Posted on Friday 12 September 2008
I used a BT Payphone from Gatwick airport recently. Shocked that the minimum price of a call had gone up to 40p and I only had 20p, I opted to use my Visa debit card. I was on the phone for less than two minutes. I checked my bank account today and I was charged £9.60 for the call!
So, in a state of bewilderment I called BT to have this obvious fault rectified. The friendly American voice at the other end told me that she would see what she could do as it was the first time i’d used the service. She then came back on the phone and told me that she would credit me “4.8 dollars”. Confused, I asked her to clarify if that would be £4.80 or US$4.80, and she confirmed that it would be half the price of the call: £4.80.
Further confused and bewildered, I asked her if I had been charged £4.80 per minute of the call, and that this was not a simple error in their systems. When she confirmed that was the case, I then asked who I could speak to about this situation as BT’s website clearly states the charge is 20 pence per minute with a £1 connection charge. I was then told that she did not know what was on the website, but that since I hadn’t asked the price before I called, I must have been unware of the charge for the service.
She then endevoured to find someone else I could speak to, but instead informed me that she had checked with her supervisor and I would be credited the full £9.60 as it was the first time I had used the service. Somewhat infuriated by this point, I asked who in BT I could speak to regarding the fact that they charge £4.80 per minute for a call, when their website clearly states the price at 20 pence per minute. I was first told that there was no one who could deal with such a request, then after I contested this I was transferred to the supervisor (another friendly American accent - do BT use US call centres?) who told me that he would take my points and transfer them to the relevant party.
Am I going crazy? Am I living in a parallel universe? Can BT honestly charge people £4.80 per minute to use a Payphone? Is that legal when their website clearly states the price? This is all somewhat worrying as it’s the day after i’ve just signed a 5 year BT Business contract!
I am getting increasingly suspicious about the devious ways that BT have to scam Customers and whilst I have a few direct experiences I am quite surprised that a blue chip UK can giant can openly operate the scams depicted on this and other web sites. In my case I was using Onetel and because their service was becoming extremely unreliable I looked around and decided that I may even be able to save money with BT line rental and broadband having seen the heavy advertiing around late summer. I had been with BT for a few years previous to the couple of years with Onetel but I was shocked when out of the blue came a connection fee of £125. How could they levy this charge without prewarning. When challenged tey said tat they had to send smeone out to make the change and that was the reason for the cost. Well no one came to my house or even near it so I dont know whjat they did but the main point is they cant just charge a fee witout pre warning. Another scam that came to light is when I had difficulties connecting a perfectly good PC that was connected to Onetel broadband to BT broadband. I gave them remote assistance and they messed around with my configuration before concluding that I had to be transferred t another number to get it resolved. I asked if there would be a charge and they said no, however after getting into a deep discussion with the new contact engineer it transpired that for him to sort it out I would have to agree to an annual technical support fee (which I promptly declined) My views on BT have totally changed now and I do not trust them at all and wonder how a company so large can operate such scams.