Dispute with BT over BT sports bills.

I'll try to keep this brief but it is a bit confusing.
My mum who is 87 years old gets her broadband and phone through BT. She has been a BT customer for 60 years.
In May 2018 her contract for her broadband and phone came to an end. I don't know whether she called BT or they contacted her to renew. She ended up taking out a new contract on their highest FTTC 70/20 service with BT-TV, BT sports HD pack and Netflix as add ons. Remember she was 85 at that point. She doesn't watch any sport and didn't know what Netflix was, she thought it was a TV channel.

Within a few days she realised what she had done. She called them and told them she wanted to cancel the BT-TV, BT sports HD pack and Netflix. She received an email stating the contract, BT-TV, BT sports HD pack and Netflix had been cancelled.

Earlier this week she mentioned her bill was very high. I checked her account and saw she has been on the out of contract rate for the 2 years and she was also paying £18 per month for BT sports.
I called BT on her behalf to get a refund or credit for the 2 years of BT sports as that had been cancelled only to be told that she had not cancelled BT sports, she had only cancelled the BT sports HD pack and still had access to the app. As a gesture of goodwill they offered to credit her account with £30 as they can't credit for anything longer than 4 months ago and would definitely not credit the 2 years as it was so long ago.

I'm not worried about the out of contract rate as they did inform her that the new contract had been cancelled. The thing is she didn't realise the contract had been cancelled and just took the amount that came out of her direct debit was just the cost of the service which was around £50 per month and she was still in contract with them.

They said that they would also give her a discount on a new contract at £47 per month which I think is high for just phone and broadband. I said to downgrade her to lowest FTTC product. I was told the £47 per month was their lowest FTTC product.
I refused the £30 credit and the new contract and asked for the case to be escalated to a manager.
I will be getting a call from a manager tomorrow.

I was just wondering if anybody knows where we stand regarding this? The girl I spoke to said they had acted within OFCOM's rules and didn't understand why I wanted to escalate it.

Without hearing the original cancellation call it is difficult to say much. It is also difficult as people are generally responsible for keeping an eye on their bills especially where special term contracts are concerned. My mum has recently had a similar thing with BT where she has been paying for BT Sports and a £1 donation each month to charity (she has no idea how this came about). However, she didn't try to recover the payments and just put it down to her not checking the bill details.

You could try Citizen's Advice to see what they say. At your mother's age she could be considered vulnerable and therefore it may be possible to get more back due to that additional vulnerability to this sort of contract.

The agent said the same about not being able to listen to the cancellation call and BT sports has been visible on the bill for the 2 years and my mum should of cancelled it if she didn't want it.
Both my mum and me thought that when she received the email saying the BT sports HD had been cancelled it was a cancellation of BT sports as a whole.What wasn't made clear is that BT sports SD and BT sports HD pack are 2 separate products and if my mum wanted to cancel BT sports as a whole she needed to cancel both the SD and the HD pack..We could argue that when she called to cancel the agent should of asked if she wanted to cancel BT sports as a whole or just the HD pack. Without knowing what was said on the original call is making it more difficult.
The only recourse we might have is 2 weeks after my mum sent a letter to BT telling them she wanted them to send communications to a different email address. At the start of the letter she explained why she had cancelled BT-TV, Netflix and BT SPORTS. She specifically said BT sports and not just BT sports HD pack. The agent could see that a letter had been received but it was categorised as a change of email. The agent was unable to look at the letter as she was working from home and didn't have access to that facility.
I think it's because it appeared on the bill for 2 years without her querying it is the sticking point.

In reply to a post by funkydan:

I think it's because it appeared on the bill for 2 years without her querying it is the sticking point.

That's what being vulnerable is.

If they had any inkling that she was, then they should have taken appropriate care.

Typical response from these vast organisations. Suggest you contact the Daily Mail which seems to have a magic touch for getting results:

This is Money is an award-winning financial website and the money section of MailOnline, covering everything from personal finance to City, business and economy news.

