I have just received a phone bill from BT and was astonished to find I have been charged £1.75 per month for Caller Display since 4/1/14.
I have never, ever requested this service.
I rang and spoke to BT. They said it had been free before 4/1/14 but was now charged for.
They said I should consult the letter when I joined BT. I replied that I had joined BT 24 years ago - did the agent really think I had a letter from 24 years ago and in any case I strongly doubted that it mentioned Caller Display.
I then said that they could not legally charge me for a service I had never requested. I said that if I was not refunded then I would regard the matter as fraud and I would call the police.
The agent immediately agreed to refund the charge and cancel the service.
I still regard the matter as shocking. How many people are now paying for this without realising it?
Although you didn't request it, did you still have the caller ID service? Did you ever request the "privacy at home service"? It was that service that provided it for free, as well as signing you up to the TPS.
I had an email last year telling me that it would no longer be free from January, unless you agreed to a new yearly contract (which is what I did).
Everyone I know who use BT, either got the email, or received a letter about it last year.
Everyone I know who use BT, either got the email, or received a letter about it last year.
Yep, me too. There's always a few that's missed though, but I just added "answerphone" to my Christmas list and Santa provided one, so I can use that instead!
I rarely use the landline so opted out of the caller display service immediately upon receiving the email from BT late last year. I wonder how many customers are unwittingly paying for this previously free service because they don't properly check their bill. I'm still annoyed that BT got rid of the discount for paperless billing, but I guess it has to fund its pension deficit one way or another.
Although you didn't request it, did you still have the caller ID service? Did you ever request the "privacy at home service"? It was that service that provided it for free, as well as signing you up to the TPS.
I had an email last year telling me that it would no longer be free from January, unless you agreed to a new yearly contract (which is what I did).
Everyone I know who use BT, either got the email, or received a letter about it last year.
Thanks for your reply.
No, I didn't have the Caller ID service. Or should I say I'm not aware of having it. My phone (ie the physical phone) is at least 10 years old and I don't think it's even capable of showing Caller ID.
No, I didn't request the "privacy at home service" either.
But thanks for your advice - I guess it's possible I did get a letter and just threw it away without reading it carefully enough.
Because I have never had any interest in any of these services I may just not have taken enough care when receiving a letter about them.
I choose to pay for this because I want to know who is calling before I pick it up, it shouldn't be charged for, it's standard with mobile phones and Skype, it's a simple enough technology these days isn't it?
We have caller display & we also have four calling features but we only used three of them call waiting, call divert & ring back I called BT & they put caller display in the package so we don't pay the extra in all it is £7 a month for the extra calling features still it's £1.79 less to pay.
Everyone I know who use BT, either got the email, or received a letter about it last year.
I received neither. And actually any changes to pricing should be by letter not by email in my opinion. Emails are far too prone to getting trapped in spam filters. They did this to us before when they changed the off-peak threshold from 6pm to 7pm. No letter then either so only found out 3 months after it had happened. Strangely, the quarterly bill never fails to get delivered. Odd that isn't it :rolleyes:
Charging for caller display was the last resort for us so we cancelled. BT are now one of the most expensive providers yet their service is terrible. Our attempts to cancel resulted in a call to an offshore call centre where the operator could barely understand me and likewise I could barely understand him. He also cut me off whilst he "checked my account". It took three calls to get rid of BT, each call as painful as the last.
Also surprisingly, their attempt to keep me at BT was to offer to remove the caller display charge for a year. Their generousity was underwhelming, particularly for a customer that had always paid on time. I wasn't actually after a deal but it's nice to get offered something as it shows the company values your custom.
We also got a letter and email to say caller display would no long be free.
We joined the BT privacy at home service over 2 years ago.
Also we are still on the old evening and weekend call package that BT was offering with Infinity a good while ago but I may ask to downgrade to just weekend calls only when we renew our BT contracts come December. As we don't used the landline as much as we used to.
Everyone need a landline for broadband and BT TV services.
