What are my rights? - Really bad EE contract so far

anxiousanon1

A little background:

Signed up to EE around March / April time. It took them over a month to first connect me. I complained, and got a little bit of money back, but I paid the phoneline upfront and now only pay £2 a month for the actual connection. Max refunded was that £2 month.

Moved to a different city at the end of July. Mid-way through July I contacted EE using their 'easy' online form to ask for my internet to be moved to the new house. After hearing nothing back after a week (other than the online confirmation) I called myself. They said they hadn't received it. As I work from home sometimes, they assured me that they would 'fast-track' my move. This fast-track turned out to be a BT engineer booked to come on August 26th. A month after my move. Because this was the earliest they said they could do, I agreed.

Now the office I've been hotdesking from has had unreliable internet so I NEED to work from home for at least 2 weeks until I find a new permanent place to work from. I received a letter on the 21st claiming my internet would be 'ready to go' on September 2nd. I called on Friday (22nd) to query this, and a representative called BT and confirmed my appointment on the 26th and strangely told me that no letter had been sent to me. I have it right here in front of me, all it does is quote my account number, the move, and when my internet will be active (wrong date). But I took the confirmation and had the representative guarantee me that my internet would be activated on the 26th.

I'm working from a friend's today, as the BT engineer was meant to be coming. Another friend stayed at my house to wait for a few hours, and then I took 2 hours from work to wait there when he had to go to his work. My appointment with the BT engineer was between 8am and 1pm. No show. I called EE and was on hold for 40mins to be told that the previous EE reps i'd spoken with had never confirmed the BT appointment with BT, which was why no engineer had turned up. I was refunded the last 2 months (£4) and told that the earliest I can be seen by a BT engineer is now September 9th. I'll have to take the whole afternoon off work for that one.

In the meantime I'll have to travel back to my old city for work. This has all been a nightmare and now my work is suffering for it.

I want to know what my rights are. They agreed on the phone that all of this was their mistake and that's why I've been refunded, but that small money back doesn't bother me. What bothers me is I've moved to a new city, and spent hardly any time in my new place because I need to travel to other people to leech their internet. I asked about cancelling and the woman on the phone said my phone line would obviously be wasted money because I paid upfront and they would refuse to refund me. I'd also have to pay the months of my contract that are left, and even if I went to a new provider I'd have the same BT wait to check my phoneline. Is this all right, or could another provider connect me any quicker? Surely they've breeched the contract by not providing me with internet? I'm thinking of contacting the Ombudsman, but do I have a case here? Or should I just take the £4 and continue waiting?

Thanks all!

kwikbreaks

I'm guessing this is not what you are hoping the hear.

Your rights are limited. I'm guessing that at £2 a month with line rental paid up front this isn't a business contract just home internet. That won't have any service level agreement and probably the best you can hope for is a refund for when there was no service. There is little point cancelling and going elsewhere even if you could do that penalty free without an argument as the delays are almost certainly down to Openreach and all ISPs are going to have to use them to do the connection because BT have a monopoly.