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Deleted member 1486
Guest
Thinking of taking out BT Sport for the FA cup game? Don't do it! Fucking horrible company, horrible customer service, and they are complete scamming scumbags. They will do everything and anything possible to wring every last penny out of you, legal and ethically justifiable or not!
Watch it online, watch it at the pub, go to the game, whatever, just don't subscribe to BT Sport!They seem intent on pissing off as many customers as they can (seriously, have a read of their forums, people lining up to complain about being charged for things they never ordered, being unable to cancel, held to crazy terms hidden away in the small print, not sticking to agreed pricing, etc).
(warning, big rant follows......)
I had BT Sport before they bought the rights to European football. I saw an online advert which offered it for £10 per month. In June or July last year I got an e-mail telling me the price was increasing to £22.99 (£19.99 subscription, +£3 for HD). At the time, many websites were pointing out that BT's own contract effectively allowed people to leave before the end of their term due to the enforced price rise (something also set out by OFCOM for fixed-term contracts) as long as you inform them within 30 days. I didn't really watch BT Sport, and don't really care about European Football, so rang them to say I would like to leave.
Had a really long phone conversation with someone, she somehow managed to persuade me to not leave, and I could keep the channels (including European football channels, ESPN, etc) for the price I was currently paying (£10 per month) for as long as I wanted them.
Skip forward to a couple of weeks ago; I checked my direct debits to make sure they were correct, and BT had been taking £17 per month. I rang them and queried why they were charging me too much, they said the contract I agreed (the original contract, not the one I'd done on the phone) had small print which raised the price to £14, +£3 HD (I had always assumed the HD cost was part of the deal, as it said something along the lines of "BT HD Football for £10 per month", or something, but hidden away in the terms and conditions was apparently some clause that HD was only free for 3 months, and after that, was charged at £3 per month, this also applied to the subscription fee, which was only £10 per month for X months, and then rose to £14 (why would they do that I wonder? Couldn't be to make the price seem cheaper than it really is, could it?). I can't verify this, I have no idea where I even saw the advert, let alone the exact details. Maybe it said it in the small print when I signed up, maybe it didn't. One thing I do know, there isn't a chance on Earth I'd sign up to BT Sport if I'd ever understood it would cost £17 per month! (I watch maybe 1 televised match per week, and already had/still have the vastly superiour Sky Sports!).
Their argument was that I'd signed up for something which cost £10 per month, that price had risen to £17 per month after 3 months, and so that was the price I had to pay. I told them, that at some point in the first three months (when I was still being charged £10), I'd rang them to cancel and had been offered a new contract (to not cancel) at the price I was paying at that time; which was £10 per month. They had no record, and it was IMPOSSIBLE that I'd called them, because it is impossible for someone to access my account without it leaving a log.
At some point in this conversation, she mentioned broadband (in that if I switched broadband to them, BT Sport was included, so I'd effectively be paying £3 per month more for fibre than I was currently paying!). Coincidently, a couple of days earlier I'd been searching to see if my area had fibre yet as we haven't had anything above ADSL2 broadband here before (I live right next to and exchange, so I guess we're not a priority for fibre), and I could now get BT Fibre (sadly not Sky, or anyone else). For £3 a month I was convinced, but told her I couldn't commit to the £50 activation fee until after Christmas (explained I had 3 kids, didn't want to splurge on stuff in December). She said she'd take BT sport off my account, and put a note that I was going to contact them in January to take their broadband + sport offer. TBH, she managed to completely redirect me from the reason I'd rang up (to get a refund for every month they'd overcharged me!).
Within minutes I get an e-mail. "Early cancellation charge: £86 (or something). This will be automatically debited from your account in X days". No mention of this during the phone call at all (and I'd just explained I was trying to save money in December because I had kids)! Wankers! Rang back, started to explain to someone (quite calmly given the situation), they hung up. Rang again, spoke to someone else, they hung up (so on and so on). Getting quite angry I rang again, this time asked for complaints, got put through to someone quite helpful (I think possibly, the only person in BT who might be helpful!). He went away and listened to the call ("recorded for training purposes", oh really?!), agreed I hadn't been warned there would be a charge, but couldn't cancel that cancellation request because the account had been shut down. He said the only thing he could do was to create a new account and contract (this time agreed at £10 per month, sound familiar?) for the duration of the original contract, credit my original account with an amount equal to what they were going to bill me, so that I wouldn't get billed. I was relatively happy, but this had now literally taken me the full day. I'd rang them first thing in a morning to query why I'd been billed £7 too much, and had spent an entire DAY, until maybe 6pm, talking to various people (and getting hung up on, by various people).
