A short account of my abysmal experience as a BT customer. I became a BT customer in mid-May. Phone and internet services worked. Despite 19 phone calls taking up hours and hours BT could not get my Vision service working. The services were bought as a package so I cancelled them as a package, as per OfCom’s advice. What followed then were another 20ish calls (I’ve now phoned BT in excess of 40 times) and approximately 20 hours on the phone. Assurances of “full refunds” and “cancellation fees waived” were granted only to be retracted on subsequent phone calls. I asked for explicit notes to be kept on my account. These were apparently made (even read out to me), only for me to find that they hadn’t. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve fought the same battle over and over again. I asked for written confirmation (email), of my discussions with customer “service” operators, but was told it wasn’t possible. I asked for the address of the complaints department but was told there wasn’t a dedicated complaints department. I’m 35 and have just endured the most shocking customer experience in my life. BT are plagued by a pathetic customer service ethos, total ineffectiveness and are, most shockingly, devoid of any will to respect or honour its customers’ rights. I’ve emailed the CEO with a lengthy complaint communicating my disgust at my treatment and seeking assurances that my credit history will not be adversely affected as a result of BT’s billing and account inefficiencies (I am still receiving bills by email and post despite cancelling the account and returning the equipment to them months ago). To date they still owe me £265.46. I have been promised this several times only to have to fight for it again on the next phone call. I should’ve known better. I was warned not to go with BT but was lured by the high speed internet. Hopefully it’s nearly over now. Advice for anyone considering using BT… ask yourself if you value being treated with fairness and respect. I’m not prone to complaining or writing snotty letters, but I’ve been really disgusted by them. I’m ashamed they’re British and can’t wait to sever ties with them. I will never again knowingly pay BT for a service where an alternative exists. I’ve now moved to Sky, of whom I can’t speak highly enough so far (I know they have their detractors too). They’ve been in a whole different league to BT in terms of their customer care. Had a slight issue with broadband, but one 10 minute phone call and it was resolved. Turned out the BT Outreach engineer connected up the microfilter in the wrong place… (sigh). I will update this post with BT’s response, should I even get one…

I became a BT customer in mid-May. Phone and internet services worked. Despite 19 phone calls taking up hours and hours BT could not get my Vision service working. The services were bought as a package so I cancelled them as a package, as per OfCom’s advice. What followed then were another 20ish calls (I’ve now phoned BT in excess of 40 times) and approximately 20 hours on the phone. Assurances of “full refunds” and “cancellation fees waived” were granted only to be retracted on subsequent phone calls. I asked for explicit notes to be kept on my account. These were apparently made (even read out to me), only for me to find that they hadn’t. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve fought the same battle over and over again. I asked for written confirmation (email), of my discussions with customer “service” operators, but was told it wasn’t possible. I asked for the address of the complaints department but was told there wasn’t a dedicated complaints department. I’m 35 and have just endured the most shocking customer experience in my life. BT are plagued by a pathetic customer service ethos, total ineffectiveness and are, most shockingly, devoid of any will to respect or honour its customers’ rights. I’ve emailed the CEO with a lengthy complaint communicating my disgust at my treatment and seeking assurances that my credit history will not be adversely affected as a result of BT’s billing and account inefficiencies (I am still receiving bills by email and post despite cancelling the account and returning the equipment to them months ago). To date they still owe me £265.46. I have been promised this several times only to have to fight for it again on the next phone call. I should’ve known better. I was warned not to go with BT but was lured by the high speed internet. Hopefully it’s nearly over now. Advice for anyone considering using BT… ask yourself if you valued being treated with fairness and respect. I’m not prone to complaining or writing snotty letters, but I’ve been really disgusted by them. I’m ashamed they’re British and can’t wait to sever ties with them. I will never again knowingly pay BT for a service where an alternative exists. I’ve now moved to Sky, of whom I can’t speak highly enough so far (I know they have their detractors too). They’ve been in a whole different league to BT in terms of their customer care. Had a slight issue with broadband, but one 10 minute phone call and it was resolved. Turned out the BT Outreach engineer connected up the microfilter in the wrong place… (sigh). I will update this post with BT’s response, should I even get one…

Thanks mfpa. I'll get onto it today.

