Insist BT provide you with a copy of the taped telephone conversation to evidence their claim (but not a transcript of the phone conversation either). If they won't or can't provide the telephone tape -- tell them to bugger off as it is a criminal act to pick your pockets. If after this (assuming they don't provide a copy of the taped call and/or it doesn't support their claim), do two things. 1. Register a formal complaint of theft with the police and get a crime number issued. 2. Begin legal proceedings (if the police won't follow up) to recover funds and costs. Shoestring PS, my local police were aware of this practice when I complained and were completely unsurprised by it.

In my situation, the account details had changed and yet the company still managed to get the new details to initiate electronic charges to the account. These new details could only have been provided by the bank without our authorization or knowledge. It was only months later that we discovered what had taken place. Eventually, after about two years of effort, I took my file - about two inches thick with correspondence - to the police and lodged a formal complaint of fraud. 1. The police wrote to the company in question. 2. The company in question didn't bother to repy to the police. 3. The police shrugged their shoulders and declined to proceed any further with their investigation. Crime pays. Shoestring

How did you cancel your DD? I personally have reservations that it will be cancelled as you hope. The only viable solution, imo, is to write to them, stating the facts and insisting you be allowed to pay the £6.50 a month as agreed. If they decline, ask them for a copy tape (not transcript) of your phone conversation. Phone calls and emails are untrustworthy. Call centre staff, in my experience anyway, lie and deceive like crazy.

Understood. This is a trickle down problem. When our government, business leaders and social peers operate deceitfully and dishonestly -- and get away scott free with it -- the ordinary guy and gal copy them.

This seems a sensible approach to the problem. By writing to them you are formally registering your disagreement to the term they are trying to foist upon you. This leaves them the choice of canceling the service and not accepting your payments, or continuing to accept your payments and providing the service in the knowledge that their ploy has been recognized for what it was. I would only add the now familiar and boring proviso to make sure your letter is sent by recorded delivery, and a copy of the letter and the RD receipt be kept safe for future use if needed. Shoestring

If that is the case then fair enough, gyzmo. But I would stress that providing a statement is made as a personal opinion, is not made with malice, is not directed at a person, persons or entity then it is not actionable as libel. I labour this point only to underscore the fact that I acted appropriately. It is true that I do hold strong views about the increasingly unethical and immoral strategies employed by big business that is (imo) directed towards emptying the pockets of the ordinary person - who I believe have been largely disenfranchised and rendered impotent by successive governments. This is a disgraceful state of affairs that is set to become worse over time, not better, I think. And so I argue that people need to become increasingly aware of these business strategies and need also to unharness their naiveté if they are to have any chance of recapturing rights that were extant and considered natural, obvious AND legal... only three decades ago. That is the sum total of the time it has taken to turn civilized history on its face. Sad, eh. Shoestring

In a similar situation (except not exactly the telecoms sector), my bank wrote back saying that it was my responsibility to cancel the DD with the company and not with them, as the DD is a contract between the company and myself (and not them - they just pay it). It took four letters to the bank --- the last to the Inspectorate dept., before they agreed to reverse the charges. Shoestring

With the greatest respect the quintessential point is being either missed, muddled or befuddled here. My post was directed towards big business and British business in general not a person, persons or entity. It was clearly stated as my opinion ("imo" = "in my opinion") and was without malice. Ergo: it cannot be libel. If we have reached the point where commenting on business trends in a forum dedicated to "consumer action", is no longer acceptable and is disallowed, then so be it. While I would regard this as censorious in the extreme, if that is the case I will honour that level of censorship and moderate my outspokenness and simply find other ways of saying the same thing that doesn't raise hackles. But until told otherwise I continue to regard this episode as a simple misunderstanding or misreading of the law by the moderator and nothing more than that. Shoestring

Forgive me Buzby, but I question the rationale of three words you used in your post with such obvious relish. Despite trying hard, I don't at all see their relevance. (not-with-standing your entire post either, as a matter of fact -- since mine was directed to a particular individual, the "moderator" and not you -- hope you don't mind me pointing this out ). The first of these three words is "overlooked" as pertaining to a general fair comment in a public forum. As a retired professional journalist/writer and current testy poster, I am familiar with libel laws. After all, I have had published many sensitive stories over a decade and a half that exceed what I wrote above, by a factor of, well, lots and lots and lots. The second is Liable - but for (or to) what precisely? And finally "legal" as in legal charges arising from...? (poor writing skills perhaps? Do you imagine that making a general statement about the parlous nature of British business is going to result in a beckoning finger to the headmaster's study for a serious raised eye-brow talk and six of the best from his twitchy and trusty birch? Perhaps you think it will result in a libel suit? But from whom? The Institute of Directors? The Confederation of British Industry? The Institute of Bankers? Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs maybe? Are you aware that a libel action is solely based on libeling a living person or persons - with malice? Even if I set out to try and libel British Business trends, they could not bring an action because they don't exist as a legal entity. They're a Collective --- mostly a god awful collective at that. I'm sure you now understand my confusion with your confusion... Shoestring See: libel - definition of libel by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia. and http://www.google.co.uk/searchhl=en&cr=countryUK%7CcountryGB&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUK261&defl=en&q=define:libel&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title

