Haven't been here for a while & feel a bit bad about coming back to ask for help.  About a year ago, we were forced to change broadband (& therefore phone) providers to BT as they were the only organisation which could provide a broadband speed of above about 1 mbps as no other provider had access to their boxes in our village.  We signed up for phone (unlimited anytime calls), with call waiting & caller display (discounted following advice on this site - thank you!) unlimited broadband, we were told what our monthly payments would be & that these are calculated for 3 months in advance billed quarterly by direct debit taken monthly.   This means that, when we get the bill, it shows a debit which should be cleared by subsequent payments until the next bill (hope this is clear, it's a very convoluted system).
In late June, I received a letter about the price changes, rang up & was told that these would not be applied until the end of our initial contract in September.   Suddenly, we have received a September bill (the paper bills only come every three months) stating that we "are using more than we were" (we're not & what more could we be using other than a very occasional out of call package call?) & "have changed our phone services" (we haven't, I even remembered to call to keep the caller display & checked our unlimited calls were still included).  They now want to increase our monthly payments by £35.50!!!!   This is absolutely ridiculous, even with the increased charges (which should not apply to us until 6th September when our initial contract ended) for the next three months & a handful of our of package calls there is now way this could come to £106.50!  Nor can we possibly have run up arrears of £135+ as they claim.

I have called to complain, it was a foreign call centre & all they kept doing was repeating what was on the bill, could not give me any breakdown of the arrears, would not listen when I said the letter re extra services was wrong (to add insult to injury the promised standard increase in broadband speed hasn't happened, it's actually got slower recently). I escalated the complaint, got a call back today from a "manager" in the same call centre, still language issues, still cannot grasp what I'm saying, just kept repeating the same as the woman yesterday then said they charge 6th months in advance(???!) & said if we paid the increased sum until the end of November we could ring again & ask for it to be changed.

I again escalated my complaint & have been promised a phone call tomorrow from a "second tier"manager but in the same call centre which means I will just be told the same thing (the "manager" today has already told me that!)

I have looked everywhere for a UK complaints number, all I can find (& I don't even know if this is legitimate, it looks an odd bit of website) is 0843 254 8920 which would surely breach the CRD as it's a premium rate number for post contract/sale customer services?  The other 0800 number in the database is unrecognised.

My questions - has anyone else had this problem with BT?  From the time spent on hold yesterday I suspect this has affected loads of people; if so, how did you deal with it?  How do I get them to understand the inaccuracy of their letter?   How do I get a full breakdown of the arrears separated from the forward payments (I would prefer to clear the arrears in one go & continue with slightly higher monthly payments to take account of the relatively modest price rises)?

Does anyone have a good way of contacting someone high level at BT to get this resolved without all this faffing about & endless, pointless phone calls to people I don't understand fully & who clearly don't understand me?

Is OFCOM any good at this (I suspect not a lot!)?

Has anyone tried contacting BT's CEO with any success?

Any help & advice would be greatly appreciated - thank you

In the absence of a detailed breakdown, add up how much you have actually paid them by looking at your bank statements and compare that with what you expected to pay.

BT are not unknown to bill incorrectly. I am aware of someone who was effectively 'paying twice' for their BT services, but it was quickly sorted out and the excess refunded once the problem was identified. The 0800 number on the paper bill connected to a callcentre in Scotland.

Do not call the premium rate 0843 number. It is a 'call connection service' set up by a third-party. You pay them a premium rate to forward calls to BT, calls that would be inclusive or free if you called BT's official number found on BT's own website. The 0843 number is a scam.

Hi Ian, thanks for the swift reply.   Trying to work it out as you suggest is easier said than done because they have also, to complicate it further, decided to refund us for some payments from 3rd July until 6th September then re-bill us at the higher price!  This in spite of them telling me in late June that we wouldn't have to pay higher prices until after then end of that initial contract on 6th September.  Their way of showing it is impenetrable, they do not show refunds & new charges separately but all jumbled up in the same text & it is totally unclear what is refund & what is new charge.

The 0800 number on the bill used [i][/i] to connect to a call centre in Scotland but now seems to go to a foreign call centre most of the time (certainly three out of the four times I have called it recently) this in spite of the other part of their promise to bring more calls back to the UK.

I did ring their switchboard & was told if I am not satisfied with the call I receive tomorrow, ring them again & they can escalate it in the UK which is what I will have to do.  The problem is that BT is holding vast sections of the population to ransom &, indeed, anyone who needs a phone line.

We will try reconciling bills & payments but I am not hopeful.  We feel that if they say we owe extra, they should be prepared to provide a full breakdown of those charges & separate them from the ongoing costs of the service.

Oh & thanks for confirming that the 0843 number is a scam, I wouldn't call a premium rate anyway for anything.

Barbara I have found that using the chat service
https://bt.custhelp.com/app/contact/c/2902 is a good way of resolving billing problems.

Failing that an e-mail to the CEO gavin.e.patterson<a>bt.com usually does the trick.

Thanks bigjohn; following my poor experience with call centre staff who cannot grasp our points & merely keep repeating what's on the bill, I think I'll try the CEO if escalation via a UK contact fails so thanks also for the email address.   All these hassles give me a headache!!!

Hello Barbara

I would also recommend using the BT Forum, it's a bit like this in that it's mainly "staffed" by other customers, but they have Forum Mod's who are BT Employee's based in the UK.

The can be contacted here: https://community.bt.com/ and the Billing Forum is here

Once a Forum Mod has been contacted they are taking a few day's to get back to people (at this time it's about 5 days) but I have previously used them for help and they are amazing  :) :)

Thank you to all for the helpful advice.  As it happened, the telephone call I received yesterday did result in a resolution. I had been advised by the BT switchboard on Tuesday to get details (full name & position) of the person who rang me on Wednesday; when she rang from the foreign call centre she gave a first name but refused to give her position which seemed a bit odd in itself.  However, she did seem committed to finding a solution and after much holding while she investigated, it seems that, when I rang in August to renew my contract, the person (Scottish accent)only renewed the contract for the line rental although when I asked her at the time,she confirmed that everything had been renewed & would continue as previously.  The woman who rang yesterday then passed me to BT Options who arranged a new contract from today on the same basis as my previous contract then returned me to the first woman who set up a new monthly payment plan a couple of pounds (not the £35.50!!) above the previous one.   I have to say their paperwork which I received by email is as clear as mud (possibly designed to confuse the customer???), the really should work on clarity, perhaps a matter for OFCOM?   Obviously the woman who rang yesterday was prepared to look at the file properly as opposed to the first "manager" who just repeated the rubbish I had been told initially.  I suspect the woman who rang yesterday realised there had been an error by BT & had been told to sort it without further complaint.

The moral?  Next year I will try renewing the contract online well in advance so that I have a paper trail & am not reliant of what someone did or didn't record properly!