Tiscali put us on LLU without our consent! What can we do?

esuhl

JohalaReewi wrote: »

It's not that black and white. The original broadband was provided over BT equipment. Well into the contract, Tiscali switched this to their own LLU equipment but didn't ask or tell the customer. Now the customer wants to end the service they find they have to pay to be put back onto the BT equipment which they were on in the first place (and thought they still were).

That's exactly my point. Effectively Tiscali have affected my line to my detriment, since I have to pay to undo their changes. Surely I can (if Tiscali refuse to pay up) sue them for damages?

Imagine if I ordered some goods via the Parcelforce courier firm, and when they delivered them they locked my mailbox in a way that only their deliveries could be posted. Imagine that I subsequently receive a delivery from CitiLink, who charge me £47 to replace my mailbox with the one that was installed for me initially! This is insane, and yet this is pretty similar to what Tiscali have done!

Does anyone know where I stand legally? I intend to highlight this to Ofcom whatever the outcome, because legal or not, it's fundamentally immoral.

Thanks for all the comments so far.

esuhl

tonyhague wrote: »

It is very unlikely that Titan would offer free migration, BT make the charge and, as Titan (and other enta resellers) offer 1 month contracts, with very low margins, they cannot afford to absorb that cost, especially as the user may leave the service in a month, leaving the reseller with a £27+vat shortfall.
I do remember 1 reseller (aquiss or freeola?) did offer free connection at one time, whether that included llu migration I couldn't say, but I've not heard of it for a while, so it may be discontinued

Titan do offer free migrations, just not for customers with LLU.

I understand that BT make the charge, and I can understand why they do this and why Titan pass on the cost. That's fine. What I don't understand is how Tiscali can make me liable for an additional charge without asking or even informing me. They should either have explained that they could only provide £14.99/month broadband if I used their equipment which I would have to pay to remove OR they should pay to undo their own changes.

Before I complain to Tiscali, though, I really need to know whether I have any statutory rights to a refund of the LLU migration fee. Any ideas, anyone?

esuhl

Well, it looks like Tiscali are in breach of contract. They emailed me on 5 May 2007 to advise that the T&Cs had changed, and included is the following clause:

3.12 If at any time we choose to provide your Tiscali Line Rental Service using LLU, you may experience a short outage during migration to LLU. We will write to you prior to any migration to advise you of the date of this short outage. The Tiscali Line Rental Service you receive after such migration will be broadly the same as prior to the transfer.

Tiscali have never advised me of any potential or actual outage, so they have broken the terms of their own contract. I wonder if that means that I have any additional rights to claim a refund of the migration fee...

JohalaReewi

Sounds like time to get legal advice?

Lplates

The clause you quote talks about a Tiscali Line Rental Service. In your first post you say that your line rental is from BT. I think any legal advice you get will tell you that Tiscali can't breach a contract you have never entered into.

Migration from a broadband service provided by LLU is not as simple as migration from the standard BT IPstream product. On the other hand, LLU provides some benefits to the ISP (financial) and may provide some benefits to the customer (financial and/or performance benefits). You may have been enjoying these benefits since your internet connection was unbundled. You can easily terminate a broadband contract supplied over LLU (just give notice as specified in your contract). However, your new supplier then has to pick up the pieces before setting up new provision for you, and they will probably make a charge for so doing.

Sorry, but I don't think Tiscali have done anything wrong here. If you inform Ofcom of all the circumstances they will no doubt tell you their view.

esuhl

Thanks, Lplates. Our telephone (voice) contract has always been with BT. I thought that the "Tiscali Line Rental Service" meant the monthly fee we paid for broadband... maybe not.

It's irrelevant whether we have "enjoyed the benefits" of LLU if we aren't given a choice to opt in or out.

It's like me renting a car for £30/day, and finding that I've got a Porsche. "Wow - so this is only £30/day?", I ask and am told that indeed it is. Then, despite it not being in the contract, being charged £250 to have the engine steam cleaned when I take it back.

I really do think that Tiscali have behaved immorally by making us liable for a migration charge. It's like blackmail: leave us and we'll hold your exchange to ransom! We had no way of knowing that this would happen, and so had no way of avoiding the charge.

fatou256

i sympathiswe with you esuhl i have more or less the same problem with talk talk ! they are all the same motivated by greed !

deklan99

Another possibility is you could have been on Tiscali's datastream product rather than the more usual BT IPstream for broadband. Not LLU and you keep voice rental with chosen provider.
If you still have a record of the MAC you were given from Tiscali, BBDS at the start used to indicate datastream.
All means it's not simple/cheap to migrate.