If you have a story to tell, something you believe we need to know about, or think you've been wronged by a bank or company please email the details - briefly and with a clear subject line - to me, Simon Lambert, the editor of This is Money, or the team in confidence at [email protected]

Thank you all for your replies so far.

There has been a development. She has found some letters.
Amongst them is a confirmation letter from BT dated 30th May 2018 of the new service. This letter was received on 10th June 2018. It lists her new services as Calling plan, Superfast Fibre Plus Broadband and BT TV. There is absolutely no mention of BT sport anywhere in the confirmation letter. All services were to start on 31 May 2018. There is a 18 digit order number ending in 466.
In the letter it also says "A rooftop antenna is needed to receive BT TV". Her TV antenna is on the side of the house. You and I know it will still get the TV signal but she thought that she would have to get an antenna on the roof which she didn't want to do. That's when she phoned them on 10 June to cancel the order.

She received the email on 10th June saying the services are ending including BT sports HD which was not in in the original confirmation letter dated 30h May. This email has a different 18 digit order number ending in 757.

There is another letter from BT dated 10th June 2018. This was received around 21st June 2018. This letter is titled "Here's an update on your order". There is nothing in this letter regarding any services they were or would be supplying. The order number on this letter is the same as the email she received ending 757.
This is when she sent BT the letter asking what this new service was, explaining she had cancelled the services and advising them on the change of her email address.

Both the letters she received from BT in the post are addressed to Mr Friend XXXXX(our surname). Obviously she is a Mrs. The only correct part of the addressee is the surname.

I have not received a call back from a manager yet to put all this to him. I will update when/if they call.

Give the helpdesk until middle of next week to fully sort it out to your satisfaction. If that does not happen then a email to te CEO or Chariman that stresses how a vulnerable pensioner has been taken advantage of, along with copies of the letter should be your next step.

Not only that, but when the "upgrade order" and product was cancelled, a replacement retention offer should have been made rather than leaving her on the exorbitantly priced "out of contract" basis.

I agree with you totally......

I would also add, and I am sure you will, it is just that some don't, please keep your temper and language calm at all times.

By all means, enforce how important and upsetting this is for your elderly Mother, in the strongest terms. Just keep calm and polite.

As a trading company they are required to let you know that the phone call is recorded, if it is, you as a private citizen, don't have to inform anyone. I would personally record it, so in any future correspondence, you may quote the person calling you accurately.

Edit to correct grammar and spelling!

Edited by TrevorSP (Fri 12-Jun-20 19:27:00)

I know how stressful this can be, massive faceless firms and you never get to speak to the same person twice. I have had run ins with two telcos, two energy suppliers and my creditcard company. My standard complaint procedure now is to give their front line helpdesk one chance to fix it. I then escalate to their complaints team and then Ombudsman. No messing and in all 5 cases Ombudsman had found in my favour with low three figure levels of compensation.

BT Correspondence Centre, Providence Row, Durham, DH98 1BT. This should be your next point of contact, a firm letter sent recorded delivery with what you want to happen.

Edited by clmfsh (Sat 13-Jun-20 08:59:26)

There are good and useful suggestions from members. Thank you.
I escalated the complaint on the first call I made on Thursday. I got a call last night at 8:45pm from another agent. We went round in circles. Them still saying they had acted according to the rules and it was down to my mum to cancel the service. He understood she is vulnerable but he couldn't refund the whole 2 years. The most he could offer was to refund half back.
As I said in a post above my mum had sent them a letter explaining why she had cancelled the services including BT sports. There was a letter attached to my mums notes but the 1st agent couldn't see it at her end because she was working from home. This agent looked at the letter and it was a letter that they had sent out. They have no record of the letter that my mum had sent and it was not on her notes anywhere.
I did stay calm and polite. We refused the refund of 1 year and I have escalated it further.
I'll give the next agent a chance to see what they offer. If it's not satisfactory I will then start stepping it up by emailing the CEO and contacting OFCOM and BBC Watchdog.
It is frustrating as in the past 2 months due to an accident her health has deteriorated significantly which is why I've had to take over looking after her financial matters.