Thank you cbrundle and mfpa for your replies. I'm going to phone RM today and ask of they can provide me with proof of delivery. Failing that I'll just send another letter off, but if the same thing happens to that one I really will fear for my sanity. It's SO infuriating when people do not do their jobs correctly! Thanks again for your advice!

Can I please ask for further clarification here? I have had exactly the same problem with Royal Snail in the past and have recently had the frustration of it happening AGAIN!!!! I sent a LBA to Halifax and have proof of postage, is this all I need? Can I start counting the 14 days from, say 2 days after date of posting? Or do I have to post another one, and another one and so on until the dimwits at the special-school-formerly-known-as-Consignia supply me with proof of delivery? I'm just worried that, should it go to court Halifax could turn round and say they didnt receive a LBA and therefore weren't given a fair opportunity to address my complaint. Any advice would be great. P.S. I'd love to see what trading standards (if they would be the right people to go to ) would say about Royal Snail charging customers for a service they very often don't provide. "First Class "Signed for" delivery" my rosey red buttocks!!!!

Nevermind. I found out.

*Please move if I've posted this in the wrong section* I have a loan account and have had a few charges of £30 a time for late payments. Does the same priciple which applies to the bank charges also apply to charges on a loan account? I can't think of any reason why they shouldn't. I just want to make sure before I take them up on it. Have tried to find this in the FAQ section but with no luck. Apologies if I've missed something on it... Thanks

Thank you Bluecloud. I'll write back and post the letter tomorrow.

Halifax paid out £3,345.26 on the 26th of October! Thank you everyone for your help and advice! A donation is winging its way to CAG at this very moment. Now I'm off to take on the rest of them! Thank you! :grin:

Thanks Jonni. Moneyclaim has been filed and am awaiting news of Halifax Plc acknowledging the claim.

I have a very quick question that hopefully someone will be able to answer for me. I have read that on the schedule of charges I should state what the charge is for, i.e. unpaid direct debit etc, however on all of my statements the charges simply have "Charges as Notified" next to them. I take it it's ok that I put "Charges as Notified" on my schedule of charges? A quick yes or no would be great as I'm filling in Moneyclaim right now. Just thought I'd check before I submit it.

Thank you very much Jonni. That's put my mind at ease now. I'll get on with my claim tomorrow.

I'm due to file the moneyclaim thing tomorrow so if anyone could get back to me on this one it would be a big help. The bit I'm not sure about is the claim for interest. I'm confident that I've filled out the spreadsheet fine and that I've calculated the daily rate of interest ok. This bit; Claimant claims interest under Sec.69 of the County Courts Act 1984 at a rate of 8% a year from 31/12/01 to 02/10/06 of £397.27 and also interest at same rate up to the date of ...I cant' work out from the other posts if the amount in bold should be just the interest (as calculated on the ss) or the amount of charges PLUS the interest. I'm fairly sure it's the former but just need to check if that's correct before a dive in at the deep end with my claim. Please, any feedback would be very much appreciated.

Okay it's scarey time for me now. Got to take the plunge and file for a county court judgement through moneyclaim. I have two claims to make, as I mentioned in a previous post, but I've decided to make them seperately with the smaller of the two claims a few days ahead of this main one. That way I'll get a little experience of the process with the less important one first. I know this topic has been covered elsewhere in the forum but I'm still very confused about the particulars of the claim. Here's what I intent to put in that part of the form (the dates are a little out as I typed it a couple of days ago, but I'll update it before I file the final version). I'd appreciate it if someone could let me know if I've put the right figures in the right place. The figures are: Total amount of charges since 31/12/01 = £2776 8% interest on charges (worked out on spreadsheet) from date of first charge to 2/10/06 (I'll update this) = £397.27 Daily rate of interest calculated at 0.00022 x £2776 "Claimant has account 0xxxxxx1 with Defendant from 27/09/94 conducted on their standard terms and conditions. Claimant is claiming the return of £2776 taken by Defendant in charges over 6 years. The Defendant's charges are a disproportionate penalty and therefore unenforceable as they are contrary to common law. They are also invalid under the Unfair Contracts Terms Act 1977 s.4 and under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999.Para.8 and sch.2.1.e. In the event that the charges are not a penalty they are unreasonable within the meaning of the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 s.15. Defendant has declined justification of charges despite repeated requests. Claimant claims interest under Sec.69 of the County Courts Act 1984 at a rate of 8% a year from 31/12/01 to 02/10/06 of £397.27 and also interest at same rate up to the date of judgment or earlier payment at a daily rate of £0.61." Any advice, even just a "yeh that's correct" would be great and would give me a bit of much needed confidence. Thank you.

