Avoid BT like the bubonic plague

earlyapex

If you go with BT and want to cancel, they will charge you 2 months broadband in advance even when the braodband has been cancelled and is actaully "off" for these 2 months.

Also, I had cancelled my direct debit with them and they charged me this 2 months bill through direct debit!
(funny how the direct debit was taken the day the bill is dated, but wasnt available to me until 4 days later, also the direct debit system is supposed to mean you have 14 days notice before a bill comes due!, they took payment immediately)

I called them and asked to speak to their cancellations team...
"oh, they dont take calls" i was told.

"you wont be refunded advance payments", i was told also.


AVOID AVOID AVOID!!!

Im so glad im gone from them!!!

**** service, **** pings especially, like 700+
cant play online gaming with them and they wouldnt fix it.

admol

Nothin new here BT have a terrible reputation for this. Make sure that you own the modem if they supplied you with one because if you don't they'll automatically charge you :eek:

Bohrio

earlyapex wrote: »

If you go with BT and want to cancel, they will charge you 2 months broadband in advance even when the braodband has been cancelled and is actaully "off" for these 2 months.

Also, I had cancelled my direct debit with them and they charged me this 2 months bill through direct debit!
(funny how the direct debit was taken the day the bill is dated, but wasnt available to me until 4 days later, also the direct debit system is supposed to mean you have 14 days notice before a bill comes due!, they took payment immediately)

I called them and asked to speak to their cancellations team...
"oh, they dont take calls" i was told.

"you wont be refunded advance payments", i was told also.


AVOID AVOID AVOID!!!

Im so glad im gone from them!!!

**** service, **** pings especially, like 700+
cant play online gaming with them and they wouldnt fix it.

Sorry to hear that. BT Always charge 2 months in advance and billing cycle is every 14th and 24th so if you cancelled too close to those dates there would be no chance for them to stop it.

They will give you that money back, how long is it gonna take that's another question! but they will give you your money back (unless you have cancelled before the 1 year contract)

Shame about your speed problems... hopefully your new ISP will sort that out (only if it is Eircom though)

stiofanD

Couldn't agree more about BT. I cancelled my broadband with them last October and ported my phone number to ntl in the same month. Despite repeated phone calls to them, they continued to take line rental from my account until January a nd it took until 2 weeks ago before I finally got a refund of the line rental - 8 months after the number was ported away from them.

shower of wasters.

Blindpew

At least they didn't get a chance to throttle you, that's the pits.

craichoe

Eh .. Hellooooo .. Call the bank ? They can stop the direct debit.

Cabaal

craichoe wrote: »

Eh .. Hellooooo .. Call the bank ? They can stop the direct debit.

Or just cancel it on on-line banking?
Even easier!

earlyapex

yeah, see thats what i did, cancelled the dd online.
they say it still went through.

So you say ill get the money back???
they were adamant i wont!

rogue-entity

And yet, I have never had any problems with BT, and I have been with them since 2005.

€40/mo for 3Meg/384k DSL with a 17:1 contention ratio. I have only two complaints, I could ever level with them:
1. They force my IP to reset every 24 hours, and since I never turn off my modem, it happens to reset at the most inconvenient of times, like in the middle of an MSN/AIM conversation, or when Im downloading something. When it resets, neither MSN nor AIM make a peep until they realise they are not connected anymore. For the love of God, why cant they just leave me with a static address until my modem or internet connection resets.. why force me to change my address, and give me one on a different range completly? (212.2.x.x one minute... 78.16.x.x another :mad: )

2. They block "known" open proxy servers. If I want to use an anonymous proxy in the US, to access those US-Only sites.. or v/v for the UK only ones.. when I do try to use them, I get a Connection Time-Out error. If I try the same proxy, with Eircom, not a problem at all.

What next BT? Block access to The Pirate Bay too?

Scruff

Send them a summons to the Small Claims Court for charging for a service they no longer provide. That should get their attention.

earlyapex

yeah, i was looking into these issues, as to what i could do about being charged with no service available....hmm

oh and eircom are blocking my friends pirate bay webiste access!

Bohrio

rogue-entity wrote: »

And yet, I have never had any problems with BT, and I have been with them since 2005.

