Had to sign up to BT!

BallandChain

We've just moved into our new home and when we came in the phone was already disconnected. My OH tried to get us to join Virgin but they wouldn't take us as customers until the line was activated by BT. So we had the line activated by BT and were told by the guy there that we had to sign up to a 12 month contract. In the past we signed up to BT for a short while then were able to switch phone supplier.

Apparently things have now changed and if you get your line activated by BT you have to sign up for a minimum of 12 months. I say a minimum of 12 months but my OH just took out an 18 month contract so we could get 3 months at the cheaper rate for broadband and phone.

Has anyone else had this happen? I'm just wondering, when the contract is up and we move, are we going to have this happen again? I ask this as anyone moving knows that when you go into your new property the phone is usually disconnected and it seems they are making a fortune with this new ruling. I know we can get a much cheaper broadband service and feel frustrated that we are stuck with BT. Is there anything we can do?

normanmark

You could have gone with any provider for the telephone line. Not a lot you can do now unfortunately

littleboo

If you search this form you'll find that this subject is discussed over and over. In short, you didnt have to go with BT, a number of suppliers can connect a line for you. The cheap suppliers could also do this, but they choose not to, one reason why they are cheap - they dont offer a full range of services and want to cherry pick customers that suit them.

BallandChain

BT told my OH that we had to sign up with them and if we did go with another provider we would still have to pay the line rental for 12 months with BT.

DCFC79

BallandChain wrote: »

BT told my OH that we had to sign up with them and if we did go with another provider we would still have to pay the line rental for 12 months with BT.

you could have gone with virgin, we had bt phone then we moved 2 virgin and we dnt pay bt a line rental

BallandChain

In one property we were in we wanted to go to Virgin. Virgin told us the same thing as they did this time, that we had to have the phone activated by BT. The last time we only had to sign up with BT for 3 months and we were able to change over to Virgin. This time the guy at BT said they'd changed the rules and we had to sign up with them for 12 months and then we could change provider. It's so frustrating.

I've had a quick look at other threads and I just thank my lucky stars we weren't charged a re-activation fee! I know the previous tenant was with BT but the problem was we didn't know our phone number, so we had to call BT in order to get it.

Ypaymore

" Companies seem to be increasingly telling people to get a BT line when they don't need to,' says a BT spokesman. 'Companies should own that relationship with the customer from the start, including the installation of a new line.'
Ofcom agrees. 'Customers can go to someone other than BT to have their line activated. It is the responsibility of the company that is going to be billing them,' it says. However, although companies can reactivate a line themselves, only a handful actually choose to do this. Many (such as Toucan) only want to offer their calls and broadband package on an already-active BT line"


http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2007/aug/26/2

Heinz

Ypaymore wrote: »

" Companies seem to be increasingly telling people to get a BT line when they don't need to,' says a BT spokesman. 'Companies should own that relationship with the customer from the start, including the installation of a new line.'
Ofcom agrees. 'Customers can go to someone other than BT to have their line activated. It is the responsibility of the company that is going to be billing them,' it says. However, although companies can reactivate a line themselves, only a handful actually choose to do this. Many (such as Toucan) only want to offer their calls and broadband package on an already-active BT line"

It boils down to simple economics - other 'providers' would much rather pay Openreach £2.35 to take over an active BT line than £103.40 to connect/reconnect one.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=16566703&postcount=2

They appear reluctant to pass on to their new customer that £103.40 cost (plus their 'commission' for arranging the work). I suppose it's all to do with cashflow.