BT Insisted I Owe £48 and Swore at Me

[walker323]

On the 27 September 2019 at about 6 in the evening I was phoned by someone who was apparently from the Newcastle Technical office of BT (tel. 0800 028 5085) who said very briskly that I owed them £48 and that I would have to pay this.

 

I have previously been chased for this £48 by BT before. They even got a debt collector to send me a letter saying that legal action would be taken if I did not hand it over. So I subsequently phoned BT and I was told that there were two old accounts ion my name, and both of them had no debt amount: I owed BT nothing (I have a recording of that conversation, courtesy of my Truecall unit).

 

I told the BT man that I owed them nothing and replace the receiver.

 

The phone rang again within 30 seconds and the same man was talking about how I would be reported to debt collection services, etc. My Truecall unit showed this coming from the same 0800 number as before.

 

I told the man to stop bothering me and to grow up.

 

About a minute later the phone rang again. This time I was upstairs logging into my Truecall account to ascertain where these calls were coming from, so I answered from my upstairs extension. This time there was a lot of jarring and crackling noise on the line, presumable designed to annoy me. Then the man with the same voice called me an "asshole" and a "mother***er".

 

I told him that I was recording the conversation and if he had quite finished. He hung up.

 

I checked back to my account and sure enough the first two calls were from the number given above, but the third abuse call, from the same man, was from a number which was not designated.

 

I phoned BT on 0800 800 150 and reported this incident to a BT operator, who then confirmed that I did not owe BT any money, and said that this must have been a [problem]. I mentioned that the number was coming up as a designated BT number. I originally told him I wanted to make a complaint but I am unsure whether a complaint was actually lodged. I tried phoning back later to check but could not get through to this number.

 

I phoned the 0800 028 5085 and was greeted by an automated familiar BT voice. 

 

I have a recording of the abusive call and I also have a screenshot of the Truecall output showing the time and number of the calls made.

 

 

[dx100uk]

wont be bt

it will be one of the sc@mmers from Asian or india.

spoofing the number

forget about it.

very common.

 

dx

[walker323]

Then why were they calling from a BT number (which answers with a BT recorded message when you phone it)?

 

And would a [EDIT] hire a debt collector and call themselves BT? I spoke to a person at the debt collector's number and they said that BT was their client and then gave me a further number for BT's billing department, who I then spoke to, and who confirmed that I owed them £48.

 

It would not surprise me if one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing; BT is a bloated, redundant bureaucracy that doesn't seem to know what day it is. 

 

Nevertheless, I am satisfied that it was BT who did this. If it is a gang of [problematic] then they have hijacked the BT Newcastle phone number and their billing department, and are soliciting debt companies in BT's name.

 

It may be that this department has gone completely out of control, of course. I can only conjecture until I've uncovered more about it. Buut I do know that it was definitely BT and can prove it.

[dx100uk]

and the DCA is whom?

 

[dx100uk]

sc@mmers

https://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/08000285085/69

use the truecall zap.

 

dx

[walker323]

The debt collector was CCSCollect.

 

Would a [EDIT] go to the extent of passing himself off as BT and then engaging a debt collection company to collect in BT's name?

 

What if I had capitulated and paid to CCS? CCS would then have paid the money (minus their percentage) to BT, and not to the [EDIT].

 

I can't see that it would be worth a [EDIT]'s time to do this. It would be pointless.

[Raven1]

In legit call centres the calls are recorded so any language like that would be cause for instant dismissal. This is  a  con. Why even take the call?   In any case such a small amount would  not be chased in this way it would be written off. They assume  a percentage will opt to make the payment thinking it's not much, and they must have forgotten to pay.

 

The real purpose of the call is to get your bank details.

 

Where are all these 'edits' coming from it make you look like you said something gross.

Edited September 28, 2019 by Raven1

[dx100uk]

as long as your credit file is clean ignore them.

stop ringing powerless dca's too

they are NOT BAILIFFS

and have

ZERO legal powers

 

ccs collect don't use that bt number 

how old is this supposed debt?

 

 

[walker323]

I've noticed that when I write the word 'sc@mmer' or 'sc@m' it is always replaced here by '[EDIT]' in this text. Hardly anything scandalous.

 

Raven1, the call was not from a call centre. It was not from the 0800 028 5085 number, but from an undesignated number, as I made clear in  my original post. But it followed less than a minute after the 0800 028 5085 call, it was about the same subject and it was the same voice. So the caller decided that it would be better to verbally abuse me whilst not using the company's facilities! Unfortunately he didn't know that the call was still being recorded - by me.

 

You write "Why even take the call?" Because I want to get BT to recognise that I do not owe them any money. If I ignored it they would only call again when my guard was down. I wanted to nail this then and there.

 

Dx100uk, you ask me why I am ringing the debt company. It is for the same reason. I want this pointless chasing of £48 to stop. I know they are not bailiffs and I know that their powers are very limited. But I wanted to know if it really was BT who had commissioned them, and they confirmed that it was.

 

The alleged debt is less than two years old. In fact, I had made it clear to BT that the email I was paying £7.50 a month for didn't work and still they were charging me for it. They did not acknowledge that there was anything wrong with it and kept charging me for it. So in reality it is BT who owe me several months worth  of their PREMIUM email "service". 

 

 

[dx100uk]

ah the old £7.50 email service

always diff to get going.

is your credit file clean of this debt?

