Basic Line Rental with BT, new bill

A question about : Basic Line Rental with BT, new bill

I have just checked my BT bills online which I pay monthly by dd. One line had no calls on it so just line rental plus vat which came to Ј10.69, what happened to the Ј10.50? I know its only 19p but I would rather have the 19p in my pocket than BT

Anyway, my second line had Ј2.04 worth of calls on it as I have always made a point of using up my Ј2.15 worth of free calls that we had until 1 July. The Ј2.04 consisted of three calls all made in June.

I will write and complain and ask for a refund of these calls but wondered if anyone else had checked their bills and found the same?

Best answers:

• I may be wrong, but didn't that start from the beginning of July (the Ј10.50 line rental).
  It will depend on when your billing date falls - you say you've just checked it which makes me think that the extra 19p is related to charges before the beginning of July.
• I reckon it's something like this.
  Ј10.50 is per month, but some months have 28 days, some 30 and some 31.
  July has 31.
  take 10.50 * 12 months / 366 (or 365) then * 31
  i.e. you pay slightly more in July and less in February.
  Just a theory.
• BTW - my bill was out by a few pence as well.
  I think about 20p for 3 months.
  I couldn't work it out, but I can't really be bothered to investigate because it will probably cost me more in phone calls/stamps.
• When they sent out the previous bills, (which included 3 months line rental in advance), they charged the old standard line rental.
  This will have included a period after 1 July.
  The bills being issued now have an adjustment included for the increase in rental which became due on 1 July, but wasn't charged for on the previous bill. (The rent went up Ј1 per month from 1 July, approx 3.3p/day, which is what they are now catching up on).
• I am a bit confused by that.
  My bills are dated 1/1, 1/4, 1/7 and 1/10.
  On 1/4 I would have paid from April, May and June, so surely this wouldn't have included anything after 1st July.
  Am I misunderstanding something or are other peoples bills on different dates?
  Confused ???
• BT have a bug in their billing system which means some people are being overcharged by a few pence if they are being moving from the BT Standard tariff to the Option 1 tariff.
  See https://makea!!!!!!!!!!!.com/?P36012AE8 for some details on this
  Regards
  Sunil
• Thanks Sunil. I spotted this on my bill and I've been overcharged as well. Given that people over on uk.telecom have been getting refunds I will claim mine too.
• I noticed the same niggly call charge on my last bill but I just got fed up with trying to get through to complain(deliberate deterrent?) and ended up paying it! This time I will challenge them - I know I should. They said quite clearly that standard rental was Ј10.50, with the free call allocation, when I changed tariff in January 2004. Luckily I wrote it on the bill when I rang them
• Good to see BT cares about its customers
  (I've always thought TV adverts are a waste of time, that guy Clarkson should have stayed on Top Gear instead of fronting an ad for a bunch of thieves !)
• For reference, the figures from my bill. This is monthly, DD. The BT Price List says line rental is Ј26.80 ex VAT/Ј31.49 inc VAT per 1/4; Ј8.93 ex VAT/Ј10.50 inc VAT per month.
  The bill says:
  Package fees/line rental
  [table][tr][td]Date/period[/td]
  [td]Description[/td]
  [td]Quantity[/td]
  [td]Monthly charge[/td]
  [td]Cost[/td]
  [/tr]
  [tr]
  [td]1 Jul-31 Jul[/td]
  [td]BT Together Option 1 - the hour plan[/td]
  [td]1[/td]
  [td]8.93[/td]
  [td]9.10[/td]
  [/tr][/table]
  Sorry BT, but Ј8.93 does NOT equal Ј9.10. You didn't give me a discount for February, so I'm not paying extra in July!
  This is a whopping 17p ex VAT/20p inc VAT overcharged - not a slight error by anyone's definition and surely worth making a fuss about. 20p x millions of customers is a LOT of money.
• I think I know how BT arrives at the Ј9.10 ex-VAT for the July rental:
  Ј26.80 per quarter x 4 = Ј107.20 per year.
  Divide it by 365 days makes it Ј0.2937 per day.
  Multiply Ј0.2937 by 31 days in July gives Ј9.10 for the month.
  BT always calculate part-rental in this way if there are any changes part way through the quarter. However, you can always argue that as the new line rental is for the full month of July, they should charge you 1/3 of the quarterly rental instead of 31/365 of the yearly rental.
• Indeed, it's obviously a bug in their billing system. I pay monthy and always have done; they are not allowed to charge me any part-quarter or part-year amounts: the Price List clearly denotes the cost per month as well as the cost per quarter.
  They need to fix their billing system before next time so that any rental increases don't rip off monthly payers in this way. They must be worried about this, because I've received a grovelling letter (posted 1st class!) in the post from them telling my that my account was credited with 20p on 29th July. I'd think that everyone on monthly billing was affected.
• I received my latest quarterly bill from BT today and under the service charges section, the new line rental for BT Together Option 1 is charged at Ј9.10 ex-VAT for the month of July and the refund of line rental already charged is Ј8.23 ex-VAT, giving a net increase of Ј0.87 ex-VAT or Ј1.02225 inc. VAT.
  I have e-mailed BT and ask them to issue a credit note for Ј0.02 ex-VAT to cover the difference.
• I have just received a bill for one of my lines as well - it looks like BT haven't yet fixed the bug.
  I was charged 9.10 +vat for BT Together Option 1 in July - a 20p overcharge
  Though I note I was refunded Ј8.23 +VAT for the BT Standard line rental I had already paid for July - which is actually a 17p overpayment by them!
  As such, once I get the paper version, I will be asking them to look at the 20p overcharge - if they decide to look at the 17p overpayment as well thats up to them..
  Really speaking none of these should have happened - as we are talking about full months.. its not exactly difficult
  This will also give me a chance to have a proper look at the call allowance figures - they have given me a call allowance of Ј2.654+vat for May and June.. I have a feeling thats Ј1 (+VAT) less than it should be..
  Regards
  Sunil
• You're right, the full call allowance was Ј2.15 (including VAT) per month.
  But they only give you an allowance against those calls permitted for the allowance. (Local, national and 0845)
  So if you didn't make Ј4.30 worth of allowable calls, then they only give you an allowance of the actual value of the calls made.
• Yes, however under "Call allowance" my bill says:
  Quote:
• After a few more e-mails to BT, I just got a call from them saying that as a one-off gesture, they will issue a credit of Ј0.05 (inc. VAT) to my account, as they are unable to do it for Ј0.02 + VAT which is Ј0.0235 - a result!
• I asked BT about this and they say there is now a note on their internal intranet saying that this billing bug will be fixed and all customers automatically refunded the difference in a future bill..
  Regards
  Sunil