Jakea, I'm not completely sure but I think the figure you're left with after multiplying your total charges by 0.00022 is the amount in pence per day. i.e. £2050 x 0.00022 = 45.1p per day in interest. Hopefully someone else will be able to clarify this for you. I'm at the same stage as you so fingers crossed!!! Good luck! Chris

Hi Nathe, I'm not sure what you can do in this situation, but I'm sure someone in here will know how to tackle it. It's interesting to hear of other people having problems with O2 as well! Good luck and don't give up! Chris

Thank you very much for all your replies and for taking the time to read my post. I'll look into the options you've mentioned and let you know how I get on. At the moment I'm just glad I'm no longer a customer with O2 and can continue to enjoy the excellent service that Orange have provided me. Never again will I go within spitting distance of those amateurs. Thanks again folks!

Not sure where to post this so Mods please feel free to move this ifit's in the wrong place. I have an unusual problem with O2 and wanted to post it in here to see what people think about the way I've been treated by O2. You guys have far more legal knowhow than I do so any input would be great. I had an O2 mobile account for a couple of years up until April. Occasionally I wouldn't have sufficient funds in my bank account to cover the direct debit to O2 and the DD would be rejected. On every occasion I would phone O2 as soon as I had been paid (usually about a week after the DD failed) and would settle the bill using my Visa Electron card. On many occasions O2 would send me a letter saying my "manual payment" had been rejected by the bank and that there was still an outstanding balance on my bill. I contacted the Halifax with the dates of the alledged payment refusals and was asked (before I even mentioned O2), "Is your phone contract with O2 by any chance?". They told me that when a transaction with a Visa Electron card requires O2 to phone for an authorisation code they simply reject the payment and inform the customer that the bank rejected the payment. I can only speculate as to why they would do this. Maybe it costs too much to have an employee make phonecalls to banks for authorisation codes? They then went on to confirm that they had no record of O2 even approaching the Halifax for payment from my account! And confirmed that had O2 done so, there were more than enough funds to cover the payment! I phoned O2 and confronted them with this and the employee I spoke to actually confirmed that this sometimes happens. I was then given a goodwill gesture of £(can't remember how much) and was assured it would not happen again. Sure enough it happened again. I eventually cancelled my contract with O2 and moved to Orange (who have been faultless right from the start), however this is where my hassles started. The final payment to close my account was made over the phone with my trusty Visa Electron card and... wait for it... was declined. O2 sent me a letter which arrived 4 days before pay day so I waited until then to pay it. Unfortunately I forgot all about it (completely my fault and I've been left rueing my mistake). O2 never contacted me again after that. They simply continued to update my credit file as having a balance outstanding and that my payments were overdue. I finally noticed this at the end of August and phoned to ask why I hadn't received any more correspondence from them. I paid the amount through online banking to a sort code and account number provided by O2 and the payment was accepted. Woohoo!!!!! In the meantime though, O2 had updated my credit file to read 5 months late with a payment!!!! And a balance still outstanding!!!!! I phoned them and they confirmed the funds were received but that the information was send before the funds cleared into their account. I am absolutely livid that an otherwise unblemished credit file has been messed up by these amateurs simply because they had an insufficient payment processing system and they relied on one letter to inform me of a failed payment, which failed because of their stupid payment processing!!!!:mad: I'm sorry this has been very long-winded but I wanted to give you the whole story from the start. Anyway, what I'm wondering is... 1) Is there any flaw in the way O2 have conducted my account that would enable me to have the flags removed from my credit file? 2) If I have been charged fees (by O2) for these payments being declined or late can I claim these back in the same way as others are claiming bank charges back? Thanks for taking the time to read my post. If you've got this far you deserve a medal!