Dear moderator, In regard to your edit of my earlier post, it is not considered actionable to state a personal view (i.e., "imo") in the context of what I posted, but rather is regarded as "fair comment". Definition of fair comment: fair comment legal definition of fair comment. fair comment synonyms by the Free Online Law Dictionary. A form of qualified privilege applied to news media publications relating to discussion of matters that are of legitimate concern to the community as a whole because they materially affect the interests of all the community. A term used in the defense of libel actions, applying to statements made by a writer (e.g., in the news media) in an honest belief in their truth, relating to official acts, even though the statements are not true in fact. Fair comment must be based on facts truly stated, must not contain imputations of corrupt or dishonorable motives except as warranted by the facts, and must be an honest expression of the writer's real opinion. In order for a statement to fall into the category of a fair comment, it must not extend beyond matters of concern to the public. It must be a mere expression of the opinion of the commentator. Moreover, it is not possible to libel the entire business community or even a sector of the business community. The deleted part of my post was, as you know, clearly and unambiguously directed towards the entire UK business community. I believe that my forementioned post and opinions stated in that post, fall well within the definition of fair comment in every material regard, as I do absolutely believe that business has become tricky, deceitful and crooked and that we all must become more aware of this. As a nation we are too naive and too honest for our own good. I would appreciate your response please with regard to reinstating the edit you made. Thanks Shoestring

The T&C about credit risk is very clearly what this is all about. My guess is that they assessed you were good for the accrued debt and otherwise didn't give a cor blimey. If they assessed that you were not good for the debt accruing they would've pulled the line without hesitation. No disrespect to you personally kooglesarmy, (this is a general moan) but people have got to wake up to the way business operates. There is only one function they are concerned about and that is profit. Where it comes from or by what dubious method is of less consequence. Tricks, deceits, and creative techniques of daylight robbery are there to be used as and when required. We, as a nation have to become less naive and less trusting of big business. Shoestring

This matter hangs entirely on what was said in the original phone call you me. Write to BT formally by recorded delivery (addressed to their Complaints Review Team at Durham --- keep a copy of your letter and the recorded delivery receipt safe). Sa in the letter that you absolutely dispute asking for an engineer to attend you, but that you phoned simply to ask for advice about the wires. The decision to send an engineer, or not, is entirely theirs and you are not liable. Insist they provide a copy of the tape of your conversation (not a transcript -- as who can trust them to be accurate?). Say that if the tape shows you to be liable then you will agree to pay. But if it doesn't they must withdraw all charges. Tell them you intend to elevate this matter to an official complaint with Otelo and that a copy of your complaint will also be copied to the OFT. {EDIT} Shoestring

See "Mark Blackpool's" post (lined below) which is germaine to this matter. BT have found a sneaky tricksy way out of the OFT ruling-to-be b the look of it...

I'm sympathetic and wish you good luck. I'm beginning to sound like Mulder in the X Files, I'm afraid, with his "trust no one" motif, but by now we should all be aware that no businessman should be trusted in the slightest. Our trust is their passport to their continuing profits and our continuing losses. We need to take the time to fact check and double check before proceeding. The latest BBC article about the expected OFT ruling on unfair charges, suggests that not making a customer explicitly aware of a contract roll or extension is regarded as unfair and therefore unlawful...

I have not yet, but am considering such action. The small claims court system limits your costs and may be the best way to proceed.

This is an interesting move by BT and is doubtless to do with the forthcoming announcement by the OFT about the £4.50 per quarter penalty fee for processing non DD payments. It smells unpleasant and I do think it requires the input of a lawyer to assess. First move may be to contact OFT and Otelo to ask them about the enforceability of this change. For it to be considered factoring I would've thought (but am by no means certain) it would require the new arm - BTPS - to be independently owned as the whole purpose of factoring is, as Buzby says, to outsource collection. I would think that a judge would simply regard this move as a circumvention of existing laws.

