BT "important changes"

And then they fail to explain everything. What a surprise. You make lots of good points that equally apply to other forms of misleading advertising.

I've started using phonecheap for mobile and international calls and this lets you avoid BTs higher charges whilst not having to set up any other accounts or do anything fiddly.

BT are not very good value for money on calls but I find I need them for line rental as it anything goes wrong with your phone and you are not with BT it takes an age to resolve. Also you need it for most broadband suppliers - BT still have a monopoly in many ways.

Same here, and I'm on option 1 which right now mean I only spend 5p for any call up to 1 hour, evenings and weekends. If I am reading the letter correctly, the evening calls will now be billed per minute, which means it's time to change options.

The letter is a bit deceptive in that you need to read the booklet carefully tospot the gotcha on evening calls...

I often think that Joseph Goebbels would be very impressed by British Telecom in the way they announce price reductions when they are putting up prices. Their front in blatantly denying the truth amazes me.

It is generally recommended to keep your line rental with BT as that gives you full control over who carries your calls but that doesn't mean you should not pay BT as little as possible.

You didn't mention it but line rental is going up unless you keep it on electronic billing with direct debit as I have done. The other big increase this time is in the cost of evening calls which are going back to per minute billing rather than the fixed fee.

I have Primus Saver Option 2 as CPS for free evening and weekend calls and 18185 prefix for everything chargeable. This set up is described on moneysavingexpert.com website so I won't repeat it here.

Also watch BT for sneaky things as pressing 3 after 1471. This causes your call to pass over BT at their high prices and they also charge you for the privilege whether the call is connected or not!

Which is certainly my aim...

Yes, I was aware of that, but I started realising my post was spiralling out of control in length!

I could write volumes of books on the sheer dodgy tactics employed by most companies' marketing departments these days - it frustrates and angers me every single day.

I guess that I must be in the minority of people who actually read the small print and think past the sparkling marketing pitter-patter to get to the bottom of how much its going to cost and I wish more people did that and then took action accordingly.

Consumers need to get irrate with this smarmy underhanded sneering attitude these apparently untouchable companies use - they can't carry on getting away with it.

To me the way these companies are treating us is just like a manifested reflection of the way our society has gone - look the other way when something's wrong - don't do anything about it - don't make a fool of yourself and cause a fuss. Don't stand out. Just accept you can't change things and get on with something else. Its not that much, etc, etc. That's why we're known as Treasure Island for heaven's sake!

And to think people died fighting for us to be here and instead of putting up a fight ourselves, society carries on taking it, being well and truly stuffed by company after company.

In the end when you really think it through, mind-boggling as it is, you can even understand why they do it - we'll push it as far as we can, they think - profits will go up.

On the one hand its the bloody taxman and on the other its these poxy companies with their underhanded tricks for conning more money out of people whilst telling you that they are saving you money! They're in a pact to rid us of our money, I swear!

I fully support moneysavingsexpert.com on the ethos of getting back against these companies in consumer revenge. The more that people stand up to these dodgy tricks to make money, the sooner this will stop happening to British society. And if not, its hardly suprising that so many people emigrate from this foresaken isle!

Yeah, but how many times must you tell your wife/kids that before they actually do it? Aaaagghh! Its enough to drive you mad!

That is true (except that off peak calls of up to an hour currently cost

4.5p not 5p - so it's even worse than you say)

*However*, if you are prepared to sign up to a 12-month rolling contract, you can have evening calls for free, in addition to weekend calls, without having to pay for Option 2 per se.

This has been discussed ad nauseam in uk.telecom - go there for all the gory details, at your peril!

And I just noticed that if you use the 1280 CPS code to avoid Pipex's phone package and switch to BT instead (which you'd presumably do if you came across a situation where that was cheaper), Pipex say that they will charge you for this 1280 call at the highest rate applied either by themselves or by BT.

Surely that must be either incorrect or illegal - a breakout code which doesn't break you out, in effect.

Thanks for the pointer, you've just saved me a few quid. Just signed up for the offer, but i think if I'd just gone and logged on to my account and changed to option 2 I would have missed out on the freebie.

Bitstring , from the wonderful person Iain-M said

Me too. Although I was slightly bemused to find that the security certificate was incorrect for the 'freeevenings' part of the BT site, (at least so says firefox), and then the online system refused to believe my main number was a valid customer (my secondary number, no problem ..)

How scandalous!

If its not illegal or incorrect, then its certainly immoral. Not that that seems to be an issue in money making any more, sad as that is.

I can only hope these companies get what they deserve. Unfortunately, that can only happen by individuals dropping out of their dealings with them one by one...

This gets more confusing by the second - if you read:

then isn't it better if you are a customer currently on Plan 1 and wish to switch to plan 2 and currently don't make any calls at all using BT, to wait until the 1st April (who's the Fool?), rather than change now? Or is that only if you don't "claim the discounts" (ie paper-free and dd or monthly)??