BT doing a scam?

In my opinion BT is abusing the direct debit system to try to force its customers to buy its most expensive "all calls included" package.

Sounds weird? Let me explain.

I've been with BT forever, and my usage hasn't varied in years. In some years they put the DD up to a large sum, and I end up with a credit balance of a couple of hundred pounds on them -- which you have to ring and ask for, naturally.

This summer I got a note from BT that they wanted to jack up my standing order to around £45 a month. Now that's a fantastic sum, way in excess of what I actually use. How had they managed that?

Well, they'd reduced the DD to a piddling sum, so a debit quickly came into existence. I rang in and got them to change it to something like what I really use.

All BT paper bills are horrible. They charge in advance for this, and in arrears for that, and they bill over a period of 5 months, but only include 3 months payments, etc etc. All the messing about that goes to make their bills unreadable and inscrutable, which I imagine is intentional.

Today I had another one. This time they say I am £70 in debit. How this is achieved, given that my usage really doesn't vary? The bill is carefully constructed to ensure that the details of the calls are not shown, and I can't tell, really. And they want to put the DD back up to £45 a month.

At this point I get suspicious. The reason I pay by DD is so that I do NOT have wild fluctuations in the cost of my services. How come that it's all over the place this year, all of a sudden? Is there any chance, could it be that there is a marketing reason behind this?

I got to the BT website. And ... ta-dah! I find that their "pay us line rental and all your calls are free" package costs about £41 a month.

What a coincidence. Whack the DD up to something ridiculous, based on manipulating the regular flow of costs, and then suddenly that massively over-priced deal looks cheaper, and hey, someone in BT gets a bonus.

Too cynical? Somehow I don't think so.

I wonder how many other people are being scammed this way. If only I didn't need a landline for my broadband, I probably wouldn't bother with one at all.