BT usage/billing! serious problems! PLEASE HELP

A question about : BT usage/billing! serious problems! PLEASE HELP

I have been a customer of BT for many years now. I am coming to the end of my current contract and have receieved a couple emails stating that I have exceeding dramatically the amount of data usage I am allowed.

However, there has never been a problem before with either data usage or charging in all the years I have been with BT.

We only have a few devices which conect to the internet, including 2 laptops and some ipads. We are a family of 4 all of whom go to work/school on a daily basis. None of us download movies or music. None of us use online gaming.

When we checked our usage online it states we had a massive upsurge of data usage on the 5 December and the 6th of December 2014. However, there was no one in the house due to family events on these dates so how could there have been an upsurge then?

We noticed the same emails in November. On around the 10th of November 2014 our usage had aparently gone through the roof. However, as I have stated, we are not obsessive internet users and work/school take up the majority of our time.

We did not notice the November emails and therefore did not take any action then. If we had gone over, we should have been charged, however we were not charged for APPARENTLY going widly over our data usage. If we knew it was an issue then and we had caught it we could have dealt with it. But if no extra charge was taken, we had no reason whatsoever to believe there was any issue at all with our BT package.

So, we recieved emails in November saying our internet use had surged over the space of a couple days and the same has happened in December...

We decided the only sensible thing to do was to ring BT and find out what was going on. Firstly, I spoke to an adivsor who told me that I will be getting charged for going over for this month! It has only been 8/9 days so far and BT have said we have used almost twice our monthly usage, 70 something GB! The charge SO FAR is a little over 50 pounds.

Apperently, a small family, none of whom download games/music/movies, can rack up over 70 gb in the space of only one week!

I said why are we suddenly getting charged when we have never had a problem before? How can we be getting charged such a huge amount out of the blue?!

Here is the solution they said.... If you don't want to pay any extra anymore you will need to upgrade to unlimited... I said there was no way I was going to upgrade when I don't understand where and why I am being charged extra. I asked what happened with my data usage in the previous months of 2014 and they said that there was an error on the month of July and when pushed did not say anything else about it.

She went on to say that BT had changed their policy and now charge for watching BBC Iplayer. I said how can you just bring a policy in, NOT TELL US ABOUT IT, I stress not one email or phone call was recieved, which states the data usage has now changed and we are calculating charges differently now. She said the new charge was explained and is relevant to everyone. She said the new way of charging was brought in, on November 1st 2014. I find it hard to believe that they can just change the terms and conditions of the contract I am in without proper notice! Surely the contract you sign when you sign it, should remain the same through the duration.

Confused and angry I asked to speak to this advisors manager. However, I was told similar things to before, I kept stressing how its never been an issue and that we're a modest family of internet users. We have been with BT for years and have never had any problems! When I mentioned July and that there was an error that month according to the other advisor their response was to just go with unlimited! All they wanted to talk to me about at the end of the day was how I had to be unlimited...

Here is where it gets even more confusing. I get told I need to speak to technical support and they can explain where the over data usage has occured. I have a conversation which must have been 1 and a half hours in total or more. He goes through each month of usage, and to my utter horror, he says we have gone over every month, Feb 80 gb and this is similar throughout the year. We were never charged extra and never told there was any problem at all, so like anyone we assumed it was all okay. How can a small family use so much internet? For the month of July we used over 220 GB. 220 GB! I said how is that possible? He said in the 18 months he has worked with BT he has never seen such a high amount of data used! So the first person who said there was a fault in July seemed to have alluded to something important.

I move on to ask about the billing. He said he doesnt understand why we were not charged for the months we went over... He said 3-4 times we could not be charged for these months, THEY WOULD NOT ADD THE TOTAL WE WENT OVER UP. Naturally I made the tehcincal advisor clarify this multiple times. He said I would be getting charged for going over this month though, 52 pounds and rising... He said we can upgrade to unlimited and then we would not be charged any more extra for going over after the 52... The upgrade reers its head again.

I said there has clearly been problems with the account and the way its been calculated but all that they wanted to talk about was upgrading. They said there was no way they could help me and no one in BT can...?

He said he would speak to billing and ask them about my account. He then gets back on the phone and quickly changes his tune. HE SAYS THIS... We (BT) might add all of the times you have gone over up together and charge you the full amount. (god only knows what sort of figures we are dealing with) SO, firstly he says we can't be charged for the months we have already paid for and then suddenly he says we can be UNLESS we upgrade. Anyone think it sounds like blackmail? Because it does to me. So pay for the upgrade or we'll add all the figures up.

