Cancellation of Service but still being charged!

[graciemg]

On the 9th July I requested to cancel my entire BT service and I have an e-mail from BT dated 9th July confirming that if they did not hear from me by the 12th August then my services would stop later that day

I checked the status of the order on the 12th and it said it was in progress

On the 12th I switched to Virgin inclusively - BB, phone and TV, an engineer came and fitted everything so I now have a Virgin router, phone line etc

Imagine my shock to receive an e-mail from BT last weekend advising that my latest bill was ready and upon logging in discovered that I had been charged as if everything was continuing with BT!

Several phone calls later I have had assurances from BT that my account has been terminated and that I will only be billed for the cancellation fee and call charges up to the 12th August

I have written to BT and complained, I have asked for confirmation of all my discussions with BT in writing and nothing has come throough plus my account online is showing no change at all and the billing charges are still there as if I was still a customer.

I don't have a problem in paying the £30 termination fee despite it being a total rip off but I'm sick to death of having to go through the call centre in India where the staff there basically read off a script before I can get through to someone in the UK.

I went onto the online chat and asked for a contact e-mail address of someone I could escalte to but was given the phone number again instead!

Who can I contact about this?

[pottyperson]

I guess that billing just hasn't caught up with reality yet. I'm asking the forum moderators to help you with it and they should post contact info here shortly.

[NeilO]

Hi graciemg,

Thanks for posting, it sounds like the cancellation order has not went through correctly but we should be able to sort this. Please use the 'contact the mods' link in my forum profile to send in your details and we'll be happy to help. You can find the link by clicking on my username.

Thanks

Neil

[BritTelecom_is_]

Similarly, I took out a new broadband contract, carefully selecting "no TV", and now find I have continued to be charged for TV which I had on my previous contract, which is completely unacceptable. I have conatcted customer services but they keep saying they will call me back but they have not.

This is sophistry and daylight robbery and I'm not going to stand for it.

[NeilO]

Hi BritTelecom_is_

I'm sorry about the problems with your BT service. Please use the 'contact the mods' link in my forum profile under the 'about me' section to send in your details and we'll be happy to help. You can find the link by clicking on my username.

Thanks

Neil

[graciemg]

Hi Neil

I have done so but I'm getting tired of repeating myself

I have complained about this four times now and to no avail

Thanks

Grace

[rhyds]

I was put in a similar position last month by BT (All my calls and broadband moved to a new supplier in July, BT then decided to bill me for august).

What I did was confirm via past bills (remeber your June bill covers your service going forward to your July billing date) that I'd paid up to my migration date, and simply cancelled my direct debit. A lot of shouting over twitter finally got BT to generate a final bill to close the account, and instead of me owing them £52.07 (which they'd insisted on the July bill) BT twitter customer service informed me a refund of £20 was on its way to me. 

The moral of the story is the only way BT will take any billing complaint seriously is if its discussed in the full glare of publicity via Twitter/Facebook.

[graciemg]

Why should we, the paying customer have to prove anything? It's as plain as the nose on my face that in July I was billed and paid up until the 12th August. I have an order number and an email from BT confirming cancellation of my service to take place on the 12th August.
Now, due to BT's ineptitude I have a bill charging me up until the 12th September and today received a reminder letter to pay it!
I switched to Virgin on the 12th August.
I don't need the stress of having to deal with cretins who can't do their jobs properly. If I was that useless in my job it'd be P45 time.

[rhyds]

Once you know your in the right then its simply a case of cancelling your direct debit and then dealing with BT on your own terms.

Unfortunately the £30 disconnection fee is something that BT will charge because openreach have charged them for disconnecting your ADSL rather than migrating it.