BT Moves The Goal Posts In their favour yet again!! £4.50 'Thanks' for nothing!!

[NaRvIcK DeViL]

BT Moves The Goal Posts In their favour yet again!!

In getting my Bill from BT and reading that a new charge will be imposed upon me if i do agree to pay my Bill to them by direct debit that's a extra £4.50, it reminded me about the change that took place on the 1st October of last year which you may not be aware of.

The minimum call charge as they call it from a landline not only changed in name but in price. The call set-up fee as they now call it , means you have been charged 3 pence at the start of each and every call you have made including connecting to the Internet if your on Dail-up pay-as-you-go on top of the other charges length /distance and time - day /evening /weekend and not forgetting the line rental.

This charge does exist in other countries but not when the customer is paying a line rental charge as well.

To put it into context:- before October of last year if you made a call , say on a Saturday evening which is still the cheapest time to make a local call (midnight Friday to midnight Sunday, yes folks ! it use to be 6pm Friday to Monday 8am they moved the goal posts in their favour there aswell ) , it use to be 1 pence a minute 5 pence minimum charge (incl VAT) you could then can be on the phone for 5 minutes and it will cost you 5 pence . After the changes were made if you’re on the phone for the same period of time it will now cost you 8 pence.

You can keep tabs on your bill - by using the Call my Bill Service (Tele. o8oo 854 608).Unfortunately there’s a delay from the time the call you made has ended, I’ve found that if the call is made before 10pm in the evening it will usually show up using this service after 5am in the morning the next day, but not always.

I’m stressing this point to show that Ofcom the supposedly overseer of the telecom industry is not there to protect the consumer no matter what you’re told to believe, from blatant profiteering. This kind of profiteering which in the UK we are so use to only takes place in other markets when a monopoly/cartel is in full swing.

I can only call this behaviour “we do this because we can and no market forces or Government Institutions are there to stop us” and we get to do it with a smile.

No other industry even in the UK or the world for that matter has so many layers of removing their hard earned cash from their customers; don’t forget this includes the mobile phone industry.

To help you understand how the telecommunication industry is allowed to function in the UK I'll put like this :- If you went and bought a car from the manufacturer and parked it in your driveway and the car manufacturer then had the right to charge you monthly or quarterly for the privilege of having the car even when you didn't use it ,could then charge you everytime you used it with varying increased rates for day / evening / weekends as well as the length of time and distance travelled you would be up in arms ! Well folks now they get to charge you everytime you open the car door.

BT is one of those lucky companies that get to have their cake and eat it with candles on top and a firework display to keep themselves amused.

The unfortunate thing is, in this country this is the norm.