BT Broadband - can they get away with this?

frivolous_fay

We currently use BT broadband and were recently contacted to tell us that our package was being phased out. We were offered a choice of alternative packages, one of which looked suitable, was actually cheaper than our current one, and gave us a free home hub jobbie with internet phone.

(This is 'Option 3')

So we signed up, last week.

The home hub arrived today... minus the phone. We called BT to get to the bottom of it.

They told us we didn't qualify for the phone, as we were upgrading.

When we asked if we could have cancelled our service and then signed up for Option 3 and got the phone, they said yes, but we'd have been without internet for two weeks.

When we asked if we could cancel now, they told use we were now stuck in the contract we had signed up to (18 months, I think)

We asked whether surely there is a cooling off period? We were told there was not, as all the contract details were available online. (Eh?!)

When we signed up online to the deal, we looked carefully to check whether we would receive the phone. We have actually gone back through the same screens and screenshotted them - there is nothing to say that we wouldn't get the phone, although the BT person pointed us to a screen where it did show this. (If you go through the BTyahoo link we were sent there is no mention of it)

In fact... during the sign up process there is an opportunity to order a phone at £49.99. There is a note underneath this which says: 'New Option 3 customers (That's us!) please leave the quantity as '0' as you already have a hub phone included in your package.'

We asked for a contact address so that we could bring this issue up in writing. We were told it could not be taken further and the operator would not give us an address.

All of this looks extremely shady to me and is at best, sneaky, and at worst, mis-selling, denying us our statutory rights, and misleading us into accepting the line they're feeding us.

Does anyone have any advice as to what we can and can't do at this stage, or any comments on the above? Replies appreciated

frivolous_fay

Sorry, just bumping a bit as I see there's a mass of dupicate posts on the first page and some clever person may have missed this thread!

Browntoa

I'm under the impression that as an existing customer you have always had to pay for the phone

to tell you the truth the phone is pretty crappy...better off getting a nice DECT gap (g) phone that you can twin with the BT hub (and will cost you less than £49.99)