blutak wrote on Feb 15
th, 2014 at 6:53pm:
I did mention this to the Billing call-centre Supervisor: he replied that "indirect access calls are chargeable as is shown on your contract with BT" and therefore no notice was necessary.
Try sending an email to Libby Barr, CEO of BT Retail, as listed at :-
http://www.ceoemail.com/s.php?id=12034If you point out that BT had never previously excluded calls to this number from their from call packages and that if it is going to do so it surely has to write to any customers affected in advance or alternatively play an announcement to a caller telling them that calls to this number are not part of an inclusive calling plan then you may well get somewhere.
They may listen if you in particular make it clear that now you have been alerted to the hidden premium rate charge you will not be calling this number in future and you would haves stopped calling it straight away if you had been advised on the day it happened that the call rate had been vastly increased or rather was no longer part of your call plan.
You might also want to threaten (in a polite way) that you may have to take this matter to the Telecommunciations Ombudsman (see
http://www.ombudsman-services.org/communications.html) if you reach deadlock with BT on this matter and they do not refund the call charges to you. An investigation by the Telecommunications Ombudsman is likely to cost BT several hundred pounds (it will not cost you anything) and BT may well also not want an Ombudsman adjudication on their dubious practice of excluding certain 01/02/03 numbers from their Anytime call packages as opposed to the more normal and accepted practice of setting a "Fair Use" cap on the maximum number of minutes per month of calls you can use under the Anytime call plan.
Worth a short I would have thought if you feel strongly enough on the matter. BT can't just change the calling rate to a number without letting their customers know in advance this will be the case so they can alter their actions accordingly. Can you imagine the fuss if a restaurant or supermarket tried on the same kind of practice with customers.......
Customer Service Advisers just follow the party line (especially at BT where they are given almost no discretion) so you will only get the matter properly looking in to by writing to BT Retail's Managing Director where the buck usually stops being passed.