BT BB Plus overcharging or is it just me?

fixxation

I've had BT Broadband Plus for a least a year now, so from what I understand I should be getting charged €40 a month for the service. I can see on my bill that for Broadband Plus for two months, the charge before VAT is €70.24. After VAT at 21% this brings us to €84.99.

Shouldn't my monthly charge for Broadband plus be €66.12 plus 21% VAT bringing us to €80.00 ?

I've been on to customer care too many times and they swear it's correct and say the extra money is coming from call charges. The main fact is that the base rate before VAT appears wrong, which in turn means I'm paying an extra €5.00 every two months for a service that is advertised at €40.00. Anyone else being charged €70.24 every two months for BB Plus?

Cheers

jonny68

I've just got my first bill from them and like yourself it seems ive been charged too much VAT although this particular time i did have a hefty phone bill so i left it but i won't be using my phone at all now so im gonna see how the next bill goes and if it's the same ill be back onto them

fixxation

Yeah, I did the maths on it, not sure if it's the VAT, appears more to be the initial charge for the BB Plus on my bill, which really *should* be €66.12 for two months.

I know it's only an extra fiver every two months, but sure that's €30/year and the principle of what's happening here is what annoys me, especially after trying to explain to customer care and they constantly argue that it is correct and the 'extra' charges are because of my call charges. This has nothing to do with the call charges, they're overcharging for the BB Plus Two-Monthly Subscription at €70.24 long before the call charges or VAT is even looked at on the bill.

I put together a little table here that proves it to the penny. Now the question is, is it just my bill or is everyone getting ripped-off while customer care continues to try and confuse the customer saying everything is okay...?? :mad:

dub45

fixxation wrote:

Yeah, I did the maths on it, not sure if it's the VAT, appears more to be the initial charge for the BB Plus on my bill, which really *should* be €66.12 for two months.

I know it's only an extra fiver every two months, but sure that's €30/year and the principle of what's happening here is what annoys me, especially after trying to explain to customer care and they constantly argue that it is correct and the 'extra' charges are because of my call charges. This has nothing to do with the call charges, they're overcharging for the BB Plus Two-Monthly Subscription at €70.24 long before the call charges or VAT is even looked at on the bill.

I put together a little table here that proves it to the penny. Now the question is, is it just my bill or is everyone getting ripped-off while customer care continues to try and confuse the customer saying everything is okay...?? :mad:

Wny not refer it to the Director of Consumer Affairs?

http://www.odca.ie/

Sponge Bob

YOu cannot refer billed minutes to odca , rental only.

fixxation

This is strictly regarding the two-monthly charge of their Broadband Plus service, not the minutes or any call charges whatsoever...

Was hoping to get a bit of feedback from others on the same package here before approaching the ODCA. Check your bills everyone!! Anyone else paying €70.24 (before VAT) for their BB Plus service??

Linoge

I just checked mine. I'm on BT Plus and should be paying 100 euro for 2 months. I paid 105.13 on my most recent bill, no calls made. Will deffo be giving them a bollocking tomorrow:mad:

therecklessone

fixxation wrote:

I've had BT Broadband Plus for a least a year now, so from what I understand I should be getting charged €40 a month for the service. I can see on my bill that for Broadband Plus for two months, the charge before VAT is €70.24. After VAT at 21% this brings us to €84.99.

Shouldn't my monthly charge for Broadband plus be €66.12 plus 21% VAT bringing us to €80.00 ?

I've been on to customer care too many times and they swear it's correct and say the extra money is coming from call charges. The main fact is that the base rate before VAT appears wrong, which in turn means I'm paying an extra €5.00 every two months for a service that is advertised at €40.00. Anyone else being charged €70.24 every two months for BB Plus?

Cheers

I'm slightly confused.

Are you paying for Broadband Plus or Broadband Plus and line rental/calls?

I've got the 2nd (€50 a month) and am charged €70.24 for broadband, €39.96 for line rental, then I get a discount for broadband and line rental of €23.44 AND a "total discounts received" of €4.13. When I take away the cost of my phone calls (+VAT) I get €100 exactly. Its a bugger to make sense of though.

dub45

Linoge wrote:

I just checked mine. I'm on BT Plus and should be paying 100 euro for 2 months. I paid 105.13 on my most recent bill, no calls made. Will deffo be giving them a bollocking tomorrow:mad:

From looking at the website (which is far from clear - who designs these bloody things?) It seems to be that the billing discrepancy maybe in relation to the deduction you are supposed to get for online billing - they talk about a saving of 30 euros a year - which would be 2.50 a month which would seem to be the discrepancy that people are getting on here? (i.e. 2.50*2)

This special offer is for first time broadband customers only. If you’ve already had broadband service, you can still enjoy BT Broadband Plus and Line Rental at a new lower price of only €50 per month.

Notes:
New customers will default to online billing. Billing is two-monthly. If you require a paper bill, you will be charged an additional €5 per bill.

Existing customers will automatically get the new lower pricing for their current broadband service from their next billing period after 11th July, 2005.

So perhaps existing customers who get paper bills are being charged the 50 euros pluse the paper bill charge?

Sponge Bob

fixxation wrote:

This is strictly regarding the two-monthly charge of their Broadband Plus service, not the minutes or any call charges whatsoever...

Thats fine then. Stick to rentals not per contract and VAT miscalculations (if any) on that . STRESS to the ODCA that this is not a per minute billed product at all and that you have no issues involving per minute billing.

