BT Sport suspending service but still charging.

Spurs_for_life

I received a final reminder bill from BT today saying I owed them £158.
In July 2014 I cancelled my direct debit and BT suspended my account and said when I'm ready or if I do, let them know and they will re instate BT Sport if I wanted it again. But was told not to cancel the account because they've suspended it so I won't get charged for something I'm no longer using. Checked at the beginning of the next month, and BT Sport was removed from my Sky Channels ( as you pay a month in advance). So I could no longer watch or use it. They are now saying I haven't paid my bill since August and because I didn't cancel it I still have to pay for it, whether I was able to access the service or not. I'm getting passed from pillar to post from their customer services. All at the end saying I must pay. I was in no contract, received no free services when first used it. No discounts, so they could not even argue the fact that I had received something for free and this then tied me into a contract. Which it hasn't. Please Help !

mije1983

What was the reasoning for you not cancelling if you were out of the minimum term? Was there an advantage for this supposed 'account suspension'?

VisionMan

Spurs_for_life wrote: »

I received a final reminder bill from BT today saying I owed them £158.
In July 2014 I cancelled my direct debit and BT suspended my account.

But did you didn't cancel the service.

macman

You were in a contract: you are always in a contract until you give and serve your notice period. I assume that you mean you were out of minimum term.
Cancelling your DD does not constitute giving notice.

Spurs_for_life

I was told by BT not to cancel, they will suspend my account and if I come back they will just open my account up again and I can start paying month by month again. I was never in a contract. Always paid a month in advance.

Robin9

Did BY write to you confirming this suspension ?

macman

Spurs_for_life wrote: »

I was told by BT not to cancel, they will suspend my account and if I come back they will just open my account up again and I can start paying month by month again. I was never in a contract. Always paid a month in advance.

Of course you were in a contract, you were simply not in a longer minimum term contract, but on a 30 day notice contract. No contract , no service.
A suspended account is by definition not a cancelled account.

VisionMan

Its known as a thirty day rolling contract which can be cancelled with just thirty days notice, but you didn't do that, so the monthly bills just kept on piling up.

jmenzies

I had a similar issue two years ago, I was with Sky but wanted BT Sport to watch the crystal palace play off games. So I called them up and signed up.

After a month I called to cancel and cancelled by direct debit. 15 months later and I receive a rather large bill for BT sport. They also had no record of my call.

I said to them that they had a duty to mitigate loss, I hadn't been paying for services for 15 months and yet they continued to supply them without making any attempt to contact me and take payment. Although they required notice to cancel, I said cancelling a direct debit should be sufficient notice and most companies send out a letter saying your direct debit has been cancelled and that it was convenient that BT made no contact for 15 months and had lost the call.

After a few calls and escalating it a few times they agreed to waive the fees.

Feel free to PM me if you want some more background and I can tell you in more detail with what I said. Ultimately it does depend who you speak to as they do get discretion internally to waive these fees.

Moto2

Surely the contract works both ways?
if the OP is in breech of the contract, so are BT for not supplying the service?

Buzby

Moto2 wrote: »

Surely the contract works both ways?
if the OP is in breech of the contract, so are BT for not supplying the service?

No. Your obligation continues. They only suspended service to ensure payment - if you paid, the service would have been uninterrupted.