Moving house - 2 charges from BT, £300

Vistrix

Ill try and simplify this as much as possible because at the time this was extremely confusing and had me argueing over the phone to a BT rep.

I have BT broadband and BT talk. My BT Broadband contract ended on April of this year. In my new house I wanted to get Sky broadband instead of BT after finding out how cheap it is.

5th September - I moved house.

8th September - I rung BT to transfer my phone line to the new house, this cost me £124. I also told them that I didnt want to transfer the BT broadband service over because I will have another provider in the new house.

I asked why the charge was so high and they told me it was because of a "high demand of free lines", whatever that means. They also mentioned that it was because the previous owners of the house didnt have a line with BT.

15th September - I rung Sky up (on my newly transferred line) to get broadband and they give me an activation date of 24th Sep.

21st September - I get a call from BT saying that they couldnt transfer the broadband over because Sky had "blocked" it. I explained again that I didnt want BT broadband anymore, the woman I talked to then told me that the broadband service had to be transferred over within 14 days of moving. Because I failed to do this, I incurred a charge of £174.


So in total, my next BT bill will be atleast £298 to cover the charges of moving the line and not transferring my broadband in time.

Does this make sense? what did I do wrong and is there anything I can do?

going2die_rich

What you did wrong was not cancelling your BT broadband so that it ended just before you left the house you sold. Telling them you didn't want it transferred doesn't register with call centre people to see if that means cancel it or not. Think you just have to learn your lesson to be very clear in future.

Vistrix

going2die_rich wrote: »

What you did wrong was not cancelling your BT broadband so that it ended just before you left the house you sold. Telling them you didn't want it transferred doesn't register with call centre people to see if that means cancel it or not. Think you just have to learn your lesson to be very clear in future.

But they went ahead and tried to transfer it anyway... but because Sky was already at the new house they couldnt. They then charged me £174 because I didnt transfer the service in time, despite me telling them I didnt want the broadband transferred.

I see what you mean though, perhaps I wasnt clear enough the first time I rung them.

I had no idea about this "14 day transfer" charge though. I just cant believe all of this has landed me a £300 bill.

deklan99

Think you also have to give BT 30 days notice to cancel broadband if you're out of contract.

littleboo

The £174 doesnt sound right if you weren't in a contract though. I would think the worst you would expect is one months charge. Have you asked them how the £174 was arrived at ?