This article is more than 1 year old

BT cuts cost of phone bill

Project Pelican takes off

BT is to make phone bills cheaper for people who pay their bills by direct debit.

From October 1 punters who pay automatically - or use a monthly payment plan - will see their phone bills fall by 49 pence.

At the same time, those who insist on paying BT with a cheque - or even cash - at their local village post office because they believe rural services should be supported, say, will be charged an additional 51 pence on their monthly bill.

The net result is that from November, those paying by direct debit will be £1 a month (£12 a year) better off than other customers.

The move has been introduced, no doubt, to tempt punters into using direct debit in a bid to cut overheads at BT Retail.

It is one of a number of initiatives BT Retail is undertaking to improve its operation and cut costs.

Later this month, BT will also start using a new phone bill which is designed to make clearer reading for customers. The main change is that instead of listing every single number each time a call is made, the new bills will instead just have the one number and a note saying how many times it was called.

According to insiders, the new bill has been on trial for the last fortnight. The initiative to introduce the new bill was called "Project Pelican".

Finally, BT is to reduce the amount of time people have to pay their bill - that's if they haven't switched to direct debit to gain their £12 a year discount.

Currently, punters have 21 days to cough up or get a red bill. This has just been reduced to 14 days and will be cut still further to 11 days on October 1.

A spokesman for BT said the measures were "good news" for customers. ®

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like