AWFUL customer service

[ds1986]

Right I know this is the business forum, but there doesn't seem to be one for residential queries and I need somewhere to vent about how unbelievably awful BT's customer service is!

So basically, went to pay my phone bill for this month and saw that it was £70, £40 more than it should be. I see that they have charged £40 for 40GB extra internet that we supposedly used - which, having spoken to my housemate, seems implausible as we don't use the internet that much really (and haven't changed our habits from previous months when we didn't go over).

Anyway I called BT, they said that we had extra charges for March and there will be extra charges for April. I know they are supposed to send an email out warning that we are about to go over - I did not receive this. I stated this, they accused me of lying! The guy on the phone was completely unhelpful, just kept saying 'well this is what my computer says so it must be right', didn't offer any solution and said there was no discretion as to avoiding the charges. I have been a customer for three years, told them we are students here and really cannot afford these extra charges for something that we don't even think we've used, he remained dismissive and unhelpful the whole time.

Anyway I just needed to vent as I've never received such terrible service. It pains me more that BT can get away with it, being such a huge corporation and all.

I will be leaving BT for definite once I move out of this house in July - I'm paying double what my friends are paying for line rental and unlimited broadband and I get line rental and 40GB broadband...and crap service to boot! BT are awful.

Anyway, if anyone has any ideas as to what I could do next I would welcome them 🙂 My housemate and I are thoroughly annoyed right now.

[JohnE]

I am sorry that you have had this difficulty, dcs1986, it's not an unfamiliar story, we have customers on the Business side who occasionally breach their download restrictions and are charged for it.  Obviously, since you are a Residential customer, I really can't comment further.  You can post at the Residential forum here:

BTCare Community Forums

[chrisdavidge]

 As BT Business obviously won't help you, and BT residential will only beleave what their systems say, I can think of two possible explanations for this, but the second only applies if you have a wireless network in your house.

   1) BT have somehow partly mixed up your account with someone elses. Of course this is impossible, just like it is impossible for BT to give poor customer service. Or :

   2) If you house has wireless to each of your own rooms, have you checked that you wireless network is secure? That is, check that you have security turned on e.g. WPA. If you have security then you need to supply a security key (password) to access you network. The same key needs to be entered once onto every PC in your house. If you have no key then your network is unsecure and any of your neighbours, or even someone passing you house with a mobile phone can use your network to download data and BT think the extra 40GB is you downloading.

[JohnE]

The Router's logs should reveal what may be happening here.  In any case where excess usage charges are appealed, evidence from the logs would be one way of showing that the traffic did not come in via the router.  That still won't eliminate the possibility of a "Hacked" wireless network, in that case, the responsibility is completely with the End User.