All good? Nope! A few days ago I got a bill, £129 for early cancellation + £10 for cancelling the agreed direct debit (that I told to cancel), +a another fee for a missed payment, + more fucking money for this, and that, oh and then we want some money for this, (etc).
Rang them again, got hung up on a few times, eventually got to speak to someone (well, by this point I was shouting, they were speaking!). He found my previous call in the logging system, would cancel the charges for early cancellation as I still had an active account, wouldn't cancel any other fees. Confirmed (as had everyone else I spoke to) that there was no record of the call where I agreed £10 per month. It suddenly occurred to me that the price for BT sport had risen to £24! "If I hadn't called you, why am I not being charged £23.99?" I enquired, "Good point!" he replied. Missing the point entirely, he started talking like I was going to have to pay £23.99 per month, including in arrears! I start arguing back that I want a full refund for each and every month I'd been a customer and had been charged £17, and that I was seriously thinking about just telling them to go swivel for the money and let them take me to court! This guy was really rubbing me up the wrong way, on a number of occasions he told me "not possible so-and-so told you that", "you must have misheard", "there's no way she would say that and then do the other", etc, he was basically saying I was lying, over and over again (to just about everything I was telling him they had done wrong!).
This was an evening I'd just got back home from work, ready to chill out, spend time with the family, eat, drink, be merry, etc, but in reality, had spent hours talking to BT shitheads. Again!
Still no idea what's happening with the arrears they've managed to accumulate on my bill (I think they expect me to pay it!), but they have agreed I should only be paying £10, but won't agree to backdating that. Oh, and I can't leave until next year without incurring a hefty cancellation fee.
Sorry for the rant (this post started as a one line warning, I guess I needed to vent!), the thought/mention of BT fills me with anger! Take out additional services? I wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire!
Watch it online, watch it at the pub, go to the game, whatever, just don't subscribe to BT Sport!They seem intent on pissing off as many customers as they can (seriously, have a read of their forums, people lining up to complain about being charged for things they never ordered, being unable to cancel, held to crazy terms hidden away in the small print, not sticking to agreed pricing, etc).
(warning, big rant follows......)
I had BT Sport before they bought the rights to European football. I saw an online advert which offered it for £10 per month. In June or July last year I got an e-mail telling me the price was increasing to £22.99 (£19.99 subscription, +£3 for HD). At the time, many websites were pointing out that BT's own contract effectively allowed people to leave before the end of their term due to the enforced price rise (something also set out by OFCOM for fixed-term contracts) as long as you inform them within 30 days. I didn't really watch BT Sport, and don't really care about European Football, so rang them to say I would like to leave.
Had a really long phone conversation with someone, she somehow managed to persuade me to not leave, and I could keep the channels (including European football channels, ESPN, etc) for the price I was currently paying (£10 per month) for as long as I wanted them.
Skip forward to a couple of weeks ago; I checked my direct debits to make sure they were correct, and BT had been taking £17 per month. I rang them and queried why they were charging me too much, they said the contract I agreed (the original contract, not the one I'd done on the phone) had small print which raised the price to £14, +£3 HD (I had always assumed the HD cost was part of the deal, as it said something along the lines of "BT HD Football for £10 per month", or something, but hidden away in the terms and conditions was apparently some clause that HD was only free for 3 months, and after that, was charged at £3 per month, this also applied to the subscription fee, which was only £10 per month for X months, and then rose to £14 (why would they do that I wonder? Couldn't be to make the price seem cheaper than it really is, could it?). I can't verify this, I have no idea where I even saw the advert, let alone the exact details. Maybe it said it in the small print when I signed up, maybe it didn't. One thing I do know, there isn't a chance on Earth I'd sign up to BT Sport if I'd ever understood it would cost £17 per month! (I watch maybe 1 televised match per week, and already had/still have the vastly superiour Sky Sports!).