 

i doubt ccs are on commission, they just chance their arm for various debts then rock up to the oc and say we have got you this back.

 

so ccs swore at you then.

not surprised .

 

 

 

[walker323]

No. It was the man from BT who used the foul language (but he did so on an undisclosed line, not on the BT Newcastle number 0800 028 5085 which he had used two minutes before to say that I owed BT £48).

 

CCS Collect would presumably have to have got this information from somewhere. And as this is not on my credit file I'm presuming it was BT who told them. Nobody else could have such information. 

 

For the avoidance of doubt, I'm attaching a screenshot of my Truecall output to show the two called from the BT 0800 028 5085 number followed in quick succession by the same man from BT using another phone in order to send lots of static noise down the line then call me an asshole and a motherfucker.

 

(I wonder what this forum's auto-censor will make of that.)

 

Strange. The forum censored '[EDIT]' but not 'mother****er'.

 

I think I might upload a recording of the call itself, just to complete the picture.

[dx100uk]

why have you got the number as a  starred caller ?

when did you name them the BT newcasle technical complaints as truecall does not fill in that info, the user does.

 

CCS would have gotten the info from a debt portfolio file not directly from BT. 

[walker323]

CCS Collect sent me a letter which threatened legal action if I did not pay the £48.

I then phoned CCS and spoke to a woman who sounded quite genuine and said that I should speak to the BT Billing department.

 

She gave me the number of the BT Billing department (which I don't have to hand now) and I spoke to a man in the BT Billing department who said I owed them £48.

 

This is in complete contrast to the conversation I had with BT last night on their 0800 800 150 number in which I was told that there were two old accounts in my name which showed a zero balance and that I did not owe BT anything.

 

Clearly one hand does not know what the other hand is doing, as is the case with most bloated, moribund bureaucracies.

 

Now to answer the question you have just raised,

I had that department as a starred caller because I have dealt with them over many years on the various technical problems I've had with BT (both their telephone and their email).

 

It is the number of the department that my technical complaint was escalated to after the usual BT shrugging of shoulders didn't cut it with me any more.

 

I designated it as a starred caller because I wanted them to be able to get through to me without difficulty.

I wrote "BT Newcastle Technical Complaints" as their name because they were (at the time I was dealing with them, at least) BT's technical complaints department in Newcastle.

 

Ring their number now and see what happens.

I rang it last night and I got the familiar BT recorded message. 

[dx100uk]

ccs letter didn't say will anything.

debt collectors cant do court on debts they don't own,.

 

its good you have the truecall recording as you can get the number off it CCS gave you then.

[walker323]

Yes, I'd say the Truecall unit was probably one of my best investments.

[dx100uk]

Had one 10yrs now.

[walker323]

The plot thickens.

 

This morning I got a letter from CCSCollect headed 'NOTICE OF INTENDED ACTION'.

 

It threatened legal action if I did not pay this money (which has now risen from £48 to £60).

 

So we have two possible alternatives. Either BT actually swore at me, calling me an a**hole and a mother****er, OR CCSCollect are acting for a gang of [problematic].

 

It has to be either one or the other. So which one is it?

 

I have scanned and uploaded this letter.

 

(I tried phoning them just now, as they say that they are open on Saturday mornings, but I got a recorded message; bear in mind that I have spoken to CCS before and they are real.)

 

So does anyone have any new theories about which is the true version? Is BT manned by foul-mouthed incompetents or do CCS allow themselves to be hired by [EDIT] gangs. 

 

It must be one or the other.

 

 

2019-10-17 CCS letter.pdf

[unclebulgaria67]

Suggest you send all of the evidence to the CEO of BT posted to Head Office address, advising next port of call will be newspapers who will no doubt have a  lot to say about BT complaints staff phoning customers using bad language as you have mentioned.

 

This should lead to account being written off and compensation offered,

[walker323]

Will do. Thank you.

 

[walker323]

Just for the record, I am uploading the original letter from CCSCollect, which asks me for the money from "BT" (if it is BT).

 

You can see here that I scribbled some notes at the foot of the letter indicating that I phoned the number CCSCollect gave me as the BT number, and I was told by "BT" that there was an outstanding balance of £48 in the account. They first tiold me that the account wasn't even closed. Then they changed their mind and told me that the account was closed, but that there was a £48 balance still owing.

 

Assuming that I was speaking to BT, I kept telling them that the email address did not work, which is why I closed the account. 

 

I recall that I had kept telling BT at the time that the email address didn't work and that I either wanted them to fix the problem or stop charging me their PREMIUM rate charges for an email that didn't work!

 

On the phone on this occasion the BT man I spoke to (before he called me a mother****er) had asked me if I had actually used the words "! want to cancel this account" specifically. He seemed to be saying this as an excuse for their behaviour of not closing the account when I had complained about it. However, all that is irrelevant, since what I was clearly saying was that I was NOT going to pay good money for an email account that didn't work, and that they shouldn't be charging me money for it in the first place.

 

Later that day, though, I phoned BT using the operator number (not the number that CCSCollect had given me for BT) and spoke to someone at BT who accessed my accounts (I actually had two old accounts, one for each of the two phone lines that I needed then to do the work that my single Virgin Media account can do now) and he confirmed that neither of these showed any outstanding unpaid balance. I have a recording of that conversation.

 

So which version is the true version? 

 

 

 

2019-09-15 CCS letter.pdf