How can they add all the times we have gone over together if they have only just informed us it was a problem? If we knew we were going over in January... which I can't even begin to imagine how we have, then we would have gone for the upgrade then and we would have been done with it. Instead, they don't charge us for these months, and then say we have to upgrade to unlimited or else you'll be paying for ALL of them right before our contract ends.

This could not have been a more distressing and upsetting thing to hear. We could cancel our contract... but if we do, what happens if BT go forward with their threat of adding it all up together and charging us? What do we do then?

ALSO, the adivsor we spoke to first of all said we are getting charged now because the policy had changed for all BT customers. The way data usage is calculated and charged had changed. Then we are told we're getting charged for the lot.

We have gone from never having a problem with BTs service for over 15 years and now THIS, awful and confusing situation.

I am desperately seeking some help. Has anyone else come across a problem like this with BT?

Best answers:

• I'm sorry, life is too short to read all that. However, if you do a search on here, you will definitely find other BT customers who have also seen their data usage mysteriously go through the roof for no apparent reason.
• Yes I know other people have had similar issues... however not recently.. and the issue i am experiencing is unique from what i have read. if other people are experiencing/or have experienced similar issues then i have no doubt they will spend more time to look at this post than you have.
• There are a few things that could account for usage that's hard to account for, your network may not be secure and someone is connecting without your knowledge, a genuine device could have malware on it, so it's using your connection without you knowing about it, there could be automatic software updates of operating systems, or someone is streaming video (but not telling you)...TBH a family of 4 with multiple devices connecting without a unlimited connection is probably not a good idea... streaming video from BBC I player has never been excluded from overall data usage, if you watch BBC I player it's not 'free' data and there is no difference between streaming data and downloading data,
  Also you also have to count both uploaded data as well as downloaded data, uploading photos etc.
  I presume you have a 40Gb allowance per month, which is only 1.3Gb per day, not a lot really
• Some BT customers on capped broadband packages have not been able to access the usage monitor up until it was fixed in November. This has been an issue for over a year.
  Any of these customers who had been exceeding the data allowance were not charged excess usage as they couldn't access the monitor.
  This explains why you were unaware you had exceeded your cap in previous months as BT wouldn't be able to charge due to the usage monitor not working.
  Now it's fixed you are getting notified and getting charged for going over. BT won't backdate any excess usage fees but will charge from now on.
  Just upgrade to unlimited and you won't have to worry. It will probably cost you less than your currently paying.
• As previously stated, you say that none of you download movies, but then you mention iPlayer, its all data and it all counts towards your usage.
• And all those tablets will update their OS when told to (unless you turned this off). Not bring in etc is an irrelevance.
• Okay lets say my family have exceeded the data. Does that explain the customer service that I received today. Or the, you can either get unlimited, or we'll back date for the last year where we have not taken the extra? Could be over 1000 pounds... How about the different reasons why the usage was high. Or the fact that the 220 gb that was used in july they admitted to being a fault on their system... then another person doesnt want to comment on it... and then the next person says there must be some mistake... talks to another person and says there was no mistake.... sounds like bs to me... Thanks spyhunter that is very useful information. What I must stress is that the families use of the internet has not changed over the many years we have been using bt - We have in all those years only ever been charged 5 pounds extra Once - now they are saying we are over doubling our allowance every single month... Things are not adding up somewhere for me
• There really is no point stressing yourself out about it. You probably got someone who wasn't aware of the issue or most likely didn't have a clue.
  From what you say they all tried to help you but due to them having limited knowledge the best they could offer was to upgrade.
  Your usage is probably correct. As you said yourself you have 4 people using 2 laptops and some ipads. Do you also have smart phones?
  It is easy to use a vast amount of data and how do you know what everyone is using?
  Just call BT on 0800 800 030 upgrade to unlimited and ask for a better deal. They will give you a retention offer (think the best they do for unlimited is Ј5.85 a month)
  Problem solved
• Sounds like BT have not covered themselves with glory but you are making it unnecessarily difficult for your self. If you have been going over for many months and not being charged because of the broken monitor then so much the better for you. If you are now using a lot and being charged for a lot you can either pay up and get a separate broadband monitor and spend your time checking up on usage or you can, as they have suggested, upgrade to unlimited which takes all the aggravation away or, of course, you can switch to another supplier but you may well face similar problems if your use really is quite high.
  If you decided to move to upgraded you should certainly bargain with them as suggested above.
• Here's another -
  I had a random service call from BT, cut to the chase. "You are using 13 gb on average on you unlimited broadband". "You could probably be comfortable on the 20 gb Infinity 1 and a lot faster". "It wouldnt really cost you any more other than a one off payment for the router etc.
  "sounds fine to me". and off we went. Over usage each month since and culminating in this month supposedly used 25gb of uploads by day 5?
  I cant imagine what I have that amounts to 25gb upload!