Vulnerable Customer aggressive billing

[irene63]

My elderly mother is registered with BT as a vulnerable customer.

She recently upgraded her Broadband package to BT Halo which includes the line rental. She was then subsequently sent an email to say that her line rental (which she normally pays annually) needed to be renewed. She paid it before she realised that she was already paying for line rental through her BT Halo package.

She has been trying to get the line rental refunded over the phone and the BT call centre staff keep saying that cannot be done. 

How do I get this situation remedied?

In addition, her broadband package is 24 months from Oct 2020 and her existing line rental did not run out until Jan 2021. By my calculation she is also due a refund for the overlap.

In my opinion this has been very aggressive and unethical selling to a customer who is REGISTERED AS VULNERABLE. Does that count for nothing in BT processes? 

[Keith_Beddoe]

Welcome to this user forum.

What I would expect to happen, is that each month the amount of the line rental will be shown as a credit to her account, so her monthly bill will be lower.

[irene63]

Monthly credit is just BT's way of using their customers as a bank-rolling facility. That money should never have been taken in the first place and should be paid back in full without delay.

What is the point in BT even having a Vulnerable Customers register? It is almost as if they use the list as target practise. Who do I need to talk to in order to get this money refunded to my mother immediately?

[GeoffSmith · Accepted solution]

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@irene63wrote:

My elderly mother is registered with BT as a vulnerable customer.

She recently upgraded her Broadband package to BT Halo which includes the line rental. She was then subsequently sent an email to say that her line rental (which she normally pays annually) needed to be renewed. She paid it before she realised that she was already paying for line rental through her BT Halo package.

She has been trying to get the line rental refunded over the phone and the BT call centre staff keep saying that cannot be done. 

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I believe this is quite normal (I'm on Halo 1), and the over-payment should be refunded automatically on the next bill. Thereafter the monthly payments should be reduced in accordance with the annual pre-payment. In my case it appears each month as "Line Rental Saver for 12 months        -£19.99"

Your mother did the right thing in paying the annual rental when it was due, otherwise she would have been paying the full rental embedded in the Halo 1 package. 

[imjolly]

when you have line rental saver - paid for line rental  yearly in advance - then you still see line rental charge but then it is cancelled out due to LRS  check previous months bills and you should see how the BT accounting system works