This topic

charged for email

bluedybluedy2 — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 17:22:09 GMT

Hello, over the past 7ish years I have been charged £622.50 for my BT email account whilst also having a BT broadband account. I didn't realise that was wrong until today. When speaking to a nice chap at BT I was offered £22.50. Who can I vent my spleen at and is there anyway I can get that money back? Thanks in advance

Re: charged for email

gg30340 — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 19:42:55 GMT

Presumably you were at one time a BT Broadband customer and as such you had a BT email account. This would have been a free email account as part of your Broadband package.

If as I suspect, you left BT, you would have lost your BT email account unless you took out a BT Premium email account at a cost of about £7.50 per month.

If you then re joined BT and took out a BT Broadband package you would have been able to stop paying for your BT Premium email account and have it affiliated to your new BT Broadband package and as such it would become free.

In order to do that you would have needed to add the email account to your broadband package and you would have needed to cancel your BT Premium email account.

The onus is on you to do this, it is not done automatically by BT.

See link and sub links

https://www.bt.com/help/email/fix-a-problem/problems-with-email/can-i-move-my-bt-email-address-to-another-account-

You will need to lodge a complaint with BT regarding the payment however if you did not do as above I suspect that you will not be very successful in having all the money refunded.

Re: charged for email

chrisjp — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 20:09:45 GMT

I'm sure gg30340's commnents are true, but it really is sharp practice of BT to let someone go on paying for something that comes as part of the broadband package.
It surely should be simple enough for BT to recognise someone as paying for their email at the point that they take out a broadband contract and to automatically convert their email to the free deal.
Still sharp practice and BT seem to go together far too often.

Re: charged for email

gg30340 — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 20:51:00 GMT

The following is my take on the issue. I am not aware if this is how BT justify it.

Prior to October 2022 a BT Broadband account holder could create eleven email addresses and either keep them all for his/her own use or "gift" any number of them to friends or family.

In the past, when the BT Broadband account holder left BT all the email accounts would be closed regardless of whether or not they were "gifted" unless the BT Broadband account holder took out a BT Premium email account. This would include all eleven email accounts and thus keep them all active.

BT do not know which of these email accounts are the broadband account holder's own email accounts and which are "gifted" to others.

If BT was just going on the fact that all of the email addresses were the property of the ex broadband account holder, that would mean that if any person with one of the "gifted" email accounts took out a BT Broadband package, all the email accounts from the the original BT Broadband account holder would be transferred to that new broadband account and the original owner would lose ownership of all eleven email addresses to the new BT Broadband account owned by the "gifted" account holder.

Hence the reason that the email account holder must move them to a current BT Broadband package and note it does not necessarily have to be one that they are the BT Broadband account holder of and if they have a BT Premium email account they must cancel it.

Now when a person leaves BT Broadband, all the email accounts are "downgraded" to BTMail Basic which is a free service albeit more limited than the standard email account. To get the same as the standard email account that they had they would need to take out a BT Premium email account.

Re: charged for email

bluedybluedy2 — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 08:20:54 GMT

Thank you, that is all correct. I tried Sky for a bit (keeping my BT email acc) and then came back. Well at least it only went on for 7 years and 11 months, any longer would have been embarrassing.

Re: charged for email

bluedybluedy2 — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 08:24:27 GMT

Thanks dude, big firms little people, it will never change. I wonder how many technically inept people like myself are still paying?

Re: charged for email

bluedybluedy2 — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 08:33:13 GMT

ok my replies haven't gone where i thought they would. 1st one was to gg30340 and the 2nd one was to chrisjp, thus demonstrating my inability to fathom things technical. Thank you both kindly, I am now going to look for things that I could have spent £600 on.

Re: charged for email

Anonymous — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 09:54:16 GMT

@bluedybluedy2

"ok my replies haven't gone where i thought they would."

If you type the "@" symbol in your reply, you should get a box appear with a list of all the participants in the thread. If you then select the person that you are replying to, they will be "tagged" and depending on their forum settings, will get a notification that they have been "mentioned" in your post.

Re: charged for email

bluedybluedy2 — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 10:02:25 GMT

@Anonymous aha! thank you most kindly

Re: charged for email

zulu17 — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 11:22:22 GMT

@bluedybluedy2 As has been mentioned You will need to lodge a complaint with BT regarding the payment - and probably go through the escalation process as normal front line customer facing teams would not be empowered to reimburse or make goodwill payments that cover the period you are seeking.

Re: charged for email

bluedybluedy2 — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 18:05:33 GMT

@zulu17 thanks I have written to the complaints department. I will let you all know what happens.

Re: charged for email

formercustomer001 — Sat, 27 Sep 2025 23:14:59 GMT

Hi there, Please report this to OFCOM. The same thing happened to me. They took £620. Without my consent, agreement or knowledge. I left BT in disgust having made a complaint for other rip offs well before this. The socalled executive complaints person had even offered me an ( insultingly low) £50 compensation around 7 years ago to try to manipulate me to stay. I declined. That would have been the primary time to mention they would just keep my financial details on file and use that to thieve from me. I only noticed it when larger amounts started to come out. The response this time ( after several operatives said " of course you should get all your money back". then escalated it. Another awful woman from executive complaints offered me £90 of the £620 they had taken. She admitted they had done it to other people. The response was " you should have stopped your direct debit". " It's up to you to spot discrepancies in your account". ie admitting their taking the funds was not authorised. When my bank did the charge back (Direct debit indemnity) it was not contested. The bank said they could only claim £525 because the unauthorised charges went back beyond the bank's own archives. Then out of the blue this week I received a letter from a sleazy debt collector demanding £643.43 claiming to be collecting for BT. I have never seen a bill. Bt claim they sent them to the old customer account I would not have looked in since I left. I could't even get into their useless email., I never used any premium service. BT said billing refused to speak with me. "executive complaints" man called and refused to answer any questions. even " what are these charges for?" He told me " we SOLD your account to the debt collector". I have reported them to Ofcom and to the communications ombudsman. Please do this too. Don't let them get away with it, they are absolute snakes and entirely predatory. They prey on people at vulnerable times and exploit their situation to extort money. They should be shut down.

