BT billing contradictions and inability to deal with issue

Tell me about it!

BT insist on making everything as complicated as they possibly can, with the result that their own staff don't know what's going on, and tend to make it up as they go along - so you get conflicting answers to the same question from two different people.

My situation is complicated enough, and I certainly don't spend £150 per month with them - £150 per *year* is more like it.

The problem is that they try to force all 'deals' into a single mould. So, when you commit to a 12 month rolling contract (now perversely outlawed by Ofcom!) in order to get free evening and weekend calls, do they simply charge you the standard line rental but give you the E&W package free? Do they hell! They charge you for the E&W package, and then credit it back. *But* if the 12 month rolling contract date doesn't coincide with one of the quarterly billing dates, the credit isn't the same as the charge - and has to be adjusted in the following quarter. Similarly, when you sign up for Line Rental Saver - in which you pay £120 for a year's rental in advance - do they suspend normal quarterly rental bills? You can guess the answer! They continue to bill you each quarter for what the line rental *would* have been, and then credit it back. So each bill is made up of lots of charges and credits which should balance - but frequently don't!

I insist in communicating with them by email rather than phone. I do at least then get a paper trail with the questions and answers, and I avoid having to speak to someone in foreign parts who wouldn't have a clue what I was on about.

I have - I think - finally got definitive answers about what happens to my free evening and weekend call package, and what will happen when my currently 12 month Line Rental Saver deal comes to an end - but, several times, I've almost lost the will to live in the process of doing so!

My brane herts after reading these two posts. :-( I have Anytime Free, but I got it before it had to be on contract, and I pay at the end of each quarter via Home Banking.

Recently I was persuaded to register online with BG, so that I could submit gas meter readings online. I duly submitted my next reading.

The next event was a phone call telling me sternly that my gas bill was "due immediately". I had received no bill, but eventually I was told that I had not unticked the "paperless billing" option when I registered. I told them that I was not prepared to check their site every day to find out if there was a new bill, and insisted that they send me a paper bill, to act as a reminder.

Quite. I think they make it overcomplicated on purpose so that people cannot easily check their own bills.

Do they have an email address?

I've finally got around to ditching BT partly because they still owe me £5 they overcharged me a year ago! On the "sorry you are leaving" letter they said that they would be charging me extra for leaving my contract early (I'm not in a such a contract). So it looks like more hassle is expected.

I don't think they publish it, but if you start with an on-line complaint form you will get a reply from bt_com_openworld snipped-for-privacy@mailuk.custhelp.com along with a complaint reference number. You can than carry on a dialogue, using that address.

I moved Broadband and phone from BT, after a call to an agressive man who said I could have limited BB for only a few pounds more than the unlimited I was moving to, and why wouldn't I just take his offer! The Broadband move went through 22 December (and the speed jumped up by 70% even over the same wires) and the phone line 17 January.

I got a bill on 29 January which showed a refund of line rental from

I tried and online chat complaint and was then told that my broadband had not been cancelled! tried to explain that it had. It does not work. The new companies BB works but was told I would have to contact the cancellation line to cancel the broadband.

Eventually spoke to someone who accepted that if the code has been used and the other company is spplying the broadband etc then it was cancelled. He "sent an email". Checked the account online the other day to see no change. Spoke to someone online and was told that the online account does not change more often than once a quater! Got an updated figure for the refund and waiting for it to appear in the bank. I will then cancell the DD immediately.

BTW the new company takes a paymwent monthly by DD that covers the standard charges and any additional expenditure as listed on the bill. None of theis rediculous BT "budget" stuff.

Also waiting to see a statement of account to confirm that the refund is actually correct.

Thanks, I'll try that when I get my final bill.

I tried emailing this address. I didn't get a reply but bizarrely did receive a "customer (dis)satisfaction survey".

I think they probably only answer emails sent to that address if there's a complaint number in the header. You won't have a complaint number to quote until they've logged your complaint! As I suggested above, you need to start not with an email but with their on-line complaint form. When they respond by email, you can reply to *that* and then continue exchanging emails until the problem is either resolved or until you give up, or die.

I won't use an online complaint form because there is less traceability, and they have mandatory fields that I don't want to fill in. I will write a letter instead.

It's your choice!

And now in March, BT still can't figure it out to refund the credit (overpayment) since their services were cancelled. OTOH they still want me to pay them £25 a month towards the services they don't provide. DD has been stopped. If I don't get an answer this week that a cheque for the full amount is in the post I will have to raise a formal complaint.

Also fed up with being told that the person I am talking to has to email the details to someone else to sort out. Next time I want to talk to the person who can sort it.

They won't be "customer facing".

When I asked what that meant they said it meant they hadn't been trained to speak to the public. I said that I hadn't but that didn't stop me.

Good luck with that. I raised a formal complaint and they denied they had overcharged me, despite having already admitted it in the past. In their letter they even got wrong how long I had been a customer.

I'm just deciding whether to try the Ombudsman or whether to go straight to court.

Got a final bill today. Includes refunds from 4 March 2012 but nothing from 22 December 2012 when the service switched.

They have also added a £30 cessation charge for no valid reason.

Even Talk-Talk were better than that.

I'm afraid it doesn't surprise me. There are no expletives extreme enough to describe them. The only thing I can suggest is to use the Ombudsman or sue them as I will.