They are excluded from matters to do with per second or per minute products by law

kaizersoze

dub45 wrote:

From looking at the website (which is far from clear - who designs these bloody things?) It seems to be that the billing discrepancy maybe in relation to the deduction you are supposed to get for online billing - they talk about a saving of 30 euros a year - which would be 2.50 a month which would seem to be the discrepancy that people are getting on here? (i.e. 2.50*2)

Thats exactly it. The online billing discount is part of the bundle deal. I was told before I signed up that if I opted for a paper bill the package (excluding calls) would cost me €52.50p/m. When calls are deducted from my bill it's bang on €100.
I'm not saying others are not getting charged extra but I'd say you are getting charged in error for a paper bill. Check your account online to see if you are setup for online billing.
You are still being overcharged unless you requested a paper bill.

dub45

kaizersoze wrote:

Thats exactly it. The online billing discount is part of the bundle deal. I was told before I signed up that if I opted for a paper bill the package (excluding calls) would cost me €52.50p/m. When calls are deducted from my bill it's bang on €100.
I'm not saying others are not getting charged extra but I'd say you are getting charged in error for a paper bill. Check your account online to see if you are setup for online billing.
You are still being overcharged unless you requested a paper bill.

If it is as simple as that wouldn't you imagine that Support would have twigged to this as a FAQ? and not be confusing people by telling them it is their call charges?

What the hell goes on in there?:rolleyes:

sixpack's little hat

If you register here ( https://home.btireland.ie/echannel/esat.portal ) you can use your customer number to change from paper billing to online.

" All btireland.ie phone customers receive a €5 discount per bill, for choosing to view them online. You may also choose to receive your BT bill in paper format for an additional charge of €7.50 per bill. Customers who select a paper bill are ineligible to receive the monthly €5 discount for online billing. If you wish, please change your bill delivery method below."



I have Esat DSL since november 2003 and only finally got billed today, I'm only getting charged from september 2005 onwards. What a joke of a billing system, though it's worked out well for me! 2 years free DSL

Esat

dub45

sixpack's little hat wrote:

If you register here ( https://home.btireland.ie/echannel/esat.portal ) you can use your customer number to change from paper billing to online.

" All btireland.ie phone customers receive a €5 discount per bill, for choosing to view them online. You may also choose to receive your BT bill in paper format for an additional charge of €7.50 per bill. Customers who select a paper bill are ineligible to receive the monthly €5 discount for online billing. If you wish, please change your bill delivery method below."

Esat

Is that statement very confusing or is it just me? For example suppose the total bill came to 100 euros - is it 95 for an online bill and 107.5 for a hard copy bill?

sixpack's little hat

It's not just you. Im not sure exactly what they mean either but it definitely seems worth changing to online billing.

kaizersoze

dub45 wrote:

If it is as simple as that wouldn't you imagine that Support would have twigged to this as a FAQ? and not be confusing people by telling them it is their call charges?

What the hell goes on in there?:rolleyes:

Agreed.
Plus their bill is very confusing and hard to figure out.

fixxation

It's just unbelievably confusing, especially the way they word how the online billing works on their Products page and then in their portal system. If a service is advertised at €50 per month for Line Rental and Broadband Plus, that's what I'd expect to be paying at the end of each month. Not €52.50.

The fact is, that they state you're eligible for a €5 discount per bill in the Account area:

All btireland.ie phone customers receive a €5 discount per bill, for choosing to view them online. You may also choose to receive your BT bill in paper format for an additional charge of €7.50 per bill.
Customers who select a paper bill are ineligible to receive the monthly €5 discount for online billing.

But on their products page, it states that:

New customers will default to online billing. Billing is two-monthly. If you require a paper bill, you will be charged an additional €5 per bill.

So basically, after putting these two together:

"New customers will default to online billing. Billing is two-monthly."

That's great, less paper for me, no complaints.

"All btireland.ie phone customers receive a €5 discount per bill, for choosing to view them online."

So where's the discount then?? I'm still being charged €52.50 a month to view my bills online, not €47.50 as one would think with a €2.50 discount each month.

I've never seen anything so misleading...! There is no discount from what I can see, we're still getting charged €50 per month for online billing.

dub45

fixxation wrote:

It's just unbelievably confusing, especially the way they word how the online billing works on their Products page and then in their portal system. If a service is advertised at €50 per month for Line Rental and Broadband Plus, that's what I'd expect to be paying at the end of each month. Not €52.50.

The fact is, that they state you're eligible for a €5 discount per bill in the Account area:



But on their products page, it states that:



So basically, after putting these two together:

"New customers will default to online billing. Billing is two-monthly."

That's great, less paper for me, no complaints.

"All btireland.ie phone customers receive a €5 discount per bill, for choosing to view them online."

So where's the discount then?? I'm still being charged €52.50 a month to view my bills online, not €47.50 as one would think with a €2.50 discount each month.

I've never seen anything so misleading...! There is no discount from what I can see, we're still getting charged €50 per month for online billing.

They have not got a clue and they are getting worse by the day it would seem.

It would appear to me that the 50 euro offer takes into account the online billing discount and if this is so it should clerarly state that - of course this would be in everyone's interest and would help clarify things - do they want that obviously not!:rolleyes: Presumably the on line billing is an attempt to cut costs but it must generate an incredible amount of telephone queries which cost money to answer even if it is only eventually!

Nermal

sixpack's little hat wrote:

I have Esat DSL since november 2003 and only finally got billed today, I'm only getting charged from september 2005 onwards. What a joke of a billing system, though it's worked out well for me! 2 years free DSL

yeah i stopped getting billed after moving house, continued not getting billed after switching my line rental to them too. then i register to get the €5 off and now i seem to be getting billed again