BT Phone Bills

[Fran]

I wonder how many of you actually sit down and check your itemised phone bill. You will be surprised how many calls were made from your phone when no one was in the house, or the number of phone numbers youve called that you havent. Am I right?!!

[dx100uk]

it'll be that ruddy sky box i bet!

dx

[pmcd]

Every time I get a BT Phone BIll I automatically phone the sub-continent and tell them I'm switching to Sky. In every case, my Direct Debit goes down by a lot, and the number of "phantom calls" actually reduces to zero. The trick is to be scrupulously polite to the phone-jockey, and praise him/her for their kind help at the end of each encounter. They're so used to being shouted at, that someone passing on kind words presses all sorts of buttons!. These calls are free. Good luck!

[Phill]

Never ever had any phantom calls ever, from any supplier. Are you sure your neighbour hasn't got an extension plumbed into your line?

[poppett]

Even when we had a line rental only from BT the payment was never the same two months running. Not just by a few pence either.

When I had calls with them as well we kept a diary beside the phone with every call we made and checked it against the itemised bills. Most months there were some phantom numbers.

Not sure if it still happens now, but in the exchanges the operators could tap into a line to make personal calls on their break. Had a few calls to Oz come up on my bill when I lived in Inverness and that was what it was traced back to.

[Fran]

I will have more to tell you AFTER tomorrow, cant say more just now.

[Crackeday]

I worked for Bt many moons ago and if i had a pound for every time "phantom" calls appeared on a bill Id be rich!.
The majority of calls can be explained away and are normally made correctly. Quite often once you google a number you find out who it is and viola you remember that Billy no mates was round that day and asked to use your phone to call a plumber etc, or the grandkids were playing games on the Sky box.
After all as a bill is normally quarterly and if you can remember where you were every day for the last 3 months and at which time then your a bleeding mastermind!!!! :)

[Alice in Blunderland]

Just had to phone BT after checking our latest Bill.

I phoned to cancel BT vision in December as the kids have never used it in ages but I was tied into a year and a half contract which had ended.Its charged on my bill again. The lady is off to check the call as the advisor has left no notes on my account but has signed me up for another contract which I am now paying for !!!! or not as I am going to cancel my account and move if this ones not sorted. So thanks to reading Fran's post I was a little more carfeul in checking this months bill.

[poppett]

They (BT) charged my dad for broadband to two addresses on opposite sides of the town to the same telephone number for thirteen months. Not even apologetic about it either and wanted to let it be used up as credit, not repay the money when they were caught out.

[gollach]

I had to phone BT about a fault with my Vision box. Someone at BT had reset it so it would no longer record freeview programmes. I got it fixed but when I rang 8 months later to negotiate a better contract, they told me that the advisor who reset my BT Vision had started me over on a new 18 month contract for BT Vision, phone and internet. I complained and got discounted bill (£15 a month off) for the rest of those 18 months. Nice to get money off but their business practises are worrying.

[Phill]

I think BT are quite good-ish really. We signed up and paid the line rental in advance (£120 for 12 months) and got a cheque back for £150 as a signing up bonus, then they sent me 2 lots of routers n' tellyboxes n' gubbins.

[Fran]

I worked for Bt many moons ago and if i had a pound for every time "phantom" calls appeared on a bill Id be rich!.
The majority of calls can be explained away and are normally made correctly. Quite often once you google a number you find out who it is and viola you remember that Billy no mates was round that day and asked to use your phone to call a plumber etc, or the grandkids were playing games on the Sky box.
After all as a bill is normally quarterly and if you can remember where you were every day for the last 3 months and at which time then your a bleeding mastermind!!!! :)




I have a book which tells where and when date and time where i was for my work, which is very handy. But even though i have been in Inverness, I can prove this, but i am still being charged for calls made during that time.

[Mrs Bucket]

Curious to know what difference an old cordless phone would make and how old is old.Know what I mean. Tjanks

[Crackeday]

Curious to know what difference an old cordless phone would make and how old is old.Know what I mean. Tjanks
On older cordless phones it was possible to connect to someone elses line and use their "base station" to make phone calls, thankfully it rarely happens now.

[badger]

Downloaded my BT bill yesterday and decided it was much too complicated to work out. They changed their prices so it's full of refunds for what was paid in advance at the old rate and charges at the new rate. Since I seemed to finish up in credit and don't have an itemised bill as I discovered long ago it was cheaper to have a calling plan that gives me free calls any time, I have stopped worrying. If you're home all day it's quite nice to know you can chat any time for as long as you like without thinking about the cost.

[bekisman]

I'm on BT (Broadband and Anytime phone) I check my on-line account, and if you click on any number on the itemised bill it brings up a box in which you can write a name (of the person/organisation that number pertains to) it then automatically changes all those numbers to the name on the 4 pages..
I go through the numbers; checking against numbers in my mobile etc and it ends up with all numbers on the on-line account having a designated name.. Every now and then I check the account and simply scanning down the pages if it shows a number without a name; that then gets checked against my known numbers.

So far it all tallies up..

[Fran]

I have been carefully checking all calls then times,dates in my diary. This is under investigation so cant say anymore now.