BT mutter, mutter

Stonehead · Post: # 24310Post **Stonehead** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 3:30 pm

For some daft reason, BT insists that we pay Ã‚Â£55 a month into their coffers. The problem is, we don't run up that amount of phone calls in three months, much less each month.

So, we get phone bills like this quarter's of -Ã‚Â£186! And then we have to go through all the hassle of refunds. (We only make around Ã‚Â£15 of calls a quarter.)

I suspect it's all so BT can earn vast amounts of interest on the free loan that people like us are effectively giving them.

I'd change phone companies but, from past experience with a couple, they were even worse than BT. Maybe I should change to smoke and drums...

Stonehead

ina · Post: # 24312Post **ina** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 3:39 pm

A few months ago BT informed me that they had to charge me less per month in future... It does take them quite a while to work that out, though. How do they justify still charging you so much - if you ever got to talk to one of them?

Stonehead · Post: # 24315Post **Stonehead** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 4:00 pm

Their argument is that they have to charge more in case we suddenly increase our calls and run up a huge bill. It's completely spurious.

Stonehead

Andy Hamilton · Fri Jun 23, 2006 4:47 pm

I was thinking of going all skype at one point, need to look into that more. - I am sure that you can run the internet on an incomming calls only line.

Wormella · Post: # 24322Post **Wormella** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 5:12 pm

we have a bt line that comes to Ã‚Â£10 for the line rental but all our calls are managed by Pipex homecall and that only ever comes to a few pounds a month.

Like Ina 3 months after being on BT I got a phonecall from Homecall saying that due to BT's price reeze they were obligied to make my phonecalls cheaper.

the problem with most cheaper phone services is that they still need a BT line to run. (The same goes for a lot of Broadband internet) so your still paying line rental.

ina · Post: # 24328Post **ina** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 6:54 pm

Stonehead wrote:Their argument is that they have to charge more in case we suddenly increase our calls and run up a huge bill. It's completely spurious.

Stonehead

Maybe you should suggest that they should pay interest on all your money that they are holding? That would only be fair!

Millymollymandy · Sat Jun 24, 2006 5:18 am

Can't you just pay for the calls you've made on a bill (the normal way), or doesn't it work like that in the UK anymore?

Stonehead · Post: # 24383Post **Stonehead** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 6:12 am

Millymollymandy wrote:Can't you just pay for the calls you've made on a bill (the normal way), or doesn't it work like that in the UK anymore?

They want monthly direct debit and you effectively pay in advance for the quarter. If you're really unlucky, you pay too little and then find you still have a huge bill to pay. Not a problem for us, though!

Millymollymandy · Sat Jun 24, 2006 6:20 am

Well it's all changed since I lived there! I used to pay by direct debit but it was for the actual calls made, in arrears. Thankfully that's how it works with France Telecom.

Bloody cheeky of BT I reckon.

Martin · Post: # 24388Post **Martin** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 8:15 am

there are some good deals about at the moment -we were paying Ã‚Â£15.99 a month for Tiscali broadband, and have just upped it to Ã‚Â£19.99 - the extra Ã‚Â£4 a month provides all phone calls except mobile and foreign calls - still have to pay line rental to BT, but a heck of a lot cheaper! 8)
I've had years of hell from BT (eight years of the same line fault every time it rained - finally fixed earlier in the year), and several years of being "daxed" - (half speed internet connection -28k). I told them I'd be legging it for the horizon as soon as it was possible, and I have - utter b***ards!