I bet most like me will find that there package fees will come to much more than the cost of there calls every bill.
When I was with BT my bill would have rose to nearly £50.00 with the anytime package, line rental and BT Infinity. As soon as I got the e-mail giving me the 10 days notice to leave without a penalty telephoned BT up and asked for cancellation, they asked why I just told them that it was scandalous that they started charging for caller display that there prices were a rip off and customer services was crap.
I moved over to Plusnet (which is a part of BT) and for the exactly same I get it at £32.00 for the first 9 months and then after it is £39.00. I also get great customer service from Plusnet who seem to know what they are talking about and the great thing is customer service is based in the UK, even though the first couple of weeks there was a total cock-up, but ended up getting 2 free months from Plusnet for the disruption of service, but after that cannot fault them and have had not problems since.
Our quarterly bill was just under £80. Our calls, just under £8. So our calls are now 1/10th of our bill. Crazy.
I do agree it's crazy my last bill the package fees came to £90 plus line retail and calls just under £5 for the quarter. Next bill I think the package fees will be dearer as I now got BT TV services. So far since last bill back in January we have only made £1.30 worth of calls plus two free calls.
I moved over to Plusnet (which is a part of BT) and for the exactly same I get it at £32.00 for the first 9 months and then after it is £39.00.
I moved to Sky for phone as they offer the caller display for free and are a few quid a month cheaper on top of that. All in all I'll be saving £5 a month and avoid BT's crappy offshore call centres (by far the worst 'customer service' experience I've ever had). I'm sure Sky have their own issues but I've found they have a higher percentage of UK call centres than BT. To be honest, I'm probably a year away from removing the telephone line completely. Broadband Internet is probably the only reason why the landline hasn't yet got the way of the dodo. But I'm using Virgin as my broadband provider so don't need a landline for that.
BT Privacy
BT Privacy is a service that gives you more control over incoming calls. It registers you for the Telephone Preference Service (TPS), which helps stop unwanted sales calls. We also offer BT Privacy with Caller Display which allows you to see the number of the person who’s calling.
BT Privacy with Caller Display costs £1.75 a month, but you can sign up to get it free for a year at www.bt.com/myfeatures (a new 12-month line rental contract applies).
I moved to Sky for phone as they offer the caller display for free and are a few quid a month cheaper on top of that. All in all I'll be saving £5 a month and avoid BT's crappy offshore call centres (by far the worst 'customer service' experience I've ever had). I'm sure Sky have their own issues but I've found they have a higher percentage of UK call centres than BT. To be honest, I'm probably a year away from removing the telephone line completely. Broadband Internet is probably the only reason why the landline hasn't yet got the way of the dodo. But I'm using Virgin as my broadband provider so don't need a landline for that.
Its embarrassing that a phone company has literally such appalling customer service when you ring them.
If BT tried to make a cup of tea it would take at least 6 staff to make it - no one seems to be able to deal with more than one task.
And you are regularly misled or given inaccurate information - because what you agree on the phone with their staff is just randomly changed after by their computer. They even change monthly direct debits without informing me in advance which was £20 higher than the sum on my quarterly bill.
I have since moved to Sky - not perfect but I could never deal with BT again. They shouldn't even be allowed to use the name British!
Its embarrassing that a phone company has literally such appalling customer service when you ring them.
If BT tried to make a cup of tea it would take at least 6 staff to make it - no one seems to be able to deal with more than one task.
And you are regularly misled or given inaccurate information - because what you agree on the phone with their staff is just randomly changed after by their computer. They even change monthly direct debits without informing me in advance which was £20 higher than the sum on my quarterly bill.
I have since moved to Sky - not perfect but I could never deal with BT again. They shouldn't even be allowed to use the name British!
Totally agree l have just finished a rant with BT, my bill with them and by DD is usually £46.50 a month, which is unlimited broadband and calls anytime. Checked my account to find they have taken £65 from my account. No email, no letter. To be informed by their useless customer service that l have been underpaying. I pointed out l have a package which THEY decide the cost and set the DD, how is that MY fault, which what was being implied.
