Recent BT letter

[rene7]

Made my blood boil when I read ït
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Any one else had one of these?
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Can't be Legal surely? Any legal experts on this forum who can comment on this?
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We've been with BT on this plan for over 30years ?
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Don't need a landline other than for Internet, any suggestions? Sadly our Mobile reception isn't good enough for Internet or for smartphones etc
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Definite candidate for BBC 'Watchdog' program
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Hope someone can help
Thx
Rene

[Heartworm]

There is an option to have no calls/minutes but you need to ask to be moved onto it, its absolute rubbish and I don't know how they get away with it.

[TallTom]

No worse than when I was with Sky for literally just broadband, had not even plugged in a phone...

They moved me to a new tariff for calls, which was an absolute joke considering in 18 months I had not made or received a single call on that line!

[semisane]

Can you change provider ?

I would have moved away from BT ages ago as internet / phone packages are expensive, but I get cheap mobile and BT sport so have stayed with them for now.

[vaud]

It is annoying and sharp practice in my view.

[B9]

IANAL

Ofcom allow consumers to leave a contract (without penalty) if a price increase is of material detriment. Whilst this term can be a little subjective, the typical rule of thumb is 10% or above RPI.

From what I've heard this has been introduced as an 'opt out' offer, which gives them some leeway on negotiation.

For what it's worth, BT is offensively expensive. Whilst Plusnet is owned by BT, they're far cheaper and better customer service - bar a billing cock-up they had last year affecting most customers. You should use this opportunity to shop around and get out of a contract. The majority of competitors still fundamentally use the BT (Openreach) network for calls/lines anyway so don't worry about reliability, faults on lines etc.

Edited by B9 on Friday 24th July 12:54

[LordGrover]

Slightly different, as we've not had any services with BT for more than five years. Every quarter they've sent us a bill for 0.00, despite several requests that they stop.

Recently, this quarterly bill has an admin charge for £4.00 for sending a paper bill - for nothing.

I've wasted a lot of time trying to get them to credit the charge and stop sending us the bills, but with zero success. I can't speak to anyone because covid and emails are going in circles between departments copying me in every time.

Incompetents, the lot of them.

[vaud]

LordGrover said:

Slightly different, as we've not had any services with BT for more than five years. Every quarter they've sent us a bill for 0.00, despite several requests that they stop.

Recently, this quarterly bill has an admin charge for £4.00 for sending a paper bill - for nothing.

I've wasted a lot of time trying to get them to credit the charge and stop sending us the bills, but with zero success. I can't speak to anyone because covid and emails are going in circles between departments copying me in every time.

Incompetents, the lot of them.

Make a copy of the letters and enclose them with a short letter asking them to desist headed as “letter before action”
Send to the BT legal department.


Or


Email the CEO with a short factual email. The office of the CEO will pick it up and direct it to the right team. Top down emails tend to have more effect.

[IJWS15]

With BT top down e-mails are the only ones that have any effect.

I once pointed out to one of the handlers in the exec office (there are a lot of them) that if their customer service dept was any good she wouldn't have a job.

[Monty Python]

vaud said:

Make a copy of the letters and enclose them with a short letter asking them to desist headed as “letter before action”
Send to the BT legal department.


Or


Email the CEO with a short factual email. The office of the CEO will pick it up and direct it to the right team. Top down emails tend to have more effect.

What action can you take? It's not like they've moved you onto the more expensive plan without giving you (a) 30 days notice, (b) other options.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18586370.bt-mo...

[vaud]

Monty Python said:

What action can you take? It's not like they've moved you onto the more expensive plan without giving you (a) 30 days notice, (b) other options.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18586370.bt-mo...

Sorry I was referring to the bills of £0.00, not the OP. Apologies.

[rene7]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'm thinking now maybe a good time to change providers, for both line & iBB/net - Can anyone suggest a provider with GOOD custoner service [preferably based in UK]. Our existing BB is slow ~2mb so anything faster would be a bonus, though we only have old Aluminium cables to the house so I don't think there's much to be gained because of these old cables, [I could be wronng tho']. We'd only want a basic package like at the mo' with BT.
Does the new provider tell the good news of my switching to BT ? Or will I have to tell them too?
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Has anyone else had a similar letter to mine?
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THX
Rene

[MetalMatters]

I’ve only been with them for 2 months, how dare they try and bump up my billing, boils my piss.

Hateful company, I should have known better and gone elsewhere.

[NDA]

I recently moved into an ancient property that hasn't been lived in for years.... no phone connection, it's never had one.

After much struggling I had fibre to the property installed. Great! BT then informed me that I also had to have a copper wire connected for a landline - I resisted this to the point where BT threatened to disconnect the fibre unless I had a landline. I now have a useless landline which I will never use.

It is pretty obvious that BT are going to start charging me for this landline at some point in the future - and there's nothing I can do about it.

[Mr Pointy]

rene7 said:

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'm thinking now maybe a good time to change providers, for both line & iBB/net - Can anyone suggest a provider with GOOD custoner service [preferably based in UK]. Our existing BB is slow ~2mb so anything faster would be a bonus, though we only have old Aluminium cables to the house so I don't think there's much to be gained because of these old cables, [I could be wronng tho']. We'd only want a basic package like at the mo' with BT.
Does the new provider tell the good news of my switching to BT ? Or will I have to tell them too?
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Has anyone else had a similar letter to mine?

Zen are not cheap, but they are good:
https://www.zen.co.uk/

The cost would be about £28/month including line rental but no call allowance. The customer service is based in UK. Zen will handle the switchover - just make sure you are out of contract with BT ie don't sign anything or talk to them or they'll try & switch you to a new contract.

[CubanPete]

Get onto MSE and change provider.

I had to phone up BT every quarter to correct the overcharging.

Moved to EE broadband, who were good for years, but suddenly lots of price increases 'to improve the service' but they were unable to tell me how they'd improved it for me..

Currently with Vodafone for superfast fibre broadband (bt line) £21 a month and it is plenty quick enough. We don't use the landline. We got £100 cashback too.

Moral is to shop about.

[vaud]

Mr Pointy said:

Zen are not cheap, but they are good:
https://www.zen.co.uk/

The cost would be about £28/month including line rental but no call allowance. The customer service is based in UK. Zen will handle the switchover - just make sure you are out of contract with BT ie don't sign anything or talk to them or they'll try & switch you to a new contract.

Zen have a good reputation.

[Tony1963]

B9 said:

Whilst Plusnet is owned by BT..... better customer service

Edited by B9 on Friday 24th July 12:54

Not in my experience. Twice they were as bad as my BT experience. If you want to be lied to, go to PlusNet.

[SCEtoAUX]

Go to John Lewis broadband. It's Plusnet but with John Lewis quality of support. Been with them for years, top notch.

[jjones]

vaud said:

Zen have a good reputation.

Been with zen for years, they are ace, it just works. Only once had a problem (which was of BTs making) and the Zen people got BT to resolve it in under 24 hours.