Who to complain to?

This month my girlfriend's BT Broadband will was £25 more than normal. She phoned BT to ask why, and the customer service person refused to discuss it with her and just repeated that she would have to pay the bill. She phoned back later and got someone else more helpful who explained that it was a late payment charge because they'd switched her to electronic billing without telling her, he apologised and said they would return her to paper billing but said that she would still have to pay the late payment charge. This seems completely wrong to me, but the customer service people won't budge - who can she complain to?

BT firstly. Ask for their complaints procedure and follow that.

If and when it comes to a point where BT refuse to do anything, they'll issue a dead-lock letter. Once you have this, then complain to their ADR who should take the matter a little more seriously.

Matt

Or the op could always go straight to the bt organ grinder and E-mail Ian Livingston

[email protected]

Now done, thanks

I do think it would be a better experience for customers if the customer support people could do basic front line complaints though. The first lady spoke very poor english and could only repeat the same phrase that she would have to pay the bill, she was rude and refused to discuss the complaint at all. The second guy spoke better english and was at least prepared to explain what the problem was, but also refused to discuss the complaint.

Confusion arises sometimes because some companies "Customer Support" department handles all interactions with the customer. Others have separate departments for technical help, sales, accounts, and so on.

BT has these separate departments, and often the staff in the wrong one aren't trained to handle questiojs that aren't in their script.

So broadband Customer Service can be almost guaranteed not to be able to handle a billing query. Scroll down to the "Help" section on this page to see what I mean, and from there you can get to this page.

The phone number given in The Phone Book for Billing Enquiries is 0800 443311, though maybe that is only phone billing .

We've received a reply from BT, it says they are very sorry about the late payment fee but the charge will be maintained on the account as the account was not paid on time. It also says that they wouldn't have changed the billing (from paper to electronic) without being asked to. I'm mad as hell with the lying [censored] now, nobody asked them to change the billing.

Ask for details of how and by whom the change was requested, and if it was by phone would they please let you have a transcript of the recording.

You need to make a formal complaint through whatever procedure they have, telling them this is a prelude to a complaint to "Ombudsman Services: Communications", (that's the new name for Otelo ), and if they won't budge get a formal letter saying words to the effect of "tough luck". Rather like you have now.

You can see on the linked page what to do.

I believe that will cost BT a couple of hundred quid, and also maybe get a result.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 19-Apr-11 23:36:28)

Does GF have a BT At Home online a/c? If so, check there for payment method. Perhaps she changed it there.