It does not help that the person being spoken to can hardly be understood, l can't even log onto my account on line, as my security is too severe on my computer, how ludicrous. If l have paper bills they will charge me £1.50 per bill. Poxy company.
BT are a joke , my ebill came and my Infinity 2 costs have gone from £26 to £27.65 never had any notification via email , mail or phone call , to rub it in even further its £25 for new customers.
After the first 12 months I'm left with the decision of renewing my line rental saver which has also increased or paying monthly at a whopping £16.99.
BT Sport also becomes chargeable after 12 months unless I recontract.
BT are a joke , my ebill came and my Infinity 2 costs have gone from £26 to £27.65 never had any notification via email , mail or phone call , to rub it in even further its £25 for new customers.
After the first 12 months I'm left with the decision of renewing my line rental saver which has also increased or paying monthly at a whopping £16.99.
BT Sport also becomes chargeable after 12 months unless I recontract.
Free BT Sport what a laugh.
Try the co-op, £15.50/month line rental and £18/month for fibre broadband (£25 setup and £6 router p&p). Saves paying for the football. They've great customer service and no hidden charges - a breath of fresh air! You'd have to check the superfast speed, give them a ring. http://thephone.coop
BT are a joke , my ebill came and my Infinity 2 costs have gone from £26 to £27.65 never had any notification via email , mail or phone call , to rub it in even further its £25 for new customers.
After the first 12 months I'm left with the decision of renewing my line rental saver which has also increased or paying monthly at a whopping £16.99.
BT Sport also becomes chargeable after 12 months unless I recontract.
Free BT Sport what a laugh.
You need to box clever. My last 18 month contract is up and I didn't want to contract for more than 12 months next time so I read up on it at BT.com. It didn't answer all my questions so I phoned them for clarification. Glad I did.
The 12 month Infinity 2 bundle includes weekend only calls (not weekends and evenings) but is £2 cheaper than the 18 monther, at £28, but I had some queries. He clarified, then I said thanks and that I would probably sign up on the website later but at that point, he stopped me with an offer. £24 a month and free privacy+caller display for 12 months he said (saving me about £5.50pm in spite of a shorter contract). The fact that I am on Line Rental Saver made no difference.
Naturally, I grabbed it with both hands and of course, I continue to get BT Sport free. What I think they are doing here is making certain that you really do sign up for 12 months by making an offer, rather than taking a chance on you changing your mind after ending the call. Advisor was happy. I am happy.
The moral is... before recontracting, do your BT online research but do not sign up online, phone them to say you are just thinking about recontracting... and that will probably trigger an offer.
You need to box clever. My last 18 month contract is up and I didn't want to contract for more than 12 months next time so I read up on it at BT.com. It didn't answer all my questions so I phoned them for clarification. Glad I did.
The 12 month Infinity 2 bundle includes weekend only calls (not weekends and evenings) but is £2 cheaper than the 18 monther, at £28, but I had some queries. He clarified, then I said thanks and that I would probably sign up on the website later but at that point, he stopped me with an offer. £24 a month and free privacy+caller display for 12 months he said (saving me about £5.50pm in spite of a shorter contract). The fact that I am on Line Rental Saver made no difference.
Naturally, I grabbed it with both hands and of course, I continue to get BT Sport free. What I think they are doing here is making certain that you really do sign up for 12 months by making an offer, rather than taking a chance on you changing your mind after ending the call. Advisor was happy. I am happy.
The moral is... before recontracting, do your BT online research but do not sign up online, phone them to say you are just thinking about recontracting...
Or even better ask for your MAC, so they think you want to leave. I managed to get unlimited Infinity 1 down to a few pence over £15/month for 12 months this way. It was £23/month at the time. Seems they've now reduced that to £18/month for new sign ups.