That, of course, is the key point. Being "told about it" can take many forms. Sneaky and deceitful forms. My concern is that the spin shouting about the free UK calls will be loud and in your face...whereas the lock-in to a further 12 month period contract will not be - indeed, I fear it will be eclipsed from easy view and shunted away to some small print corner. Moreover, that an unfair term can be discounted is exactly my point. It can be discounted in the manner I stated earlier in this thread. The point here is that if BT think that is acceptable (and the do) to engage in sharp practice then there is nothing in law that forbids the customer from also engaging in some tricks. What's good for the goose... Your example of the carpet cleaner is a completely different matter, as it is hiring equipment for a stated period not attempting to roll, modify or change an ongoing contract. What I am trying to do here is to alter the current mode of thinking of big business that it is okay (giggle) to stiff customers any which way (because they're stupid and, besides, are too busy to check) in order to inflate profits and so engineer a nice little year end earner in the form of multi-million pound bonuses and profit shares, payable to those those busy directors you mentioned. Most of us are busy. But most of us can't rush out and order some in-house lawyer functionary to find trick ways of deceiving our customers into paying more than is fair or reasonable --- and then using our clout, muscle and contacts to inhibit/bully/coerce anyone who tries to dight what we have done. I, therefore, think it is high time that us people started challenging business every step of the way and finding creative solutions to making business become responsive to our requirements. Historically, bloodying the nose of a bully is the fastest way of bringing said bully to a screaming and tearful halt. Because if we don't do it now, I fear, in a decade or so, we'll be completely buggered and left only able to tug our forelock as our betters, steal our pig, **** on our hut and thrash us at their whim. Shoestring

Hi Buzby, Really? Could you kindly cite the law or section of the law that supports what you say please? I'm not being sarky here but I am interested in carefully parsing what is written. If you say that varying specific terms of business are not acceptable without your explicit understanding - as detailed in a writing - then that can be considered as de facto termination if they disagree with this/these provisions. It is then down to them to make you specifically aware and not sneak it in behind your back. Aleratively they can terminate the service as you have said you disagree with certain variations etc. Contract law is a two-way street. Your acceptance of the terms & conditions of business surely is the whole point and can not simply be immaterial. The assumption that you accept said terms cannot be held valid if you have written to them stating that you refuse to agree to certain terms, as the "assumption of acceptance" has been voided. In writing. On the other point that the expectations of 6 million customers is unreasonable, so is an assumption that you will automatically agree to any modifications or variations they may make in the future without making you explicitly aware of same. For example, under your scenario there is nothing to stop BT placing a fine print clause stating that they will inherit your Estate upon your death, or that that they have become the Executors of said estate. Ditto your accruing pension -- at the time it converts to payment, it will be paid directly to BT. While these are far-fetched examples, the underlying principle is the same. Just because directors are busy people doesn't elevate them above you in the eyes of the law. Shoestring

Can I add that in future it is wise to always do things like this in writing (and keep a copy), as big company's have an amazing ability to never get telephone calls (or emails) when income is involved. Good luck with the nipper...

Simply write straight away to BT (by recorded delivery of course) saying that: a) any future variations, changes or modifications of the terms and conditions must bear your signature to be binding and legal and that if the service (or ay part thereof) is renewed/continues to be provided hereafter without your written acceptance of same, under your signature, that it will, henceforward, be regarded as being provided free and gratis. b) that you do not accept, in principle, a cancellation fee to be binding or legally payable if the contract is "renewed" without your written acceptance, under your signature, of all terms and conditions relating to that "renewal". c) that continuation of direct debit payments by you must not be construed as your agreement to any terms and conditions and/or renewals unless said terms and conditions relating to cancellation fees are accompanied by written agreement from you bearing your signature. Ensure that this letter is correctly addressed, dated and bears your signature. I actually think that this letter (or a similar one) should be sent by everyone with a BT account (likewise for Virgin and other telecom providers) as this will (I argue) bring these shifty and deceitful ways to an abrupt halt. Knowing how BT operate, these letters will be ignored. Make sure you keep a copy of the letter and the recorded delivery receipt in a safe place for future use/reference. Make sure you do keep the recorded delivery receipt safe, as BT will lose the letter if it suits them to ensure that it is lost or not received. Shoestring PS, the principle here is that you too can vary a contract. It is not something BT or any other party has a sole right to. A contract is simply an agreement between two or more parties -- the operative word being agreement not a diktat.

So what happened to the allegation by the car rental company that the vehicle bearing the index you noted, was "not out that day"?

