A Step Too Far BT!

jambutty · 23-06-2007, 12:00

I just got my phone bill this morning and I was astounded to discover that BT are charging me $4.50 for presenting me with the bill and processing the payment when I make it or as they put it – “This charge has been made by BT Payment Services Ltd for processing your payment.” TALK ABOUT A RIP OFF! I vaguely remember reading something about this charge on Ceefax but I wasn’t sure if it was true or not.

So take it as read that the next few lines are filled with every expletive that you have ever heard of.

OK! I’m calm now and only quietly fuming.

Yet another Quango Otelo (Otelo is the Office of the Telecommunications Ombudsman. Our job is to sort out disagreements between public communications providers and their customers.) has very unhelpful office hours of Monday to Friday only but they do have a web site at www.otelo.org.uk However they are a fat load of use because they won’t get involved until 12 weeks have passed since your complaint to BT and that 12 weeks starts AFTER BT have not addressed the issue in question.

Contacting BT to lodge a complaint about this charge is easy enough except the lines are always busy and you are left in the ever present queue. But no worries you can keep your place in the queue and get them to ring you back when your turn comes simply by tapping in your phone number. Fine except that bit of the system doesn’t work or at least it didn’t today.

Time to kick BT into touch and find someone else to supply my telephone requirements.

andrewb · 23-06-2007, 12:19

I take it thats £4.50? I personally use Bulldog for Phone and Broadband. It has nothing to do with BT other than they rent the space inside the BT exchange, which is great because BT have always made a right mess of anything they've got their hands on when it concerns me.

jambutty · 23-06-2007, 12:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cyfr

I take it thats £4.50? I personally use Bulldog for Phone and Broadband. It has nothing to do with BT other than they rent the space inside the BT exchange, which is great because BT have always made a right mess of anything they've got their hands on when it concerns me.

Yup! Cyfr! It is £4.50. Finger trouble.

andrewb · 23-06-2007, 12:41

See this is a quarrel I have. I think privatisation was a good idea, introducing competition is better for the customer, it lowers prices, normally due to efficency rather than lower quality product/service as competition means companies have to provide good quality products/services.

However, take the broadband/phone market. It is so confusing. Does anyone actually know who the cheapest supplier is? For example you have BT offering tons of different "packages" which have face values, but then as Jambutty says they're adding a £4.50 charge, now thats quite an additional amount.

The average user has no idea how many Gigabytes he/she needs, has no idea what speed will be adequate, certainly has no idea what "contention" means on adsl lines. So how is a user supposed to pick which package and price bracket he/she needs, and what supplier is the cheapest with the best product? To make things more confusing "Unlimited" generally doesn't mean unlimited, it means "You can download as much as you want, until we think you're downloading too much, then we'll start charging you or disconnect you"

Sigh..

Tin Monkey · 23-06-2007, 13:01

Why have they charged you £4.50 to process a payment?

I pay by Direct Debit monthly and it costs me nothing.

MargaretR · 23-06-2007, 13:10

Home Phones: The UK's Cheapest Calls Provider...
Look here for advice

***Mr D*** · 23-06-2007, 13:12

cleaver way of BT making more stupid profits.

How many people who wont even realise or even question the extra £4.50 I bet is supprising.

I also pay by DD and dont get charged the £4.50.

You can also go paper free billing and save an additional 25p an month. as well as helping the enviroment.

jambutty · 23-06-2007, 13:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tin Monkey

Why have they charged you £4.50 to process a payment?

I pay by Direct Debit monthly and it costs me nothing.

I don’t know. I assume that it is because I prefer to pay my bill with cash at my local Post Office like I have done for decades. If I paid by Direct Debit the line rental would be cheaper - £9.07 as opposed to £10.21 per month plus vat. That is a difference of £1.14 pm or if you like £3.42 per 3 months bill. Which is still less than the £4.50 they are now charging. So with a bit of ‘creative accounting’ BT is taking an extra £1.08 per quarter from each customer. With a few million customers that is a nice little earner for doing nothing other than re-arranging the account.

I notice that on my current bill the line rental has gone down to $9.07 plus vat, of course, so it’s a case of giving with one hand and taking away more with the other.

The bottom line with BT and the various utilities is to get everyone on Direct Debit thus cutting their administrative costs and now one by one they are going down the paperless bill route to cut their costs down even further but not passing on the full savings on to the customer.

Thanks for the link [email protected] but my phone usage doesn’t warrant a change to a different phone/Internet supplier. Any savings are only small and not worth all the hassle especially as a few months down the line the differential will be different.

Tin Monkey · 23-06-2007, 14:10

Sorry if I'm missing the point, but why don't you pay by direct debit? It would save you the charge, plus it's cheaper per month too.

jambutty · 23-06-2007, 14:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tin Monkey

Sorry if I'm missing the point, but why don't you pay by direct debit? It would save you the charge, plus it's cheaper per month too.

I just knew that someone would make your point.

No matter which method is used to pay my phone bill, it still has to be processed, printed and posted so I see it as discrimination against people who do not have a bank account (and there are tens, nay hundreds of thousands of those particularly those on the bread line) and those of us who do not like the idea of someone else having access to take money out of my bank account. I know there are safeguards but when something goes wrong it is me who has the hassle and expense of ringing my bank and presenting my case to right the wrong.

Then there is the case where a bank will pay a DD even if it makes the account go into overdraft and then they charge you heavily for doing so. Or if the bank doesn’t make the payment due to lack of sufficient funds you get hassle from BT or whoever.