Or even better ask for your MAC, so they think you want to leave. I managed to get unlimited Infinity 1 down to a few pence over £15/month for 12 months this way.
I missed a trick there as I recently subscribed to a BT TV Youview 12 months offer (on the back of my Infinity 2) so I could lower my Sky TV costs, so I couldn't threaten to leave, it would have been obvious that I wasn't going to leave. However... in 12 months' time, I will know exactly what to do!
I missed a trick there as I recently subscribed to a BT TV Youview 12 months offer (on the back of my Infinity 2) so I could lower my Sky TV costs, so I couldn't threaten to leave, it would have been obvious that I wasn't going to leave. However... in 12 months' time, I will know exactly what to do!
Yeah, threatening to leave always seems to work best with companies. I'm always doing it with Sky, BT and insurance companies. If you add it all up you save £thousands over the years. Better in our pocket than theirs ;-)
Comments
I had an email last year telling me that it would no longer be free from January, unless you agreed to a new yearly contract (which is what I did).
Everyone I know who use BT, either got the email, or received a letter about it last year.
Yep, me too. There's always a few that's missed though, but I just added "answerphone" to my Christmas list and Santa provided one, so I can use that instead!
Thanks for your reply.
No, I didn't have the Caller ID service. Or should I say I'm not aware of having it. My phone (ie the physical phone) is at least 10 years old and I don't think it's even capable of showing Caller ID.
No, I didn't request the "privacy at home service" either.
But thanks for your advice - I guess it's possible I did get a letter and just threw it away without reading it carefully enough.
Because I have never had any interest in any of these services I may just not have taken enough care when receiving a letter about them.
I received neither. And actually any changes to pricing should be by letter not by email in my opinion. Emails are far too prone to getting trapped in spam filters. They did this to us before when they changed the off-peak threshold from 6pm to 7pm. No letter then either so only found out 3 months after it had happened. Strangely, the quarterly bill never fails to get delivered. Odd that isn't it :rolleyes:
Charging for caller display was the last resort for us so we cancelled. BT are now one of the most expensive providers yet their service is terrible. Our attempts to cancel resulted in a call to an offshore call centre where the operator could barely understand me and likewise I could barely understand him. He also cut me off whilst he "checked my account". It took three calls to get rid of BT, each call as painful as the last.
Also surprisingly, their attempt to keep me at BT was to offer to remove the caller display charge for a year. Their generousity was underwhelming, particularly for a customer that had always paid on time. I wasn't actually after a deal but it's nice to get offered something as it shows the company values your custom.
Adios BT.
We joined the BT privacy at home service over 2 years ago.
Also we are still on the old evening and weekend call package that BT was offering with Infinity a good while ago but I may ask to downgrade to just weekend calls only when we renew our BT contracts come December. As we don't used the landline as much as we used to.
Everyone need a landline for broadband and BT TV services.
I bet most like me will find that there package fees will come to much more than the cost of there calls every bill.
Darren
Our quarterly bill was just under £80. Our calls, just under £8. So our calls are now 1/10th of our bill. Crazy.
I moved over to Plusnet (which is a part of BT) and for the exactly same I get it at £32.00 for the first 9 months and then after it is £39.00. I also get great customer service from Plusnet who seem to know what they are talking about and the great thing is customer service is based in the UK, even though the first couple of weeks there was a total cock-up, but ended up getting 2 free months from Plusnet for the disruption of service, but after that cannot fault them and have had not problems since.
I do agree it's crazy my last bill the package fees came to £90 plus line retail and calls just under £5 for the quarter. Next bill I think the package fees will be dearer as I now got BT TV services. So far since last bill back in January we have only made £1.30 worth of calls plus two free calls.
Darren
I moved to Sky for phone as they offer the caller display for free and are a few quid a month cheaper on top of that. All in all I'll be saving £5 a month and avoid BT's crappy offshore call centres (by far the worst 'customer service' experience I've ever had). I'm sure Sky have their own issues but I've found they have a higher percentage of UK call centres than BT. To be honest, I'm probably a year away from removing the telephone line completely. Broadband Internet is probably the only reason why the landline hasn't yet got the way of the dodo. But I'm using Virgin as my broadband provider so don't need a landline for that.
