Oops – BT Overcharge Capped Broadband Customers for Data Usage

UK ISP BT has apologised after some of their fixed line Home Broadband customers, specifically those with one of the providers capped usage allowance packages (e.g. 12GB, 25GB and 45GB), were “accidentally charged … too much” for usage between 22nd and 30th June 2016.

A spokesperson for BT informed MSE that only a “small number” of their subscribers (this could still mean quite a lot given than BT is home to 9,117,000 broadband customers) had been affected by the “glitch in our systems“, which meant that some were being overcharged by “a few pounds too much.”

BT’s excess use charge is £1.80 per GigaByte (GB) consumed beyond the monthly allowance / cap.

A BT Spokesperson said:

“BT is writing to a small number of broadband customers to apologise for a mistake which meant they were wrongly charged for going over their usage limit in June. All of these customers will be refunded for the amount we overcharged without them having to do anything.”

Separately ISPreview.co.uk understands that some of BT’s “unlimited” broadband subscribers also claim to have found an odd excess data usage charge on their bills during the same month, which suggests that the issue may not have been confined to those with capped allowances. Subscribers should check their bills.

In fairness BT is by no means the first ISP to overcharge for data usage on capped packages and nearly all of the major ISPs, as well as plenty of smaller providers, have made similar errors in the past. A fair few years ago such complaints were much more common, but the widespread adoption of “unlimited” plans has largely removed the issue.