Is this still £10? My mother has been on this plan for a few years as all she needs is an ordinary home phone. She has been paying £10 per month for a while. Recently BT ran their usual annual check with the DWP and it came back that she was no longer entitled to the Home Essentials Plan as explained in the emaill she got:
We've checked your eligibility for your Home Essentials package and unfortunately you no longer qualify.
Home Essentials is only available to customers on specific benefits. As your situation has changed, your services have been moved to a new package.
You'll get the same features as Home Essentials, but there'll be a change to your monthly charges - see below for more details.
We hope you'll be happy with your new package, but it doesn't come with a contract, so if you'd like to cancel there won't be a penalty.
Her package then increased to £15 as a result. She is still on Pension Credit (Guaranteed) and has been since it was introduced in October 2003. Someone somewhere must have reran the check as she then switched back to the Home Essentials Call-Only Plan, as can be seen on her My BT account:
Home Essentials - Call-only Plan
- Unlimited calls to any UK landline or UK mobile number, day or night
- Divert nuisance calls with Call Protect
- International add-ons for calling abroad available at an extra cost
When your contract ends we'll check with Department for Work and Pensions and let you know if you're still eligible for your current Home Essentials plan. There's no need to tell us if your circumstances have changed.
However, she is still being charged £15. I phoned BT on behalf of my mother (with her permission and after my mother went through security). The call agent wasn't very helpful and said phone prices had gone up. By 50%? I felt like the agent didn't really know the answer and was making up the answer on the spot.
According to the following the Home Essentials Call-Only Plan should still only be £10
https://www.bt.com/terms/home-essentials
My mother is 87 and is in very poor health. She can't afford a 50% price increase. She needs a home phone due to health reasons. She doesn't have, or want, a broadband connection. To me, it looks like she was accidentally moved to a more expensive package (when she "failed" the Home Essentials BT/DWP check) and when she was moved back to the Home Essentials Call-Only plan, she was kept on the same price rate for the more expensive package.
Is anyone able to look into this? Should she be paying £10 or £15 a month? She doesn't have digital voice, just an old fashioned phone line and doesn't want her service messed about with. She's had problems previously with BT, both with her phone line, and with a previous Home Essentials qualifying check failing (suggesting that something is amiss with the BT / DWP checking process). Can someone answer me via this board rather than phoning my mother?
An excerpt from her current bill to show that something has potentially gone wrong with the billing system:
Landline £18.39
Your regular charges 04 Aug - 03 Sep
Home Essentials Line Rental: £15.00/month £15.00
What you've used - (removed phone number)
Landline usage charges £0.00
Plan summary
Minutes
67
Unlimited
What's changed since your last bill 14 Jul - 03 Aug
Home Essentials Line Rental £10.16
Part month charge:
· Charge of £10.16 for your new service from 14 Jul (£15.00/
month)
Home Essentials Line Rental : £10.00/month -£6.77
This is a refund of the price of your Phone Line which you paid in advance up to 3 Aug
2025
Your total £18.39
(Including applicable taxes)
Thanks in advance for any reply / help
Robbie
