Monday, February 23, 2004
The devil is in the detail: 18 pence debt puts me on a BT blacklist (well, sort of)
Ahh, another example of ridiculous interactions with telecoms companies I'm afraid, but maybe with a small lesson about the stubborn determination of complex systems to follow their programming to the letter (bit?)
just called BT to make some changes to my payment details (which I actually requested last month but nobody did anything about it). I was told that I am unable to make any changes at the moment because there is an amount outstanding on my account. how much? 18 pence. yes that's right 18 pennies. why is this outstanding? because a few months ago, with some credits applied to my account (another story there about awful usb adsl modems), my bill came to 18 pence. they never bothered to collect it. I reasoned that it would cost them more than 18p to collect, so they hadn't bothered, and had written it off. I've had this happen before on tiny bills. but no, this amount was still showing on the account, and despite the best efforts of the representative I spoke to, nothing would shift it, and I was told to call back in APRIL once another bill had been produced. in the end I had to offer the solution: a Switch payment of 18 pence.
so 2 problems here: a billing system that doesn't collect small amounts but leaves them on the account, and a management system that doesn't allow such amounts to be written off. she said it was the first time she'd seen it, but maybe she hasn't worked there that long.
Ahh, another example of ridiculous interactions with telecoms companies I'm afraid, but maybe with a small lesson about the stubborn determination of complex systems to follow their programming to the letter (bit?)
just called BT to make some changes to my payment details (which I actually requested last month but nobody did anything about it). I was told that I am unable to make any changes at the moment because there is an amount outstanding on my account. how much? 18 pence. yes that's right 18 pennies. why is this outstanding? because a few months ago, with some credits applied to my account (another story there about awful usb adsl modems), my bill came to 18 pence. they never bothered to collect it. I reasoned that it would cost them more than 18p to collect, so they hadn't bothered, and had written it off. I've had this happen before on tiny bills. but no, this amount was still showing on the account, and despite the best efforts of the representative I spoke to, nothing would shift it, and I was told to call back in APRIL once another bill had been produced. in the end I had to offer the solution: a Switch payment of 18 pence.
so 2 problems here: a billing system that doesn't collect small amounts but leaves them on the account, and a management system that doesn't allow such amounts to be written off. she said it was the first time she'd seen it, but maybe she hasn't worked there that long.
(c) 2003-2005 Russell Beale
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