Hate to offer the obvious cynics observation, but I have seen letters fabricated after the fact and then placed in files with the intention that others then stumble over them. I am not overly familiar with the law, but if they claim they sent the letters and you claim you didn't receive them, then the burden of proof is on their shoulders not yours. But keep all contact from now on in written form and send all your letters by recorded delivery (keep the receipts too). Your first letter should objectively and dispassionately set out the facts as you know them. Say that you have not ever received one of them and you are disquieted by this singular and worrying fact. After you do that simply then ask them to evidence that they did, in fact, send the letters to you they claim they did. Shoestring

My son uses his mobile to record all domestic business conversations and then copies them on to his PC to keep until they are no longer needed. It's a very smart move (and can also be used when making landline calls by holding the mobile close to the earpiece) because it is just no longer possible to trust any commitment made on the telephone. Call centre staff lie on a daily basis. A verbal agreement is a contract so if you have a recording it can be used as evidence (not the actual tape because the other party must be informed in advance that you're recording the call) but an exact transcript. If the person or entity you record then clams the transcript is inaccurate you can seek permission from the judge to enter the recorded conversation into evidence.

A highly significant decision reached in the US concerning ownership of mortgage debt. ** The Financial Tsunami: Sub-Prime Mortgage Debt is but the Tip of the Iceberg by F. William Engdahl Global Research, November 23, 2007 Email this article to a friend Print this article Part 1: Deutsche Bank’s painful lesson Even experienced banker friends tell me that they think the worst of the US banking troubles are over and that things are slowly getting back to normal. What is lacking in their rosy optimism is the realization of the scale of the ongoing deterioration in credit markets globally, centered in the American asset-backed securities market, and especially in the market for CDO’s—Collateralized Debt Obligations and CMO’s—Collateralized Mortgage Obligations. By now every serious reader has heard the term “It’s a crisis in Sub-Prime US home mortgage debt.” What almost no one I know understands is that the Sub-Prime problem is but the tip of a colossal iceberg that is in a slow meltdown. I offer one recent example to illustrate my point that the “Financial Tsunami” is only beginning. Deutsche Bank got a hard shock a few days ago when a judge in the state of Ohio in the USA made a ruling that the bank had no legal right to foreclose on 14 homes whose owners had failed to keep current in their monthly mortgage payments. Now this might sound like small beer for Deutsche Bank, one of the world’s largest banks with over €1.1 trillion (Billionen) in assets worldwide. As Hilmar Kopper used to say, “peanuts.” It’s not at all peanuts, however, for the Anglo-Saxon banking world and its European allies like Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, Barclays Bank, HSBC or others. Why? A US Federal Judge, C.A. Boyko in Federal District Court in Cleveland Ohio ruled to dismiss a claim by Deutsche Bank National Trust Company. DB’s US subsidiary was seeking to take possession of 14 homes from Cleveland residents living in them, in order to claim the assets. Here comes the hair in the soup. The Judge asked DB to show documents proving legal title to the 14 homes. DB could not. All DB attorneys could show was a document showing only an “intent to convey the rights in the mortgages.” They could not produce the actual mortgage, the heart of Western property rights since the Magna Charta of not longer. Again why could Deutsche Bank not show the 14 mortgages on the 14 homes? Because they live in the exotic new world of “global securitization”, where banks like DB or Citigroup buy tens of thousands of mortgages from small local lending banks, “bundle” them into Jumbo new securities which then are rated by Moody’s or Standard & Poors or Fitch, and sell them as bonds to pension funds or other banks or private investors who naively believed they were buying bonds rated AAA, the highest, and never realized that their “bundle” of say 1,000 different home mortgages, contained maybe 20% or 200 mortgages rated “sub-prime,” i.e. of dubious credit quality. Indeed the profits being earned in the past seven years by the world’s largest financial players from Goldman Sachs to Morgan Stanley to HSBC, Chase, and yes, Deutsche Bank, were so staggering, few bothered to open the risk models used by the professionals who bundled the mortgages. Certainly not the Big Three rating companies who had a criminal conflict of interest in giving top debt ratings. That changed abruptly last August and since then the major banks have issued one after another report of disastrous “sub-prime” losses. A new unexpected factor The Ohio ruling that dismissed DB’s claim to foreclose and take back the 14 homes for non-payment, is far more than bad luck for the bank of Josef Ackermann. It is an earth-shaking precedent for all banks holding what they had thought were collateral in form of real estate property. How this? Because of the complex structure of asset-backed securities and the widely dispersed ownership of mortgage securities (not actual mortgages but the securities based on same) no one is yet able to identify who precisely holds the physical mortgage document. Oops! A tiny legal detail our Wall Street Rocket Scientist derivatives experts ignored when they were bundling and issuing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of