£380 charge for going over BT broadband monthly usage?

andrew242

Ok been on the phone to the UK call centre, they have reluctantly dropped my fess from £466 to £233 by saying we will meet you half way. What do people think? Should i accept or keep going to try and deduct them less?

mikey72

andrew242 wrote: »

Ok been on the phone to the UK call centre, they have reluctantly dropped my fess from £466 to £233 by saying we will meet you half way. What do people think? Should i accept or keep going to try and deduct them less?

Keep going, they're not suddenly going to take the offer back, so what can you lose?

I'm with o2, access, it may get rubbish reviews, but it's the best round here, and none of o2s packages have a download limit.
I have kids that are on all the time as well.

DrScotsman

OlliesDad wrote: »

I don't really understand this argument from you. I am fairly sure that Broadband contracts are designed for receiving the internet, and therefore comparable to the above example.

Receiving the internet under the broadband allowance and the extended £1/GB allowance are two separate things. I am saying that a consumer who buys a capped contract does not do so expecting to go over the limit, as generally it proves cost ineffective compared to a larger capped contract or an unlimited one. Also remember OFT guidance refers to the "object and effect of terms", so even if people do expect to go over by a few GB, they don't for 380GB. Hence for large enough values it fails being part of the core terms which opens it up to UTCCR.

I would still argue that £1 per GB is not an unfair contract term in any way, and that the customer needs to take responsibiliy for living beyond their means.

Take responsibility for what? BT's losses, not giving them profit. I've already expressed my belief that most of that £380 is profit for BT (something I can see andrew has just proven!!). That fact coupled with OFT's belief that a penalty cannot be made "fair" by attempting to make it a contractual option, makes it an unfair penalty.

I'll just neatly summarise my point into a logical argument.
Axiom 1: If party A breaches a contract with party B, party B are not entitled to profit from the payment of damages (English Common Law & UTCCR)
Axiom 2: A breach of contract will always be treated as one, even if the contract attempts to turn it into a contractual option, unless the term is a core term (OFT on UCCTR)
Axiom 3: Going over allowance by a significant amount is not a core term (Me; i.e. as far as I'm concerned this is the only point of dispute)
Axiom 4: BT profit from these charges (andrew242's post is proof that at high enough numbers they are at least 50% profit)
Deduction 5 (from 2, 3): In law, going over your limit by a significant amount is treated as breach of contract
Deduction 6 (from 1, 4, 5): BT are not entitled to profit and should only charge their actual costs.

Remember, that they used almost 4 times the Fair Usage.

Relevance? Fair usage is about harm to other customers is it not? No other customers are involved in this £380.

Is this the same OFT that lost the case against the banks in reference to the "unfair contract term" that banks were applying?

Remember that the bank charges case found that the term was fair. So even if you can compare the two cases, it still invalidates your argument.

I was comparing them on the question of people's morals with respect to thinking the banks are wrong and BT are right. On legal examination, this is where the bank charges and BT become dissimilar. The House of Lords held that the bank charges are the way of paying for the current accounts. In this case the £1 per GB isn't paying for the 10GB the customer is allowed, only the extra GB that are being used.

I suggest that while it is very noble the effort you are making on behalf of the customer, it is all in vain.

On the contrary. Three points:

1. Otelo don't just uphold the law, also "good business practices". I can see several people have commented that BT should have made a better attempt to contact the customer. No, I'm not saying the customer has a right to be babied, however BT know that not everyone can afford £380 on the spot. Since this is easy to spot automatically, they can be expected to lend responsibly.

2. I've had formal complaints before, not under Otelo guidelines but Financial and Energy Ombudsman guidelines. And you know what? The people you deal with do not know the law. Having a convincing legal argument is one way to sway BT, even if deep down it's actually wrong.

3. Unless the customer has been offered a conditional gesture of goodwill offer, they have nothing to lose by going all the way to Otelo (besides £3 for postage). Again, Otelo will be very likely to consider a convincing legal argument. Given the costs involved it is doubtful that any lawyers (from BT or Otelo) will be involved, reducing BT's chance of having a coherent retaliation.

However on the other hand you are completely correct, because most people on this forum do not see things through. This applies regardless of whether there is only one person or 100% of the thread recommending they take action. I am not faulting them for it (except in daft cases where both the potential gain and the chances of success are really high). I can only hope my post helps others - like andrew242.

andrew242

Ok more sucess dropped to 100 quid,

Couldnt of done it if it wasnt an english call centre, not being racist or anything but i think it is impossible for them to deal with such large amounts in different offices. This is the one to call : 0114 2020289

I made the point offer and offer again that if had been informed after the first month we would have changed onto unlimited:

break down of the months and fees:

Feb £103
March £233
April £165

They have let me off with only paying the first bill.... They have back dated our unlimited broadband back to March. It is BT policy not to charge you for the previous month if you are not over the second. So maybe i will try and get the 103 quid back as well. He also lied to me several times telling me that unlimited internet means unlimited, which we all know it doesnt, wish I was doing this through skype and I could of recorded him lying.,.... anyone else with problems feel free to contact me.

