My BT bill

[ideasguy]

I'm doing my best to understand my BT bill.
This has to be the most convoluted billing system in all of time.
It has my Phone calls and BT internet charges all rolled into one bill which extends to 7 pages.

[NightHawk]

You must make a lot of phone calls. 

You probably need to go paper-free George.

Saves you money each month and you can see a breakdown of your costs with your online bill.

We are BT paper-free and it's so much easier.

Laurie.

[ideasguy]

RE:

You must make a lot of phone calls

My better half does 

The pages extend due to a whole series of options and discounts. I found what I needed for my Tax return.

Is your broadband with BT Laurie?

RE:

You probably need to go paper-free George.

The Tax man needs receipts, and I need to store for 5 years. How long do BT keep their historic on line data for your account?

[NightHawk]

My Broadband is with Sky, telephone only with BT.

BT keep bills for the past 6 months, and there's a trial period in operation at the moment for certain customers to download their bills as a PDF.

They say they are hoping to make this service available to all consumer landline customers in the near future.

Laurie.

[ideasguy]

RE:

My Broadband is with Sky, telephone only with BT.

Lucky you!

Originally, I paid my broadband monthly by credit card. One payment, no paperwork.
Then BT changed all that and wrapped the internewt costs into the landline phone bill.
In doing so they craftily(small print) charged customers 3 months in advance!
Then they offer discounts. You see the full price on one page, the discounts on another.
They made a mess first bill. They didn't give me the discount they promised on the phone.
So, next bill had Bill, Discount and Credit.
I have to isolate my Internet costs out of all that and other "options" c***p
I suspect its not at the rate they offered.

Another rip-off.
I choose to pay my bill "old style". They send a  bill. I pay it.
I used to wait for the red letter. They charge a nominal amount (from memory £5) if you are late.
I caught on about that, and its the only bill I pay immediately.

Then yet another rip-off
They charge £4.50 "Payment Charges"
Reading the small print (buried away back on page 5)

This charge has been made by BT Payment Services for processing your payment.

Now, isn't that nice of them?
Is that even legal?

My conclusion?
They make their options so complex and devious that no-one understands what they charge their customers.
I gave up last night, but I will be on the case again today.

[NightHawk]

We don't make an awful lot of phone calls.  In fact we only have a landline so we can use our Broadband (we're with Sky and you need a BT landline to receive it), otherwise we'd just be using our mobile phones.

We're on the "Unlimited Weekend Plan" with BT, which is just a basic line rental fee plus any calls we do make.

The payment plan is "Whole Bill Direct Debit" which pays your whole bill automatically monthly and on the day stated on the bill.

Payment via Direct Debit and opting for paper-free billing gets you a monthly reduction of £I.25.

I suppose our circumstances make reading the bill easier as there's no complicated payment plans involved.

I can understand that the more options you have with your phone company the more complicated it can get.  BT offer Broadband, TV, Mobile Phones, Internet Services, various Bundle packages, etc., etc.

Our Broadband with Sky is excellent - just £5 per month, and no hidden conditions or charges.  I networked my computer with Kathy's so we can both share the Broadband connection, without any significant degradation in connection quality when both surfing at the same time.
This is the best deal we've come across for Broadband services.  We've had our TV with Sky for a lot of years now and a couple of years ago received a £10 per month 'Customer Loyalty' reduction in our monthly subscription.

We did try NTL (now Virgin Media) for a while, but their Broadband charges started to increase and their cable TV wasn't up to much either.

We ditched them, got a BT phone line organised and our Broadband with Sky sorted all at the same time.

So far we've not had any problems.

Laurie.