CMO’s in the past six or seven years. As of January 2007 some $6.5 trillion of securitized mortgage debt was outstanding in the United States. That’s a lot by any measure! In the Ohio case Deutsche Bank is acting as “Trustee” for “securitization pools” or groups of disparate investors who may reside anywhere. But the Trustee never got the legal document known as the mortgage. Judge Boyko ordered DB to prove they were the owners of the mortgages or notes and they could not. DB could only argue that the banks had foreclosed on such cases for years without challenge. The Judge then declared that the banks “seem to adopt the attitude that since they have been doing this for so long, unchallenged, this practice equates with legal compliance. Finally put to the test,” the Judge concluded, “their weak legal arguments compel the court to stop them at the gate.” Deutsche Bank has refused comment. What next? As news of this legal precedent spreads across the USA like a California brushfire, hundreds of thousands of struggling homeowners who took the bait in times of historically low interest rates to buy a home with often, no money paid down, and the first 2 years with extremely low interest rate in what are known as “interest only” Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs), now face exploding mortgage monthly payments at just the point the US economy is sinking into severe recession. (I regret the plethora of abbreviations used here but it is the fault of Wall Street bankers not this author). The peak period of the US real estate bubble which began in about 2002 when Alan Greenspan began the most aggressive series of rate cuts in Federal Reserve history was 2005-2006. Greenspan’s intent, as he admitted at the time, was to replace the Dot.com internet stock bubble with a real estate home investment and lending bubble. He argued that was the only way to keep the US economy from deep recession. In retrospect a recession in 2002 would have been far milder and less damaging than what we now face. Of course, Greenspan has since safely retired, written his memoirs and handed the control (and blame) of the mess over to a young ex-Princeton professor, Ben Bernanke. As a Princeton graduate, I can say I would never trust monetary policy for the world’s most powerful central bank in the hands of a Princeton economics professor. Keep them in their ivy-covered towers. Now the last phase of every speculative bubble is the one where the animal juices get the most excited. This has been the case with every major speculative bubble since the Holland Tulip speculation of the 1630’s to the South Sea Bubble of 1720 to the 1929 Wall Street crash. It was true as well with the US 2002-2007 Real Estate bubble. In the last two years of the boom in selling real estate loans, banks were convinced they could resell the mortgage loans to a Wall Street financial house who would bundle it with thousands of good better and worse quality mortgage loans and resell them as Collateralized Mortgage Obligation bonds. In the flush of greed, banks became increasingly reckless of the credit worthiness of the prospective home owners. In many cases they did not even bother to check if the person was employed. Who cares? It will be resold and securitized and the risk of mortgage default was historically low. That was in 2005. The most Sub-prime mortgages written with Adjustable Rate Mortgage contracts were written between 2005-2006, the last and most furious phase of the US bubble. Now a whole new wave of mortgage defaults is about to explode onto the scene beginning January 2008. Between December 2007 and July 1, 2008 more than $690 Billion in mortgages will face an interest rate jump according to the contract terms of the ARMs written two years before. That means market interest rates for those mortgages will explode monthly payments just as recession drives incomes down. Hundreds of thousands of homeowners will be forced to do the last resort of any homeowner: stop monthly mortgage payments. Here is where the Ohio court decision guarantees that the next phase of the US mortgage crisis will assume Tsunami dimension. If the Ohio Deutsche Bank precedent holds in the appeal to the Supreme Court, millions of homes will be in default but the banks prevented from seizing them as collateral assets to resell. Robert Shiller of Yale, the controversial and often correct author of the book, Irrational Exuberance, predicting the 2001-2 Dot.com stock crash, estimates US housing prices could fall as much as 50% in some areas given how home prices have diverged relative to rents. The $690 billion worth of “interest only” ARMs due for interest rate hike between now and July 2008 are by and large not Sub-prime but a little higher quality, but only just. There are a total of $1.4 trillion in “interest only” ARMs according to the US research firm, First American Loan Performance. A recent study calculates that, as these ARMs face staggering higher interest costs in the next 9 months, more than $325 billion of the loans will default leaving 1 million property owners in technical mortgage default. But if banks are unable to reclaim the homes as assets to offset the non-performing mortgages, the US banking system and a chunk of the global banking system faces a financial gridlock that will make events to date truly “peanuts” by comparison. We will discuss the global geo-political implications of this in our next report, The Financial Tsunami: Part 2. GlobalResearch.ca - Centre for Research on Globalization

Even so, the old adage that "who pays the piper calls the tune" means the are tarnished in the public's mind and, arguably, need to be replaced by an independently funded organization that can demonstrate absolutely that there is no grace or favour involved.