BT.

I did query the meaning of 'deposit', as I suspected it may have been non refundable. However the way it was presented to him was we cannot begin the process unless we take this payment, if you change your mind you get the £50 back.

The problem, over the telephone, is that he apparently doesn't exist on the system. I have a little difficulty with the deposit being described in that way, I suspect if it was it would be more to do with a sales person chasing commision that an actual policy.

The only thing which suggests this view might be wrong was the fact that he didn't get as far as booking anything in re install. The whole matter took place over a matter of days and he has been told, on the phone several times, that this should be refunded but there isn't a way to do it without an account number.

He didn't get any paperwork from BT at the time - that's how quickly it was cancelled. Therefore it seems BT have been paid £50 for doing very little, if they haven't provided ANY paperwork can they still rely on something which may be in the T & C's which were not provided?

I can see where you are coming from with the healthy scepticism but I know this man, he's the epitome of an elderly gent.

His trusting nature is evidenced by the fact that he actually waited twelve months based on the assurance of one of BT's staff that it would be refunded after the period of the original contract had expired.

This at least bears a resemblance to comments about it being refunded after six months.

Any more input welcome.

[locutus]

I'm in 100% agreement with you on the facts here, people do sometimes have to pay a deposit of either £25 or £50 to get connected with BT, this is the result of a credit check. This is normally taken via credit / debit card.

When you place an order it gives an "order number". Your friend should've been given this number to check up the progress of the order. I can belive that BT staff may have overlooked this number as I have recieved complaints from people trying to trace their order and not being given it by the 1st person they contacted.

my thaughts of the likely whereabouts of this £50 and how to get it sorted are

1 BT have 2 systems for providing telephone lines, the old one (called SMART) and the new one (called ONEVIEW) the people he is talking to are only checking one system and not finding him because of this.

2 It's possible that the cash was refunded on to the card at a time when your friend was maybe experiencing some bills, or they backdated the refund and it skipped showing on a statement.

So if your friend is double checking with the bank, then the only other side where the cash could be is BT. After double checking with the bank, I'd try writing to them explaining this situation.

Customer Service Director
BT plc
Correspondence Centre
Durham
DH98 1BT

If they have taken and not refunded the money, and if a letter to the above doesn't sort it, please keep me posted.

[indebtstudent]

Thanks I'll pass that along

[indebtstudent]

Wrote to this address, got no response. I'm going to have a look at the letter see if I can improve them at all.

The main thing for me, apart from the fact they've pocketed £50 for doing sod all, is the fact that nobody seems willing or able to help with this.

When he telephones they say they can't do anything without an account no, and they told him it would be refunded after 12 months (I agree he was gullible to agree there).

When he writes nobody even bothers to reply, this irks me at the best of times.