BT 36 months double billing B'band and L'line - Help?

[UpOverTheEyeballs]

I don't know whether anyone can suggest a way forward to help me but we've just realised that due to a combination of our not realising and BT not helping us we've been paying way over what's usual every month for the last 36 odd months for our 2 services.

 

Firstly, during all of this time I've been on Income Support and Housing Benefit and the house has my wife and 3 children so we are in receipt of state benefits and that may further add to the excessive costs incurred.

 

Due to medical reasons we're not too good with 'paperwork' so we've just let things continue on an ongoing basis, assuming, incorrectly we now find, that all was well.

 

In April '06 we moved into a new rental property a line was there ( I think) so we just took a fresh no and carried on with the billing. Later we started up a broadband line ON A SEPARATE CONTRACT. I can agree that we asked for broadband but putting them on one contract was never suggested.

 

This pattern continued until April 08 when we had to move out to a new rental home (the old landlord was repossessed since he'd been keeping the rent not paying the mortgage)

 

In this new home we again requested a landline AND Broadband and were, after paying the 125 connection fee, provided with TWO separate contracts.

 

This has continued and following numerous arguments between my wife and I as to why is this so dear, the penny finally dropped yesterday evening ... BECAUSE IT IS TOO DEAR!

 

As I now understand, there is a quite inexpensive landline/Bband package that BT offer which we could have been on for quite a while now, and from reading old posts, the 125 fee in April 08 could/should have been reduced to 62.50 if we'd known how to ask.

 

So where do we go now?

 

Our BT landline yesterday went over to incoming calls only since, having 2 wks ago paying the 46 pnds Bband qtly bill we can't find the cash to pay the 91 pnds qtly landline bill?

 

I feel we have every right to complain about the effective mis-selling of the 2 contracts, something that was apparent whenever we called BT help-desks but was never flagged up as something for concern.

 

As I see it, after all the late charges, disconnection and re-connection fees, and double monthly fees that we've incurred during the last 36 months we have overpaid by a fair few hundred pounds.

 

I've seen ref to an Ian Livingston at BT that might be able to help if I explain as succintly as possible what has occured and what we would like to have happen taking things forward in the future.

 

Can anyone offer any suggestions please?

 

Many thanks

 

UOTE

[locutus]

look into getting this package for your landline,

BT Basic

then shop around for broadband.

 

 

You say you have been overcharged. Do you meen incorrectly billed?

 

Their are some useful BT email addresses in the stickies in this forum.

[UpOverTheEyeballs]

Overbilled, since we've had two separate contracts for services that could easily have been bundled together.

 

Our landline no is xxx and the broadband runs down that line, so there's no reason not to have put the two together.

 

When we've spoken to help desks and the payment departments in the past and gone through the 'which BT account number do you need, we have two?" discussions they nor us (until now) realised this duplication existed.

 

Because of our bad credit history we'd considered sticking with BT was best, hindsight, however, is wonderful!

[UpOverTheEyeballs]

Thanks pt 2 - have printed off the info on BT basic, so much less expensive.

 

Now I need to find out whether there's a way to obtain a refund for any overpayments, since we've been in receipt of benefits for about 3-4 years now.

 

rgds

UOTE

[locutus]

What services are duplicated? Are you paying 2 lots of line rental?

 

It's not unusual for your line to be on one billing system and broadband to be on another, giving you 2 different account numbers. BT don't discount at all for having both services so you'd not be financially any better off if this is the case.

[UpOverTheEyeballs]

When I first posted I was annoyed that BT was charging me separately for the landline and the broadband and had never suggested combining the two. A combined package would have been more economical.

 

However, I have now been informed about BT Basic, which changes the issue somewhat.

 

Clearly this would be the most appropriate landline service, assuming I am eligible, (which the benefits we recieve should mean so) and then we would need to pay for a separate broadband service with BT or another provider.

 

I never knew the BT Basic existed so I was only comparing what we pay now with an all-in-one package.

 

Yup, I was confused!

 

I'll speak to the BT Basic team later today to see what I can sort out for the landline and ask what they suggest about the broadband.

 

I don't really want to move providers with all the porting issues or setting up new e-mail addresses etc, I'd rather just keep the costs down as low as we can.

 

Thanks to all for such a quick response, it was sooo fast.

 

rgds

 

UOTE