Thanks.
Not unless you pay £1.75/month or commit to a new 12 month contract
http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/8098
BT Privacy
BT Privacy is a service that gives you more control over incoming calls. It registers you for the Telephone Preference Service (TPS), which helps stop unwanted sales calls. We also offer BT Privacy with Caller Display which allows you to see the number of the person who’s calling.
BT Privacy with Caller Display costs £1.75 a month, but you can sign up to get it free for a year at www.bt.com/myfeatures (a new 12-month line rental contract applies).
Its embarrassing that a phone company has literally such appalling customer service when you ring them.
If BT tried to make a cup of tea it would take at least 6 staff to make it - no one seems to be able to deal with more than one task.
And you are regularly misled or given inaccurate information - because what you agree on the phone with their staff is just randomly changed after by their computer. They even change monthly direct debits without informing me in advance which was £20 higher than the sum on my quarterly bill.
I have since moved to Sky - not perfect but I could never deal with BT again. They shouldn't even be allowed to use the name British!
Totally agree l have just finished a rant with BT, my bill with them and by DD is usually £46.50 a month, which is unlimited broadband and calls anytime. Checked my account to find they have taken £65 from my account. No email, no letter. To be informed by their useless customer service that l have been underpaying. I pointed out l have a package which THEY decide the cost and set the DD, how is that MY fault, which what was being implied.
It does not help that the person being spoken to can hardly be understood, l can't even log onto my account on line, as my security is too severe on my computer, how ludicrous. If l have paper bills they will charge me £1.50 per bill. Poxy company.
I have no trouble logging on to my account.
After the first 12 months I'm left with the decision of renewing my line rental saver which has also increased or paying monthly at a whopping £16.99.
BT Sport also becomes chargeable after 12 months unless I recontract.
Free BT Sport what a laugh.
Try the co-op, £15.50/month line rental and £18/month for fibre broadband (£25 setup and £6 router p&p). Saves paying for the football. They've great customer service and no hidden charges - a breath of fresh air! You'd have to check the superfast speed, give them a ring. http://thephone.coop
You need to box clever. My last 18 month contract is up and I didn't want to contract for more than 12 months next time so I read up on it at BT.com. It didn't answer all my questions so I phoned them for clarification. Glad I did.
The 12 month Infinity 2 bundle includes weekend only calls (not weekends and evenings) but is £2 cheaper than the 18 monther, at £28, but I had some queries. He clarified, then I said thanks and that I would probably sign up on the website later but at that point, he stopped me with an offer. £24 a month and free privacy+caller display for 12 months he said (saving me about £5.50pm in spite of a shorter contract). The fact that I am on Line Rental Saver made no difference.
Naturally, I grabbed it with both hands and of course, I continue to get BT Sport free. What I think they are doing here is making certain that you really do sign up for 12 months by making an offer, rather than taking a chance on you changing your mind after ending the call. Advisor was happy. I am happy.
The moral is... before recontracting, do your BT online research but do not sign up online, phone them to say you are just thinking about recontracting... and that will probably trigger an offer.
Or even better ask for your MAC, so they think you want to leave. I managed to get unlimited Infinity 1 down to a few pence over £15/month for 12 months this way. It was £23/month at the time. Seems they've now reduced that to £18/month for new sign ups.
I missed a trick there as I recently subscribed to a BT TV Youview 12 months offer (on the back of my Infinity 2) so I could lower my Sky TV costs, so I couldn't threaten to leave, it would have been obvious that I wasn't going to leave. However... in 12 months' time, I will know exactly what to do!
Yeah, threatening to leave always seems to work best with companies. I'm always doing it with Sky, BT and insurance companies. If you add it all up you save £thousands over the years. Better in our pocket than theirs ;-)