Post Office Home Phone & Broadband - Debt

gr13ve

Hi everyone, Merry Christmas. First-time poster here in need of some advice.

Basically I've received a letter from a debt collection agency about an outstanding bill from the post office totalling £265. This goes back to June when I switched service from the Post Office to Sky but is the first I had heard about it - or at least for that amount.

In July I received my 'latest' but not final bill from the post office and I phoned them up and was told that my final bill was being processed and I should receive it within 28days. After that it just slipped from my mind until last week I opened my mail to see a letter from a debt collection agency asking for £265. I immediately phoned the post office to find out what was happening.

They said that they didn't know what happened with my final bill but the amount is correct and I would need to pay it. After a few phone calls I managed to get a breakdown of what the costs were for and here's where I'd like some help...

£165 (not including VAT) was added onto my bill for early termination of my contract. I joined them in April 2009 and left in June 2010 so as I seen it that was my year up.

However, during this time I moved house, taking their service with me. I moved in March and phoned them up to arrange the switch over and at no point was I told that this was me effectively signing a new contract. It's not something I thought to ask about as I would have thought that that would be something you would make clear to your customers.

So I moved in March and made the phone call in March but it wasn't until early June that my broadband was activated after a fluff up. At first I was told the order for my broadband hadn't been placed. By this point I was getting pretty annoyed seeing as I was told my broadband would be ready within 2 weeks.

I ended up phoning them up for my MAC code so I could switch to Sky which took about 5 phone calls. Throughout all of these calls there was no mention of an early termination charge and I didn't ask about it as I thought I was out of contract.


Sorry for such a long post, is there anything I could do to get out of paying this? I do still owe them money (£90) for 3 months or so of service which could also be disputed as I wasn't getting the service I was paying for but it is the early termination charge I primarily want to get out of.

Thanks.

macman

A home move and migration of service invariably starts a new minimum term contract. They have to pay BT to handle the migration, so in order to recoup their investment they lock you in for another year.
Requesting a MAC does not cancel your service (that's only done when the MAC is used via the new provider within 30 days), so it's unlikely that they'd inform you at that point, unless you spoke to retentions.
Your issue is what happened to the final bill before they sold the debt on?

spud17

Your issue is what happened to the final bill before they sold the debt on?

Went to the old address?

spaceman5

spud17 wrote: »

Went to the old address?

but then the demand came to his new address?

macman

No, the OP moved home in March and left the PO in June, so one assumes that a change of billing address was noted when they started on a new 12m contract.

gr13ve

Thanks for the replies. I have had letters from the post office at the new address, I got the letters detailing activation dates and one bill for £90 which came after I switched to Sky.

iniltous

macman wrote: »

A home move and migration of service invariably starts a new minimum term contract. They have to pay BT to handle the migration, so in order to recoup their investment they lock you in for another year.
Requesting a MAC does not cancel your service (that's only done when the MAC is used via the new provider within 30 days), so it's unlikely that they'd inform you at that point, unless you spoke to retentions.
Your issue is what happened to the final bill before they sold the debt on?

You can hardly pin this on BT, many posters on here speak highly of the PO's one month contracts , if the PO consider a current customer asking for the service to be transfered to another address as a good enough reason to start a 'new' 12 month contract term , then go figure that one out,
Its a PO policy, and nothing to do with BT or Openreach, even if they are only doing what BT and probably most other telco's do....
If the OP moved to a property that already had a 'BT' line , then its probable the outlay the PO were looking to recoup would be less then a fiver anyway, the cost of a working line takeover, if there wasnt a line the end user would have been charged by the PO for installing one, even if the account number remained the same , so whats to recoup ?

PNPSUKNET

to take a number between exchanges, to check the existing line outside all costs money openreach bill £50ph to bt