BT early cancellation charge

heisenberg_3

hi,

i cancelled my bt landline after 3 months and expected to pay a cancellation charge of £70 max, but they have billed me £100.

a call center operative explained that the 70 max charge in the T&C reffers to a basic plan whereas i signed up to a plan which has a discount ((unlimited evening and weekend) as a new customer i had no choice in this)
so i get the discount for the time i used the service, but as i cancelled early my cancellation charge is calculated from the remaining contract time at full price which is why it comes out as more than £70...

they claim my plan has seperate T&C and the £70 limit does not apply, this sounds like BS to me and i cant find any reference to this in the T&C, also i find it suspicious that the calculation comes to £100 exactly...

the final bill looks like this:

Total now due £100

Rental charges -£34.96
One-off charges £121.19
Brought forward £13.77

i had an outstanding amout of 13.77 at the time of cancellation, this would have taken me to 02jan as i got billed quarterly...so the -£34.96 is the refund from early oct (the time of cancellation) to jan 02, (yes it took them this long to sort out my final bill)...

can anyone tell me if i have a case to challenge the bill?
i believe it should come to £70 total, including the £13.77 outstanding amount...

cheers...

MORPH3US

As you say, sounds like BS. You need to take it higher up and get sorted.

jhp

heisenberg wrote: »

i signed up to a plan which has a discount ((unlimited evening and weekend) as a new customer i had no choice in this)

You did have a choice you could have signed up for a call plan that did not have a 12 month renewable contract.
http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayCategory.do;JSESSIONID_ecommerce=JNBfS7J19vhrbkd67PpyBQvsJyPhXSMqvHNFQ8DpxbmxqyxvF6Qv!2039519858?categoryId=CON-TOG-OPT-R1

As you apparently took a 12 month renewable call contract you have to pay theremainder of this as well as the remainder of your line rental contract.http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/dynamicmodules/pagecontentfooter/pageContentFooterPopup.jsp?pagecontentfooter_popupid=24641#UEWP

Anon

I wouldn't bother trying to write to their so called Customer Relations department - we left and were charged the cancellation charge, wrote to complain (twice) as they had not mentioned this when we signed up over the phone and are still (8 months later) waiting for a response ... perhaps Customer Relations are only interested in writing to current customers rather than the ones they lost.

Anon

MORPH3US

@ Anon, have you paid the cancellation charge and then complained?

If so, its no wonder they have ignored you. You should have complained and not paid until it was sorted out.

Anon

MORPH3US wrote: »

@ Anon, have you paid the cancellation charge and then complained?

If so, its no wonder they have ignored you. You should have complained and not paid until it was sorted out.

Yes, settled the bill (or rather they took the DD while I waited for them to reply to my letter) - may seem daft now, but I thought an organisation such as BT would still at least acknowledge your letter even if it was to tell you that they had investigated and were still going to charge you the cancellation fee.

Anon