BT Verbal agreements

Seiken

Mrs T: BT provided you with telephone service. As soon as they connected that line and gave you a number, you were going to be tied to their contract. It doesn't matter if you received confirmation. You don't need to sign anything as things are sold on the telephone under the DSR (Distance Selling Regulations) and a verbal agreement is legally binding. The charge is justified, although I can understand you not wanting to pay it.

However - The fact that someone agreed that they would remove the charge for you should work in your favour. If they agreed that and there are notes to back this up, or you know the time of the call and the persons name, I'm sure you could argue that despite the charge being correct it was agreed with you that it would be removed on x call at y time with z person and you expect BT to stick to their word.

Incisor

Seiken wrote: »

Mrs T: BT provided you with telephone service. As soon as they connected that line and gave you a number, you were going to be tied to their contract. It doesn't matter if you received confirmation. You don't need to sign anything as things are sold on the telephone under the DSR (Distance Selling Regulations) and a verbal agreement is legally binding. The charge is justified, although I can understand you not wanting to pay it.

The verbal agreement was presumably to a service at a certain rate of charge. Unless it was explained to the customer that the contract could not be terminated for a year without penalty, then that is not a term of the contract the customer agreed to.

So, the charge is not justified, it is not part of the contract the customer agreed to. Straightforward really. People need to defend themselves from arbitrary and made up contract clauses which are not incorporated when the contract is agreed. Seiken, your soft attitude is just making it harder for ordinary consumers to be treated fairly.

Seiken

Incisor - I can see it from a BT perspective because I've had to defend them on so many occasions, it looks like Mrs T had buyers remorse once she found the better deal with another company. That's why minimum agreements are put into place in the first place. I was only explaining that the DSR is a verbal legally binding agreement and if she did infact agree to the term (which I will assume she said yes to as no order should be processed otherwise) then that is all that's required to lock her into a contract and that you can only cancel with no charge up until the point that BT supplies the service, which was to say 3 weeks prior to her switching her line to the other company.

I fully realise sales people are slimy scum and do lie all the time, if this was the case for Mrs T and the term and early termination was not mentioned she would have an even better case for getting the charge removed. She didn't actually mention any kind of missale or the salesman lying or anything though so I didn't think to go into those details.

To be fair, you have no idea what the customer agreed to on the phone. Neither do I. Her original question was "Do I still have to pay charges, even though I never received any written confirmation of my original call and it's contents?" and the answer is "Yes if you agreed verbally to the contract on the phone and the distance selling regulations were followed."

bellrooster

Incisor wrote: »

The verbal agreement was presumably to a service at a certain rate of charge. Unless it was explained to the customer that the contract could not be terminated for a year without penalty, then that is not a term of the contract the customer agreed to.

So, the charge is not justified, it is not part of the contract the customer agreed to. Straightforward really. People need to defend themselves from arbitrary and made up contract clauses which are not incorporated when the contract is agreed. Seiken, your soft attitude is just making it harder for ordinary consumers to be treated fairly.

I agree! If you aren't made aware of the agreement your entering into it isn't an agreement.

Incisor

Seiken wrote: »

... I fully realise sales people are slimy scum and do lie all the time, if this was the case for Mrs T and the term and early termination was not mentioned she would have an even better case for getting the charge removed. She didn't actually mention any kind of missale or the salesman lying or anything though so I didn't think to go into those details.

To be fair, you have no idea what the customer agreed to on the phone. Neither do I. Her original question was "Do I still have to pay charges, even though I never received any written confirmation of my original call and it's contents?" and the answer is "Yes if you agreed verbally to the contract on the phone and the distance selling regulations were followed."

You said originally: "As soon as they connected that line and gave you a number, you were going to be tied to their contract." but now you qualify it with: "if you agreed verbally to the contract". There is no such thing as "their standard contract" except insofar as their internal processes may require their operatives only to implement such a contract. When it comes down to a verbal contract, the contract which holds is the one which was agreed to - which is the terms which the OP knowingly agreed to, not the terms of some 'standard contract' which they did not knowingly agree to.

If the OP did not knowingly agree to a minimum contract term, then it is not part of the contract. The burden of proof of the term in question is on BT.

Mrs_T_13

All useful stuff guys. Thanks.

To clarify: I don't remember being told there was a year's minimum contract and I'm fairly sure I would remember if it had been mentioned, and I certainly wasn't told that there would be a penalty fee if the (in my view non-existant) contract was cancelled.

The fact is, when I queried the fee, I was told that the it would be taken off my account and that a new bill would be sent. This was later clarified by someone else as being noted on the system. I do not have names, only dates.

I was also told I would receive written confirmation and didn't. As far as I'm concerned that is very poor customer service. Perhaps I should charge BT?:rotfl:

Mrs T

bellrooster

Yes! turn the tables on them Mrs T... teehee

syko29793

mrs t you asked BT to connect a line and then jumped ship to another provider. Im sorry but it all seems a bit too convenient as tiscali could not connect you unless you have a BT line .
BT connected you and you dispute the contract.and try and get out of it as you claim you were mis sold.
this seems to me as some one connecting to BT just so they can go to another provider because there chosen provider cant reconnect lines and you used BT to get connected.

bellrooster

Does that mean then that when you move house and have a land line connected you must stay with BT for 12 months? because that's ridiculous!!!

Quentin

You don't have to have your line connected by BT if you don't want to.

But if you do, then you accept whatever their terms are, so how can that be "ridiculous"?