Latest update Just about to fill in the moneyclaim online form but going to wait until Monday just to make sure I'm doing right. However I got an interesting letter from the Halifax today: "We are in receipt of your letter in connection with the charges that you have incurred on your account. As previously stated we are unable to refund all charges and the previous goodwill gesture was our final offer. Blah blah blah..." Has anyone else had them shut the door in their face like that?

Thanks for the speedy reply Michael. Someone else was asking the same question elsewhere so I've sent them the link to this thread. Thanks again! 8-)

Well Halifax Plc have run out of time today. I've followed the advice in the library and the forum and am just about to get on the Moneyclaim website to begin my court claim.:o I do have two questions that hopefully someone will be able to answer for me. I can't find anything on the topic in the forum so any help will be welcomed. At the moment I am claiming back credit card charges from Halifax Card Services as well as the bank charges I've mentioned in this thread. I am at the same stage in both processes. 1) Is there anything to stop me making these two claims? (I'm worried that there may be some legislation or something preventing me from taking the same organisation to court for two different accounts from two of their different services.) 2) I'm assuming that I will have to make two claims through the courts. One challenging the bank account charges and the other challenging the Halifax Card Services charges. Given that I have been following the process through both seperately, am I right in thinking I can't simply combine the claims at this point to leave one court claim for the two amounts of disputed charges? 3) Can anyone give me a link to where I can find the wording of the "Particulars of the claim" for claiming credit card charges? Or tell me what changes to make to the bank charges one in the library? I am aware that everyone's time here is already pressed, with so many people going through the process, so I've tried to fend for myself over the last month or two. I'm stuck on this one though and can't find a solution in the forum. Please shed some light on it if you can.

Just a good luck message for you. I'm also claiming my charges back from HBOS and Halifax Card Services. It is a daunting process but try not to feel intimidated by them. The only advice I can offer is to read the posts in this forum thoroughly so that you are confident in what you are doing and understand the legal arguments that back up your case. I have had three offers from the Halifax so far. The way I see it they wouldn't be giving me a penny if they felt I didn't have a point. Be organised, informed and determined and if in doubt use the great help that is available in the forum. Best of luck to you! Chris

I have some quick questions here so any help would be appreciated. I have looked for the information but can't find anything that I understand. Many of the charges imposed on me took my account over the authorised overdraft limit. I have three questions... 1) Do I just calculate interest on the portion of the charge which exceeds the overdraft limit? i.e. On a charge of £35 and with an overdraft limit of £750... Balance prior to the charge -£748.50 Balance after the charge -£783.50 Unauthorised overdraft interest calculated on £33.50 (the amount over the authorised overdraft) 2) Do I calculate the interest from the date of the charge up to the date that deposits to my account took the balance back to within the authorised limit? 3) Many of the charges were received years ago. Do I calculate the interest at the present rate, or should I phone the bank to find out the unauthorised overdraft rate at the time of the charge? I apologise if these questions are answered elsewhere on the site. I have looked,and will continue to look, for the information, but it's so complicated! Thanks for any advice. :-S

12th August Statements received this morning (just over 2 months from the date of the SAR). Charges total £2620 plus any others that I pick up in the near future. Now to fill in my Preliminary Request for Payment letter. Thanks for all the help so far.

Hi Sandra, Sorry for the delay in replying to you. I wasn't sure how many charges I had paid either so I sent the Data Protection Act - Subject Access Request to the Halifax Head Office first. I didn't alter the template letter at all, just sent it as it was. A word of advice though, from personal experience. Halifax did take an inordinate amount of time to supply my statements to me (I have only just received them this morning). I was guilty of not chasing them up with telephone calls etc. It seems that they were quite happy to sit and ignore my request until I threatened to force compliance through the County Court (I just posted the claim form to the court yesterday and will have to phone them on Monday to cancel the claim). Keep pestering them and make a note of who you speak to, time, what was said etc. And ask them to email Head Office with your request each time you call. Good luck and keep me informed of how you're getting on!