PS when they say right ive gotta clear it with the manager all they do is put you back on hold, dont be scared to push once they have offered you a reduction they cannot go back on it anyway ,,,,

Didnt really need to spend my birthday doing that though!

andrew242

PS Thankyou to everyone who has posted a positive thread on this subject please feel free to contact me for any help with this problem , even by telephone if you wish

OlliesDad

Dr Scotsman, I do not understand why you feel that going over the amount of free GB allowed in the contract would be classed as a breach of contract?

Receiving the internet under the broadband allowance and the extended £1/GB allowance are two separate things.

Likewise with the mobile phone analogy, allowing mobile phone calls under the allowance and the extended 10p/min are two seperate things.

In the same way that i sometimes go over my "free text" allowance on my mobile, i then pay the going rate for the texts, the customer in this situation went over the GB allowance and then paid the going rate(actually less than the going rate). Are you suggesting that i should not pay this phone bill and should refuse it as they are "fining" me, infact everybody in the country should never pay another phone bill or broadband charge (except for the free allowance and a nominal charge)

I said at the start that i agree they should contact BT to see what they would do under goodwill, but that this term is no way unfair.

nzmegs

Olliesdad, I see where you are coming from but do you know how to check how much of your download limit you have used - yet it is a very simple procedure to check how many texts you have sent. Many people simply do not understand the concept of Gigabytes and have no idea how many Mbps they are downloading by watching a clip on youtube. iot is new to people, but how many minutes they speak on their mobile is a very simple concept.
Providers need to offer simple and easily obtainable ways of getting this information (for example a dauily or weekly update via email or text) if they insist on making us pay for so-called unlimited downloads.

DrScotsman

OlliesDad wrote: »

Dr Scotsman, I do not understand why you feel that going over the amount of free GB allowed in the contract would be classed as a breach of contract?

Here's an analogy that might help:

Case 1: Go into a shop, break an item
Case 2: Go into a shop that has a "You break it you bought it" sign, break an item

In case 1 you would not have to pay the full list price (unless it happened to be a loss leader), you would only have to pay the shop's actual loss. The second case has tried to circumvent this by getting you to agree to it as part of the terms of entering the shop. It's been discussed on these forums before, they're not legally enforceable and you would only have to pay their loss (if you don't believe me tell me now so I can fetch some case law on it)

Back on topic:

Broadband T&C1: Do not go over your 10GB limit
Broadband T&C2: Go over your 10GB limit and we will charge you £X

If under the first case the ISP tried to charge you for breach of contract, they would be unable to seek more than their costs. The second ISP has attempted to circumvent this by making it technically a contractual option as opposed to a breach of contract. The OFT say "No one's falling for it".

In the mobile phone contract example the standard rates DO form part of the core terms of the contract, it is somewhat normal to go over these allowances - note the use of the word allowance instead of limit.

Just to reiterate:

Consumer_Direct wrote:

Terms in consumer contracts that set the price or define the product or service being supplied are 'core terms' of the contract and are exempt from the test of fairness as long as they meet the plain language requirement.

I am saying that no one considers the £1/1GB part of the service. The service here is the 10GB broadband. They try to call the £1/1GB another service, but in real terms this is a contract for broadband. Not a contract for broadband and broadband. But with a phone contract, you generally do have an expectation to be able to use it once your allowance is up (indeed people on these forums are finding it impossible to find contracts that don't extend beyond the allowance for their children)

By the way, when I last read ADSL24's policy it was that when I go over the 30GB peak limit they give me 1GB at slow speeds and then cut me off. Also I can tell them at what % used they should email me, they give comprehensive graphs on their website and I have a feeling they give or recommend a PC-side app to monitor the usage.

DrScotsman

andrew242 wrote: »

Ok more sucess dropped to 100 quid,

£466 to £100

I'd just like to emphasise how much of the £466 was profit, and that this is an amount I would probably accept in these circumstances. Some people seem to think I'm pushing for £0 or £5...

Really good work andrew.

OlliesDad

I think like most consumer rights situations, we are going to have to agree to disagree. Unless this ever went to court, it would not be able to know what the outcome would be. As far as i am aware, there has never been a case of this sort go to court.

The analogy above is different again, as it has nothing to do with breach of contract (or whether it was a breach of contract in the first place).

I really would like you to be right, but i think that it would be irresponsible to advise anybody to take BT to court (particularly if they are short of money anyway). As the OFT proved with bank charges, it is very difficult to prove unfair contract terms, and that was when it appeared to be clear cut.

As i said from the start, if i was the customer, i would contact BT and be very nice and see what they say.