Disconnection problem need to find an email addres...

Question

I'm trying to get a problem with my disconnection resolved. Basically, my husband lost his job in January and as I don't work due to ill health we were living off jobsekkers. This meant we struggled to pay the BT bill and as we needed a phone line and internet for job applications etc we wanted to keep it going. I phoned and told BT twice what our problem was and asked to set up a payment plan and was told I would get a callback to discuss how BT could help us through this situation. I did not receive a callback only bill reminders and disconnection threats. My support worker and also my mother spoke to them about this and the only help we got was our line reconnected but with full services for which we were being charged rather then incoming calls only. With the help of my support worker I was able to get most of the bill cleared, and as I had received a temrination notice and final bill with huge charges for contract cancellations etc, she phoned them to explain a cheque was arriving which would clear most of the balance and could we arrange to get reconnected as we could then manage to pay the final balance in instalments. She was told no we couldn't as the contract was cancelled. I complained about this and was told I would have to pay all of the charges for the cancellation plus a £50 deposit to enable me to set up a new contract. This would mean around £300 left to pay instead of about £80 odd. Having looked into their code of practice of how they will operate when their are financial difficulties, they did not follow this practice at all, and if they had have done so I believe I would not now be in this situation. I have tried their contact us page, to send them an email, but only get told to write to them of phone them. Only having a mobile I have no wish to call them, but want to contact them. I have drafted the following email to them: Further to my original message sent in to you, I now wish to lodge a formal complaint with yourselves regarding this matter, under your Code of Practice policy. As you should have a record of, I informed you no less than twice that I was having problems paying my bills as my husband lost his job, and since I do not work we were having to survive on his Jobseekers Allowance. You were then informed of this fact by my support worker and even by my mother in an effort to try and resolve the situation and sort out the outstanding and increasing bills. I have managed to pay an initial sum of £212.58 and the cheque should be with you now. Again you were phoned and informed of this in an attempt to stop any cancellation and disconnection on your part. Unfortunately it appears to have been too late as despite being told a large proportion of the bill was being paid off you proceeded to disconnect me and terminate my contract incurring further charges and meaning despite paying over £200 on the bill, you have now left me with more than £200 to pay off. I tried to resolve this matter by asking if the charges and contract cancellation could be waivered since a large payment had been sent and I was told that no that contract was now ended and the only way I could get service back was to pay the outstanding in full and a £50 deposit. This just is not possible at this time. My complaint is that my account has been handled wholly against your Code of Practice as despite informing you on 4 occasions that I was experiencing problems, at no time was I offered or even told of any of the services your Code of Practice states. The Code of Practice states: If you tell us that you’re having problems paying what you owe us, we’ll offer one or more of the following solutions. • A repayment plan. This will help you to pay the amount you owe over an agreed period. We may give you a BT Payment Card so you can make payments in instalments. When we agree the repayment plan, we’ll take your past payment history into account. • Restricted service. We may ask you to agree to have your service restricted to incoming calls only until the end of your repayment plan, if we believe this will help you to avoid a larger debt building up. In this case, we won’t charge for reconnecting the service. • Monthly Payment Plan. The amount you owe can be included within your Monthly Payment Plan payments, so you can spread the amount you owe. But we may ask you to make a payment upfront, depending on what’s best for you. • Call My Bill. This is our automated service on 0800 854 608 (this call is free from your landline). It allows you to check – between bills – how much you’re spending on calls. • View My Bill. It’s like Call My Bill but it’s online – go to www.bt.com • Call Barring for international and premium-rate calls. These types of calls may have added to your payment problems. • Claims for premium-rate services. We can give you advice and information about how to make a claim if unauthorised calls have been made to premium-rate services from your phone line. If you had followed your Code of Practice, I am firmly of the belief that my account would not have reached the termination stage and after sending you a payment of £212.58 my account would now be back up and running with no restrictions or disconnection. I trust you will look into my complaint, and find in my favour and I will have my account restored in the next few days. If I do not receive a satisfactory response form you in this matter, I will be reporting this to Ofcom. My question is, have they acted unfairly by not following thier code of practice and do I have a legitimate complaint or do I have to just forget it pay the bill and notch it up to experience! Also does anyone know how I can email them and it go to a manager rather than say customer services who will reply from what their manual states?

Answer 1

Hi GemmaMcD,
Welcome to the forum and thanks for posting. I’m sorry you’re having problems with the bills etc. I can take a look into this for you if you wish. Drop me an email with the details. You’ll find the “contact us” form in the about me section of my profile.
Cheers
David
BTCare Community Mod
If we have asked you to email us with your details, please make sure you are logged in to the forum, otherwise you will not be able to see our ‘Contact Us’ link within our profiles.
We are sorry but we are unable to deal with service/account queries via the private message(PM) function so please don't PM your account info, we need to deal with this via our email account :-)