Ridiculous BT bill

[Redstar7]

Hello, i have recently recieved my BT Bill and it is huge! over £400 for the quarter. But there are items on the bill which i do not recognise and i have phoned BT to complain. I have been basically ignored by them and they demand payment anyway, what can i do now?

 

Are there any letter templates on this site i can send to "suspend" or postpone paying this bill until i can sort this out, even with solicitors?

[Hobbie]

Redstar,

 

When you contacted B.T. about the bill, who did you speak with (Which department?). B.T. have a responsibility under its licence to operate as telecommunications provider to fully investigate any queried item on a telephone bill.

 

Send them a letter disputing the amount, examine the bill carefully and send them a copy of ALL the items you dispute. Give them 28 days to fully investigate, when the bill is in dispute B.T. will mark this with billing and no collection should be made, If you have a Direct Debit established with the bank for this, cancel it with the bank, and send a copy of your letter to the bank also, and inform B.T. that the DD is cancelled.

 

If after 28 days it is not resolved to your satisfaction report the matter to Home page | Ofcom. Ofcom will then FORCE B.T. to investigate it fully and give a total breakdown of the charges and how each charge occured.

 

When sending letters to them, ensure it is sent recorded delivery so you have proof, OfCom sometimes require this before taking up your complaint.

 

B.T. High Level Complaints Dept:

0800 545 458

 

Postal Address:

Customer Service Manager

BT Customer Correspondence Centre

DURHAM, DH98 1BT

[buzby]

Can you expand on what bill elements that are unusual - is it Premium Rate calls (ask for in immediate free block of all Premium Rate services). Until you can prove to their satisfaction that the costs were not legitimately incurred, they will continue to demand payment.

 

IF it is an issue of Premium Rate billing, check carefully the date and time and verify the similarities. Were you there at the time, or not. If now, who was. If nobody was, your line may have been hijacked internally or externally to allow these calls to be made.

[Hobbie]

Busy,

 

Line Hi-Jacking is something that has gone on for years, and will most likely continue to go on, unless BT find some other way to shield the cables, which this will cost £££'s so it isn't likely to be done.

 

Plus, it is for BT to establish if the line has been hijacked, and to investigate with BT Fraud and the police.

 

ALL new lines with BT (Lines connected from 2005/2006 onwards are automatically blocked from calling premium numbers OR SO BT tell you, but these calls to still get through, after all premium calling is how the networks make profit now, no money is local/national calling, not even mobile calling these days, only enough margin to operate the network.

 

Write to B.T. as per my first post, and don't phone them, as you only get to speak with the OVERSEAS contact centres as first level call handlers. These people may be highly educated, but unfornately English language was not on the curriculum.

[buzby]

For the record, BT will not investigate line hijacking (by actually sending an investigator) unless there area is rife with this, and anyway much of this is linked to engineering access at street cabinets where a random pair is selected for the call. If the problem is sustained, over a range of dates/times then this points more to local tampering. In THIS case, the line renter is best placed to 'follow the money' by tracing the route their line takes and note/photograph anything they feel is suspicious. By supplying this in support of their contention, BT are duty bound to take a greater interest. The bulk of the cases mentioned in the premium-rate regulator's site invariably support BTs contention that the renter made the calls. Due diligence by the renter costs nothing, and is preferable to doing nothing else but complaining.

 

Moving on to your suggestion that all new lines installed since 2006 (e.g. in the last 3 years cannot call premium numbers unless the customer requests otherwise) I've not been aware of any notice from BT to this effect, so I can believe it doesn't happen - so I don't know who BT are telling this to. I do know it is available for free and on request. It is also possible that those on Supportline/Social Tariff Basic and LURR have it in place automatically, but not otherwise.

 

Finally, any firm that treats their customers with contempt by having any service level handled outwith their country or trading simply to make saving on their bottom line should be rightly criticised. However there are enough numbers around to allow this be circumvented by not using the shortcode dialling.

 

That said, until the OP provides details of what caused the high charges, there's not much else to recommend.

[Isiris]

When I worked for Fujitsu installing DSLAMs in exchanges, I knew of someone who had set up a premium rate number and he would just jump on different pairs on the line side of the MDF and call his number

[Hobbie]

When I worked for Fujitsu installing DSLAMs in exchanges, I knew of someone who had set up a premium rate number and he would just jump on different pairs on the line side of the MDF and call his number

 

Yes it happens...

[tiglet]

subbing