Their argument was that I'd signed up for something which cost £10 per month, that price had risen to £17 per month after 3 months, and so that was the price I had to pay. I told them, that at some point in the first three months (when I was still being charged £10), I'd rang them to cancel and had been offered a new contract (to not cancel) at the price I was paying at that time; which was £10 per month. They had no record, and it was IMPOSSIBLE that I'd called them, because it is impossible for someone to access my account without it leaving a log.
At some point in this conversation, she mentioned broadband (in that if I switched broadband to them, BT Sport was included, so I'd effectively be paying £3 per month more for fibre than I was currently paying!). Coincidently, a couple of days earlier I'd been searching to see if my area had fibre yet as we haven't had anything above ADSL2 broadband here before (I live right next to and exchange, so I guess we're not a priority for fibre), and I could now get BT Fibre (sadly not Sky, or anyone else). For £3 a month I was convinced, but told her I couldn't commit to the £50 activation fee until after Christmas (explained I had 3 kids, didn't want to splurge on stuff in December). She said she'd take BT sport off my account, and put a note that I was going to contact them in January to take their broadband + sport offer. TBH, she managed to completely redirect me from the reason I'd rang up (to get a refund for every month they'd overcharged me!).
Within minutes I get an e-mail. "Early cancellation charge: £86 (or something). This will be automatically debited from your account in X days". No mention of this during the phone call at all (and I'd just explained I was trying to save money in December because I had kids)! Wankers! Rang back, started to explain to someone (quite calmly given the situation), they hung up. Rang again, spoke to someone else, they hung up (so on and so on). Getting quite angry I rang again, this time asked for complaints, got put through to someone quite helpful (I think possibly, the only person in BT who might be helpful!). He went away and listened to the call ("recorded for training purposes", oh really?!), agreed I hadn't been warned there would be a charge, but couldn't cancel that cancellation request because the account had been shut down. He said the only thing he could do was to create a new account and contract (this time agreed at £10 per month, sound familiar?) for the duration of the original contract, credit my original account with an amount equal to what they were going to bill me, so that I wouldn't get billed. I was relatively happy, but this had now literally taken me the full day. I'd rang them first thing in a morning to query why I'd been billed £7 too much, and had spent an entire DAY, until maybe 6pm, talking to various people (and getting hung up on, by various people).
All good? Nope! A few days ago I got a bill, £129 for early cancellation + £10 for cancelling the agreed direct debit (that I told to cancel), +a another fee for a missed payment, + more fucking money for this, and that, oh and then we want some money for this, (etc).
Rang them again, got hung up on a few times, eventually got to speak to someone (well, by this point I was shouting, they were speaking!). He found my previous call in the logging system, would cancel the charges for early cancellation as I still had an active account, wouldn't cancel any other fees. Confirmed (as had everyone else I spoke to) that there was no record of the call where I agreed £10 per month. It suddenly occurred to me that the price for BT sport had risen to £24! "If I hadn't called you, why am I not being charged £23.99?" I enquired, "Good point!" he replied. Missing the point entirely, he started talking like I was going to have to pay £23.99 per month, including in arrears! I start arguing back that I want a full refund for each and every month I'd been a customer and had been charged £17, and that I was seriously thinking about just telling them to go swivel for the money and let them take me to court! This guy was really rubbing me up the wrong way, on a number of occasions he told me "not possible so-and-so told you that", "you must have misheard", "there's no way she would say that and then do the other", etc, he was basically saying I was lying, over and over again (to just about everything I was telling him they had done wrong!).
This was an evening I'd just got back home from work, ready to chill out, spend time with the family, eat, drink, be merry, etc, but in reality, had spent hours talking to BT shitheads. Again!
Still no idea what's happening with the arrears they've managed to accumulate on my bill (I think they expect me to pay it!), but they have agreed I should only be paying £10, but won't agree to backdating that. Oh, and I can't leave until next year without incurring a hefty cancellation fee.
Sorry for the rant (this post started as a one line warning, I guess I needed to vent!), the thought/mention of BT fills me with anger! Take out additional services? I wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire!