€40/mo for 3Meg/384k DSL with a 17:1 contention ratio. I have only two complaints, I could ever level with them:
1. They force my IP to reset every 24 hours, and since I never turn off my modem, it happens to reset at the most inconvenient of times, like in the middle of an MSN/AIM conversation, or when Im downloading something. When it resets, neither MSN nor AIM make a peep until they realise they are not connected anymore. For the love of God, why cant they just leave me with a static address until my modem or internet connection resets.. why force me to change my address, and give me one on a different range completly? (212.2.x.x one minute... 78.16.x.x another :mad: )

2. They block "known" open proxy servers. If I want to use an anonymous proxy in the US, to access those US-Only sites.. or v/v for the UK only ones.. when I do try to use them, I get a Connection Time-Out error. If I try the same proxy, with Eircom, not a problem at all.

What next BT? Block access to The Pirate Bay too?

High, the contention is 24:1.

Unfortunately it is the way they do it. 24 hours connections on residential packages, its on their T&C.

But BT does not block any ports nor proxies that is just probably a routing issue. You should let them know.


earlyapex, if you left after your contract was finished and told them you were cancelling with 30 days in advance then they will give you the money back. What is your situation (contract and all the rest?). If you are moving to a different ISP they might put a block order in your line, if so, whoever is taking over will not be able to place the transfer. But the looks of it your problem is most likely your line so I suppose that you are moving to another provider who doesnt use the telephone line such as NTL.

rogue-entity

I could have sworn it was 17:1 for the 3Meg package, oh well. I prettymuch get close to the maximum throughput that the 3Meg service can give you, so Im not complaining.

And can someone explain why cutting me off, only for me to reconnect with a different IP address every 24 hours, insures Quality of Service? Though on the other hand, giving us a completly different IP on one of 6 different ranges, is really handy for evading IP bans/restrictions

And the cynic inside tells me BT are activily blocking known "free" and "anonymous" proxies for one reason or another, because I can ping the proxy server just fine, but if I try to connect to them to use as a proxy, Connection Timeout.

jor el

earlyapex wrote: »

If you go with BT and want to cancel, they will charge you 2 months broadband in advance even when the braodband has been cancelled and is actaully "off" for these 2 months.

Their policy is 30 days notification, which you need to pay for. That really doesn't mean anything as I canceled electronically and by registered post with them and they still continued to bill. When I informed them of their error, they then canceled from this date, and billed me for 30 days from then, idiots. I canceled my direct debit so no money was taken, but now they have a debt collector on me. I paid what I owed them using Billpay, and they're now after me for an additional €50. I'm weighing up my options now, already been in touch with the Data Protection Commissioner about them forwarding my personal and account details to a third party without my consent. Seems they should not have done this, and I may pursue an official complaint.

They are notorious for fictitious billings.

Also, I had cancelled my direct debit with them and they charged me this 2 months bill through direct debit!

Get onto the bank and tell them that the direct debit was not authorised and ask them to reverse it. This can be done, so don't accept any guff from the bank about it being impossible. Ask for the manager if you get an trouble, and threaten to report them to the IPSO if they don't do it.

(funny how the direct debit was taken the day the bill is dated, but wasnt available to me until 4 days later, also the direct debit system is supposed to mean you have 14 days notice before a bill comes due!, they took payment immediately)

True, and you have BT over a barrel here, keep copies of bank records and the BT bill. They cannot take a direct debit without proper notice, report BT to the IPSO for this.

As has been said, failing any of this you should use the Small Claims Court, only costs €9.

slave1

BT = cheap eircom reseller but utter sh1te when it comes to customer service in relation to billings

rogue-entity

Solution? Switch to Digiweb. Just put in my own transfer order today, so I should be on their network in about 10 days.. with a static IP address and none of this sh1te tripping out my connection every day for "Quality of Service". And the plus side.. I can easily switch to Metro and get an even faster connection.. and the pleasure of giving Eircom my middle finger

Richard Dower

I had major billing issues with BT, after more then 6 months it got resolved...i've had zero issues since, and to be fair...no isues before the mixup. When i changed my line rental to BT things went haywire.

KillerShamrock

Regarding the direct debit thing you have to cancel a direct debit with the company and the bank, in writing for BOTH is best, the company is the most important though.
A direct debit is an agreement between you and the company basiclly saying that you give the company the right to take payment from your account at any time and any amount most of the time they never change though. The banks job is to pass the payment between you and the company and thats pretty much all.
If you only cancel it with the bank the company still holds the right (ie.possibly something signed by you or a recorded phonecall stating all of this) to take money from your account, therefore they can just set up another and another and another until you cancel it with them, best way to do it is in writing because you then have a record denying them access to your account