Re: OFCOM & BBC investigation - charged for email

formercustomer001 — Sat, 27 Sep 2025 23:41:15 GMT

ps I never got any of the amounts they " offered" me either. Other of their colleagues pledged to pay £180 into my bank- never came. The £90 " offered". never came.

It transpires BT have already been reprimanded by OFCOM following multiple widespread complaints of former customers having money taken from their bank accounts without consent. The "charges" have also escalated . And held over a barrel to stay with the company by otherwise the threat of losing long standing email contacts etc.

This was taken up by the BBC and highlighted as "daylight robbery"

Re: charged for email

Christopher_G — Sun, 28 Sep 2025 14:40:52 GMT

Hi @formercustomer001

Welcome to the community. I'm really sorry to hear of your experience.

The Executive Complaints team that you have been speaking to are the highest level of escalation for complaints.

If your complaint has been open for 8 weeks or more, or you've been given a 'deadlock' letter from BT, you can contact the communications ombudsman who can review your dispute and advise you further.

Chris

Re: charged for email

formercustomer001 — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 20:59:08 GMT

Thanks - The " executive team" have been the most abusive and callous. They shoot complaints straight to deadlock to avoid answering any questions. They had zero regard for anyone with disability. ( no reasonable adjustments whatsoever). and simply said " we sold your account to debt collectors- talk to them". They were annoyed my bank did an indemnity and claimed back some of the unauthorised charges. ( it transpired BT had been filching funds from my account so long, it went beyond the bank's visible records). This charge back was never contested, though BT had 21 days. The bank were completely entitled to reclaim unauthorise direct debit amounts.Some of them are strange unexplained amounts too. I never used any premium service. Not even a basic mail for most of this time. It transpired they had taken almost £800. The behaviour of complaints exec has been actually quite sadistic. They seem to take satisfaction in causing distress. Would not answer the most basic questions eg about dates, when I was even a customer. Or even "What was the money for?" They offered me back 90 quid of what they took. Then 180. They never paid any of it. It turns out they were done in 2022 by Ofcom and banned from doing this scam- but have carried on doing this. They allways say it is the victim's responsbility to notice it. But even my bank struggled scouring records to find these debits. The amounts kept changing. They started small and gradually increased without reason. Eventually flagged up when they suddenly took £25 without notice. It's straightforward extortion.

Re: charged for email

Kimberlin — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 22:08:38 GMT

@formercustomer001

Interesting posts now that I’ve seen your ‘complaint’ across two separate threads relating to allegations of money being taken from your account and breaches of GDPR.

I couldn’t help noticing that in this thread, you took a mere 7 months to join a conversation at the end of September that had last been contributed to in February this year. Then a forum moderator became involved and it took you 37 days to formulate a response? I’m now beginning to understand how you apparently never noticed that money had been taken from your account for 3 and a half years for a service you never had.

Re: charged for email

formercustomer001 — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 23:22:47 GMT

Dear Whomever. I am no longer a BT customer and no longer use their email. I left the company in 2014. I never used the email much after this- it was always clunky and difficult to get into. One of the reasons I left actually. I am extremely busy- I trust that explains why I am not usually on their forum. Today I happened to search out of interest to see if I could still even get into the old email. At one point it had been deleted when they finally switched it back to "basic" despite nothing about it had ever changed. Thus I came upon a note that someone had replied. I trust that explains why you had to wait so long- Sorry about that.

I found these posts when searching to see if this had happened to anyone else. I then wrote a reply to the individual seraching for information. Then It transpired that in fact there were such widespread complaints. that BT were banned from doing this particular scam by Ofcom in 2022 and exposed by BBC watchdog where this was called out as " "daylight robbery" and "blackmail". yet they continue the same behaviour. BT have a history of exploiting customers and here they are seen doing it to ex customers. if this is the kind of company you want to engage with, then be your guest.

Re: charged for email

Kimberlin — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 06:29:43 GMT

@formercustomer001

You haven’t been a customer for the best part of 11 years? Good luck with whatever you’re trying to achieve.

I think it’s time for a Mod to shut this down. There appears to be more holes in this story than one of my Wife’s poorly knitted jumpers.

Re: charged for email

Peter_W — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 09:06:09 GMT

Good morning @formercustomer001.

We don't have access to accounts via these forums to comment on individual circumstances, but there are a range of reasons that an account could continue with charges after the end of a contract, and it is partially the customer's responsibility to keep track of what they're being charged for and any active services.

As my colleague @Christopher_G recommended, our executive team are our highest point of escalation and if they have been unable to agree on a resolution, then independent review with the Ombudsman would be your next step.

I can appreciate your disappointment if you haven't had the outcome you were looking for here, but ultimately the next step will be highlighting the deadlock details with them.

Peter

Re: charged for email

Kimberlin — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 12:38:15 GMT

@Peter_W

I’d go so far as to say that it is entirely the customers responsibility to check and have oversight on exactly what services the customer has signed up to and whether those services are active or not.

I mentioned it in a previous thread, I once took out a BritBox free trial and it was entirely MY responsibility to cancel it before any charges were made. I did so as that responsibility was entirely on me, not on BT or anyone else. There shouldn’t be a situation whereby a customer is defended because of a lack of their own accountability or poor oversight.