Questions of Cash: BT bills show charges for international calls have suddenly become prohibitive
Before 1 July, BT's "Call Happy" international service was billed at a rate of 2p a minute. The cost rose on 1 July to 11p
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Your support makes all the difference.Q. My wife is Japanese and often makes calls to Japan. We use the "Call Happy" international service. Before 1 July, these calls were billed to our BT account at a rate of 2p a minute, which I believe included a BT access charge of 0.3p. The cost rose on 1 July to 11p. I have paid £40 to £50 in addition as a result.
If we had known in advance, we could have used Skype or another provider. Call Happy has confirmed its charges are unchanged. RS, Hampshire
Q. I have just received my latest BT bill and discovered an enormous increase in the cost of accessing numbers for making calls overseas. BT has added a charge to the minute-by-minute call fee.
In my case the provider, Telediscount, levies 1p a minute, but BT has added 9.55p a minute. Previously there was no charge. This has created an enormous total cost. Telediscount says it has received lots of complaints. FW, by email
A. BT says the higher charges were adopted following a regulatory change imposed by the industry regulator, Ofcom.
A spokesman for BT said: "Ofcom has decided that the cost of calls to number ranges that begin with 08, 09 or 118 should be made up of an access charge – set by your phone provider, such as BT – and a service charge, set by the service you are calling, such as a bank. BT charges 10.24p a minute as its access charge – the same as the regular cost of a normal call to a landline, to keep our pricing simple. Customers on our low-income tariff BT Basic will not have to pay an access charge for any call."
But a spokeswoman for Ofcom said: "Ofcom has made the cost of calling 08, 09 and 118 numbers much clearer. Operators are required to make their access charge clear to customers, in bills and contracts. And companies using these numbers must explain their service charge wherever the number is advertised or promoted.
"Operators can choose their prices, so we encourage people to shop around for a tariff that's right for them. Different providers are offering a range of pricing options for these numbers, including per-minute access charges as low as 1p a minute."
Alarmed by charges for text messages
Q. I am being charged £3 a time for incoming text messages. My mobile phone company EE is working with a company in Ireland – Zamano – to levy these charges.
The user is supposed to have consented to these charges, but in my case the SIM was installed in a burglar alarm and I can find no evidence of a contract where I have agreed to pay them. JF, Bournemouth
A. The charges were for a specific service that EE has claimed that you were subscribed to via the internet. You are unaware of doing so. Indeed, it is impossible to understand why a SIM card used in a burglar alarm would be deliberately subscribed to a premium-rate service.
These charges depleted your prepaid credit on the SIM card in the alarm, requiring you to top it up. After we contacted EE, it credited your SIM with the cost of the texts.
A spokeswoman for the company said: "We've investigated this case and can confirm [the reader] has been credited, as a gesture of goodwill, for any charges relating to Zamano services, and it has confirmed he has been unsubscribed.
"Zamano is a third-party mobile payment service that is regulated by PhonepayPlus [the UK watchdog for premium-rate numbers], and any complaint about such services should be directed to them. Although the service is billed through EE, this would be the same as buying a ringtone or game through an app store, for example – it's just shown as a purchase on the EE bill."
Zamano is based in Ireland and declined to provide a full explanation of how the charges arose. Its spokesman said: "In this case, all we can say is that Zamano is the billing gateway and not the service provider. We understand that this issue was resolved in full and this customer was refunded in full."
Dartford Crossing: a bridge too far
Q. We drove from Essex to Kent and back on 3 October. We left at 12.36pm and came back at 4.24pm. When we arrived home at 5.57pm, we made a payment online for the Dartford Crossing, as there is no longer a physical toll. We have now received a fine of £75 for not paying on time.
"We phoned to dispute the charge and explained we had paid, but we were told that because we set the account up after the crossings had been made, we still had to pay the fine. KP, Essex
A. The Dartford Crossing website states: "Charges apply between 6am and 10pm. You must pay by midnight the day after you cross."
You did this, but it appears you wrongly made the payment as a "prepay', rather than for a journey already completed.
A spokesman for Highways England, which is in charge of the Dartford Crossing, said: "Having investigated this case, we can confirm that the penalty charge notice was not issued in error. Prepay accounts can only be used to pay for journeys made after the account is opened. As stated on our website, journeys already made need to be paid for separately."
You tell us that Highways England has now repaid £70 of the penalty after your daughter complained on Twitter.
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