Just go for the CEOs office to start with. If you involve BBC and OFCOM that will both complicate things and maybe put the CEOs team on the defensive. Only if you do not get a reasonable resolution there involve external bodies.

Having dealt with the CEOs office - they have a lot of flexibility until you tie them down with OFCOM/regulatory.

+1

Agreed, I also went the CEO and Chairman route and that resolved my issue here.

Paul

In reply to a post by MHC:

Just go for the CEOs office to start with. If you involve BBC and OFCOM that will both complicate things and maybe put the CEOs team on the defensive. Only if you do not get a reasonable resolution there involve external bodies.

Having dealt with the CEOs office - they have a lot of flexibility until you tie them down with OFCOM/regulatory.

Very good advice. . Hopefully I will not have to go down that route.

Hi all.

I fired off an email on Monday emphasising how vulnerable my mum was and how the agent acted in a shady way by removing the BT sports HD pack when my mum called to cancel the services but not informing her that BT sports was still active on her account.

We had a call yesterday from a lady in the complaints specialist team and the good news is she has agreed to credit the whole amount back and removed BT sports from the account.

Thank you for all your concern and advice. It was very helpful.

Well done.

The High Level Complaints team at the CEO's office are invariably excellent, and literally have the power to make anything reasonable happen about problems that get brick-walled in the bureaucracy.

Is your mum still paying the high out of contract price though? You should be able to get her onto something much cheaper, even if staying with BT which I expect she would want to do.

Thanks Robert.

To be honest the lady I spoke to yesterday was excellent. Very pleasant and didn't go on the defensive as the other agents had. It was a very amicable conversation I had with her.

I have been talking to my mum over the past couple of days about moving her services to another supplier. I thought she would want to stay with BT but she said she wants to move to Plusnet.
I tried to get her to consider joining other suppliers like A&A or Zen as they are more expensive but the service and CS are much better. I even said about Pulse8 or 1pBroadband as they offer monthly rolling contracts and she could try them out for a month or two to see if she's happy but she is adamant she wants to go with Plusnet as 2 of her friends are with them and very happy.

Edit: I told her Plusnet is owned by BT but she wasn't bothered about it.

Edited by deleted (Thu 18-Jun-20 12:04:35)

Good news - I told you it would be best route and no need for OFCOM or the media.

As said, try to get her onto a new BT tariff - I know you say she is considering PlusNet but you should be able to get BT to match their pricing through the complaints team. Yes, she was stitched up by one shady character as you cal them, however this has been realised and resolved amicably so give BT a chance to continue..

You can also get a "vulnerable" marker on her account and have yourself named as an authorised contact which many suppliers will not do.

Hopefully she'll benefit from free calls to her friends, since Plusnet to Plusnet calls are free even without adding a calling package.

Thanks all. We signed her up for PlusNet earlier.
She's pleased about it as she had a few problems with BT before and after this has had enough of them.

Do you realise who PlusNet actually are?

They are a fully owned trading subsidiary of a major UK Telco - BT plc

Edited by MHC (Thu 18-Jun-20 17:37:23)

Yes they do as they posted this at 12:04

I told her Plusnet is owned by BT but she wasn't bothered about it.

They edited that post after I had read the unread ones just before 12:00 and posted a response at that time.

It is also odd the she does not want BT but happy to accept BT under a different name.

Looking at timestamps your response seems to be 5.5 hours after the edit which is why I highlighted the edit to answer your question.

However, whilst PN are owned by BT much of the operation is separate and therefore operates differently (for better or worse). In the end many people make a decision on what their friends recommend and that seems to be the case here.

Yes, it was, however, the edited post was not shown as unread, I had seen the unedited version earlier in the day and don't bother with re-reading posts in most cases, Do you?

That is fair enough - but I was just highlighting it to answer your question - I thought I was being helpful...

A similar situation happened to me. A little bit into lockdown I called to cancel the BT Sports, a wee bit earlier than I intended to do but there was no footy.

Lo and behold the next month I was still a subscriber and only the HD had been removed. I complained and they sorted it but I can't help thinking it was a deliberate ploy to keep a subscriber and then blame it on a misunderstanding if picked up.