Getting out of or transferring BT home phone contract (no broadband)

David-_2-2

Hi I signed up for 18 month contract some time in April 09 and have now started residential study at college so don't actually have a home phone anymore. Just wondering if theres any way for me to get out of the contract as it's totally useless to me now and I'm paying £60 quarterly for something I dont use. (£55 line rental and 5 charge for not being direct debit)

mrtom21

You could cancel the contract and face the termination charges it would work out cheaper than keeping the contract. Other than that there aren't any other options really

Mark_In_Hampshire

There was mention of the "non direct debit charge" doubling on here recently.

*If* that's the case, you'll be able to terminate your phone contract without penalty, since this is a change to the terms which puts you at a material disadvantage and you do not have to agree with it.

456789

what if you don't pay by direct debit?

Mark_In_Hampshire

It would still apply.

However:

I seem to remember BT trying to shaft their customers by stating, in tiny type in an inset which came with an invoice, that "the next time you pay your bill, you will enter into a contract with BT Payments Processing to process your payments".

Of course, no such contract exists nor indeed ever existed. In this way, and from that moment, nobody who was already a BT customer needed to pay the payment processing fee, since it was levied by BT Payments Processing and the customer had no contract with or accountability to that third party. BT can add it to the bill, but the customer is under no obligation to agree to that or to pay it.

The correct thing to do, at that point, would have been to write to BT and make it clear that no such third party contract exists, or ever existed, and part company with BT then.

In my opinion a contract cannot be on an opt-in-unless-you-out basis like this as BT suggest. I seem to remember the leaflet also stating that "if you cancel your contract with BTPS you will be in breach of your contract with BT" - not true. What contract with BTPS?

It may therefore be more complicated than this, because BT (Retail) can now claim that it is not BT (Retail) who are increasing the charge, but BTPS and therefore, you cannot cancel your BT Retail contract on the basis of that change. You'd need to cancel your contract with BTPS. Which then in theory means you have no way of paying BT. Sneaky, eh? Would a magistrate see it like that?

I'd suggest that anyone who wants to cancel their line with BT and can be bothered simply tells BT that they have no contract with BTPS and therefore won't be paying any payment processing fee levied by them.

Simply ask BT to provide written or verbal evidence that you did enter willingly into a contract with BTPS.

Since they won't be able to, as nobody ever did (except, possibly, for customers who joined since that change, as the terms may differ and you might have had to explicitly agree to that 2nd contract) BT are then in breach of contract for cutting your line off if you have paid all sums for that provision of that line (line rental, call charges, etc and the account is in good standing apart from that fee).

In effect BT will self-cancel the contract and perhaps attempt to claim it was as a result of your breach, when in fact it would have been theirs, by cutting off the line when your account with BT Retail was in good standing.

However I am not a legal expert so the above is all very much to be taken as opinion not fact. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable about consumer contracts can advise from a legal standpoint.

Heinz

And that report of the charge doubling turned out to be spurious anyway.

David-_2-2

to be honest i didnt know about the cancellation charge thought they might try and make me pay the whole amount for the rest of the contract but yeah guess £70 to get out isnt too bad and id rather not go through the hassle of the other options anyway yeah thanks guess thats what ill do