£2000+ for no service.

Question

Hi,
Just discovered today that we've been charged £37.73 a month for the last 5 years for mobile phones we don't have. Didn't realise sooner as the broadband is in my name but is paid through my mothers bank account (via direct debit) and she thought the extra charge was something to do with this. Turns out the charge is actually for 2 mobiles she recieved unsolicited and sent back to BT.
The (very helpful) guy on the phone today agreed that we're not using them and that the contract expired years ago but says they were never cancelled. He said we should be hearing from his manager within a few days but also said that due to the amount involved, we should take this to "chairman" level ourselves through this website. However, now that I look at it, there seems to be about a zillion different paths through the "Contact Us" thing so could someone suggest the best place to actually start?
So, we've paid out over £2000 for something we've never (or perhaps briefly - difficult to remember that far back) used, didn't want in the first place and have never received a bill for. Anyone any ideas on how best to proceed as the impression we were given today was that we would somehow have to _prove_ this is not our fault?
Thanks.

Answer 1

Ok, so here's an update (and plea for more help) on what's been happening since my last post.
A few days after the bill I mentioned came, we recieved another one for £20-something as "Final payment" on the account. These two bills are the ONLY we have had from BT for the mobiles.
We rang BT to ask why they were still taking money from us and to check on progress on the money they owed us. After being passed around for a while we eventually spoke to a "manager". She conceded that we hadn't used the phones as far back as her records went but could not access info further back, including the initial contract we're supposed to have made with them or the cancellation. Everything was apparently "archived". When pressed to get someone to de-archive the info so we could have copies to send to the bank, it turned out the they weren't actually archived at all but destroyed. Hmmm...
She was adamant that we had been getting monthly bills and that it was all basically our fault. The impression given was that because they'd had this money for so long it had somehow become rightfully thiers. We pointed out that if we had been getting the bills, we would have done something about it sooner as there was absolutely no advantage to us to be paying for something we don't have. She had no answer to this except to insist we were to blame but as a "goodwill" gesture they would give us back 6 months worth. We politely declined this offer. She promised someone above her would ring us the following wednesday.... they didn't.
So, we rang the bank for help with the DD Guarantee form they had sent us and they said not to worry about it too much, fill in what we could and explain the rest in a covering letter. We did.
I've often had harsh things to say about banks (mainly the gambling types) but they - Barclays in this case - seemed to have got straight on it as when we went to the cashpoint last week we saw there was @£2000 more than usual.
Success! We have our money back - everything's sorted.
Until today. We got two almost identical bill saying
Dear Sir/Madam,
Payment of £2,295.86 for account number xxxxxxxxx
Our records show that payment for the above bill has not yet been recived.
Unless we receive immediate payment, we will have no alternative but to suspend your service.
bla bla bla
We rang the bank to see if there had been some mistake. They said no, everything's fine, it's your money and there's nothing BT can do about it.
We rang BT and had pretty much the same discussion with this manager as with the previous one except that he agreed it would be pretty weird for us to be paying all this money if we'd been aware of it. He also said the previous manager had made a note that we had accepted the 6 month offer. This is most definately not true. Yet another manager is supposed to be calling on Monday. We'll see.
Most importantly though, they threatened that if we did not send them the £2,295.86 then a debt collection agency would be involved. My mother is now very upset and worried that large men are going to appear at the door and start carrying off her posessions.
Can any of you please help and explain exactly where we stand here and what best to do?