BT charged me for calls when I didn't even have a phone

Kat Comer, a 29-year-old Brand Manager from Walthamstow in North East London, was stunned to receive a bill from BT, listing 40 phone calls she had made over the previous four months. The bill, amounting to £69.93, came as something of a surprise, because Kat doesn't have a landline phone - so it would be impossible for her to make any calls at all.

The problems began when Kat moved house at the beginning of July. She doesn't have a landline phone, but she discovered she would need to pay for a BT landline in order to get broadband.

She didn't feel she ought to pay BT's moving fee, because she wasn't going to use the landline to make any calls. She told broadband advice company Cable.co.uk: "I called up BT and spoke to someone and they told me they would waive the £130 fee. I was happy with this."
%VIRTUAL-ArticleSidebar-bills-guide%
Bill errors

Her first bill, however, included the £130 fee, plus a bill for 19 calls, and a protection service she hadn't ordered. They had also increased the length of her contract.

She was unable to get through on the phone, so she contacted BT through its online chat service. The company agreed to drop the moving fee, protection service and phone calls from the bill, but she says the following month she was charged again for 19 calls she hadn't made.

She said she couldn't get through on the phone again, so was forced to use the online chat service, She explained: "I spent three entire hours trying to solve the issue, during which I was passed around to four people and continually told I'm making it up and the calls came from my number so I must have made them."

"They have offered a refund yet again, but how many months must I go through this? There has been no solution to fix the ongoing problem at all and it is shocking."

Her latest bill includes charges for three more calls she hadn't made. All of the calls she has been billed for are to a local charity that she has never phoned. She added: "I have now cancelled my direct debit and they keep chasing me trying to get me to pay. At this point we just want to get our contract cancelled so we can join Virgin where we won't have the phone line issue."

Resolved

BT told Cable.co.uk: "BT has investigated Ms Comer's case, and our investigations have found that the calls were made from that line." However, it added: "As a gesture of goodwill and due to the time it took to resolve the complaint BT has waived the call charges and also offered a credit of £30. The customer has now cancelled their contract without charge. BT would like to apologise to Ms Cromer for the delay in resolving the complaint."

Kat is pleased to have the situation resolved, but told AOL she is unimpressed that the process has taken months. She added: "It was actually really upsetting how BT responded if they responded at all." "It was consistently implied we were lying about the false charges on our phone line. It is physically impossible any calls were made from that line from us, we don't have a phone plugged into the line which made this so frustrating."

What happened?

These cases are relatively unusual, but it has happened before. Unlike this situation, in most cases the problem occurs where there are a number of people living in the house or there are people passing through, who either use a phone that is connected, or connect one of their own. The bill payer knows nothing about it, but the calls are made from the home.

There are, however, exceptions. These are caused by 'crossed lines', when wires in the green junction boxes are not connected properly, and one household ends up being billed for calls made on another line. This was something The Guardian reported on in May 2014, when a number of households reported being billed for calls they could not have made. In most cases BT insisted that the calls must have been made by someone in the house, but in one instance crossed wires were found.

The problem was also introduced to BT's own forum in March this year, when the householder called an engineer out, who told them: "the problem was that in the local internet hub, our wires were touching with other wires". The moderator responded: "It does sound like to could be a cross line fault. I would like to take a look at this for you."

AOL contacted BT, and a spokesman said that technically crossed wires are a possibility. He added that when BT cancelled the outstanding bill "We also offered to send an engineer to Ms Comer's home to investigate further, but that offer was declined." Kat, by then, was understandably just glad not to have to deal with the company again.

He added: "If customers suspect they're being charged for calls they haven't made, we would encourage them to contact us as soon as possible."