So, I have a BT line with “Caller ID” – AKA “Caller Display”, you know, the BT Calling “Feature” that shows that your mother-in-law is calling the telephone number of the person calling you.
Up until now, BT Caller Display has been free – as long as you make at least two “chargeable or inclusive” calls a month – otherwise a £2.00 a month charge applies.
However, did you know that from 4th January 2014, this previously free service will cost you an extra £1.75 per month?
You may not have been unduly concerned as you poked around in BT’s completely obfuscated and impenetrable website, because it clearly says here “BT Privacy with Caller Display will cost £1.75 a month from 4 January 2014, but existing customers of the service can pre-register to continue getting it free for 12 months.”
So that’s OK – quickly register for BT Privacy and neatly side step the £1.75 per month price increase then. Oh no … I didn’t use the word “obfuscated” for nothing!
Scroll right to the bottom of this page and open the section entitled “The legal stuff”. Now, scroll down to the paragraph that starts BT Privacy with Caller Display Free for 12 months and see that it is hiding this little gem “Pre-register before 6th December 2013”.
So you did pre-register before 6th December 2013 for your BT Privacy with Caller Display Free for 12 months didn’t you?
If, by now, you are as annoyed as me by what I consider to be a hidden con, then you may just be looking for a new supplier for your phone line…
There are hundreds of suppliers out there – so you can do your own homework, but having two telephone lines, one already with Plusnet Broadband on it and the other that just needs to be a (now non-BT grrr…) phone line only, I went off and did a comparison. This revealed that I should swap one line (the line that already has my Plusnet broadband) to Plusnet and the voice only phone line to Madasafish.
Feel free to use this table to plug in your own figures:
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Line Rental (per month) |
£15.99 |
£14.50 |
£11.99 |
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Caller Display |
£1.75 |
£0.99 |
£0.99 |
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Unlimited Anytime calls |
£7.00 |
£5.00 |
£5.00 |
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Monthly Total (if paying line rental monthly) |
£24.74 |
£20.49 |
£17.98 |
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Line Rental Saver (pay 12 months in advance) |
£141 pa (£11.75 pm) |
£131.88 pa (£10.99 pm) |
N/A |
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Equivalent monthly total if purchasing Line Rental Saver. |
£20.50 |
£16.98 |
N/A |
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Monthly total if adding Unlimited (up to) 16MB Broadband |
£45.74 |
£22.99 |
Not an economic proposition |
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Monthly total if adding Unlimited (up to) 16MB Broadband and purchasing Line Rental Saver |
£41.50 |
£19.48 |
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Year 1 total cost |
£435 |
£233.76 |
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Year 2 total cost |
£498 |
£323.64 |
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Total over 2 years |
£933 |
£557.4 |
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Notes:
1. BT own Plusnet, who in turn own Madasafish. Plusnet have UK based 24/7 support and multiple awards.
2. It is not possible to purchase a phone only service from Plusnet.
3. While it is possible to purchase broadband from Madasafish – it is simply not an economic proposition but, weirdly, you do get 100MB of web space included – so may be useful for someone?
4. All figures include current offers: BT – half price broadband at £10.50 for first 6 months and £21.00 per month thereafter AND Plusnet – broadband at £2.50 for first 12 months and £9.99 per month thereafter.
Really useful stuff that I bump into..... 