BT Sport fiver a month

Paperweight

poppasmurf_bewdley wrote: »

It gave you the option of entering a new 12 month contract, and you could select yes or no. I chose no.

When I first spoke to them and asked them to downgrade me to Sport Lite the advisor said nothing about a new contract. A subsequent email then said that BT had cancelled my BT Sport package but with no mention of Sport Lite. I rang them again and a different advisor confirmed that my BT Sport package had been cancelled rather than downgraded. After reversing this "error" he then explained that if I downgraded then I would have to start a new contract. I queried this several times but he said that a new contract was the only way to downgrade.

This whole thing stinks.

I would have thought that this change is significant enough to allow me to cancel my contract without penalty. Unsurprisingly the BT advisor said this was not the case.

This will be a PR disaster for BT. Martin Lewis should be all over this.

Pitlanepiglet

I've got the same issue and I don't even like football! I need to deal with it next week when I've got some time. Can anyone confirm that selecting "no" means you don't get a new contract? I've got a cracking deal on line rental at the moment that I don't want to lose.

What with this and the Sky hike I would think that they are looking at finding themselves the subject of an inquiry into their practices, it may be in their T's & C's but that isn't necessarily enough to protect them...

stockton_2

Paperweight wrote: »

I would have thought that this change is significant enough to allow me to cancel my contract without penalty. Unsurprisingly the BT advisor said this was not the case.

That is what I thought. BT are hardliners when it comes to making customers stick to fixed term contracts. Would it not be ironic if they have unwittingly shot themselves in the foot and left a loophole for customers to cancel their contracts. The BT advisors will not be the final arbitrators in this matter.

[Deleted User]

I'm sure i read somewhere few months back that BT was told they were not allowed to give the sports away for free as unfair on other companies who cannot compete ( I would go with sky if they reduce their pricees). But i thought BT was gonna reduce line rential by 5 quid and charge you 5 quid for sports channels so no diffrent in cost thou sounds if that is the case you be tied in 12 months contracts.. Obv after reading above comment not the case.

stockton_2

Iain79 wrote: »

I'm sure i read somewhere few months back that BT was told they were not allowed to give the sports away for free as unfair on other companies who cannot compete ( I would go with sky if they reduce their pricees). But i thought BT was gonna reduce line rential by 5 quid and charge you 5 quid for sports channels so no diffrent in cost thou sounds if that is the case you be tied in 12 months contracts.. Obv after reading above comment not the case.

Of course, you will not be able to get Champions league football on Sky. I also heard that BT will have the FA Cup Final but I dont know if that is exclusively.

With regard to BT Sports being "free". I suppose it is paid for somehow by the customers (surely must be). Maybe in increased customer sales.

As a football supporter I can well see an argument for increasing some subscriptions to pay for the new Champions League soccer.

I think the main issue here is the way BT have gone about it. You cannot just make arbitrary changes to customers contracts. BT will make you adhere very strictly to their own terms of contract. Now, I think they have made a mistake and I would be surprised if there was not some kind of back-tracking on this issue in the near future.

JJ_Egan

https://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumer/terms/BT-Sport.html

T&C revised

1. If we plan to:

1. increase the subscription price you pay for BT Sport, or
2. substantially reduce the number of Channels (but not Red Button Channels) within the Pack which you subscribe to, or
3. change the BT Sport terms and conditions to your material disadvantage (which we may do under the Residential Standard terms),

then we will write to you to tell you about these changes so that you have at least 30 days' notice before they happen. If you reasonably consider that you would be materially disadvantaged by such a change, then you will have 30 days from the day you receive our written notification to call us and end your contract for BT Sport, on up to 30 days' notice to us. If you do so you will not be charged the higher price for BT Sport (if you have already paid the higher price we will refund the difference to you in your next or final bill), and if you are still in a minimum contract term for BT Sport, you won't have to pay early termination charges for ending your contract early. If we make changes to your terms and conditions which are not to your material disadvantage we will tell you about them in line with the Residential Standard terms.

Paperweight

JJ_Egan wrote: »

https://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumer/terms/BT-Sport.html

T&C revised

1. If we plan to:

1. increase the subscription price you pay for BT Sport, or
2. substantially reduce the number of Channels (but not Red Button Channels) within the Pack which you subscribe to, or
3. change the BT Sport terms and conditions to your material disadvantage (which we may do under the Residential Standard terms),

then we will write to you to tell you about these changes so that you have at least 30 days' notice before they happen. If you reasonably consider that you would be materially disadvantaged by such a change, then you will have 30 days from the day you receive our written notification to call us and end your contract for BT Sport, on up to 30 days' notice to us. If you do so you will not be charged the higher price for BT Sport (if you have already paid the higher price we will refund the difference to you in your next or final bill), and if you are still in a minimum contract term for BT Sport, you won't have to pay early termination charges for ending your contract early. If we make changes to your terms and conditions which are not to your material disadvantage we will tell you about them in line with the Residential Standard terms.

Yes, but the option is just to cancel BT Sport. I want to cancel my Broadband/phone contract because one of the considerations when I agreed the contract was the free BT Sport.

CPS

I have just had an online chat with BT to confirm that I can either pay £5 for something I dont want or downgrade to BTSport Lite and enter into a new 12 month contract. The advisor confirmed these were my 2 options. Extremely sneaky how they have doen this, I am shocked they can get away with it - surely Companies could just constantly change their options / T&C's to tie us into new contracts

I will hold fire on my downgrade (and new 12 month contract) to see if anyone else has any joy. Shocking

davetrousers

This is annoying as I have BT (infinity) so that I can watch MotoGP via the BT Sport app.

I think you get BT sport free with BT TV, the cheapest way to get this is a £35 activation fee with no monthly fee.

Pitlanepiglet

Thanks for posting the T's & C's. I think we need Martin and MSE to ask BT for a clear statement on how they consider that the conditions will be applied and how this impacts subscribers plus (in my case) and what options are open to those who don't want to pay £5 a month.

Personally, I rarely watch BT Sport (actually I've discovered that Sky seem to have disabled the channels over the last couple of months without me noticing). I don't want to pay and I don't want to enter into a new contract, I'm midterm with a contract that is contemporaneous with my Sky contract so that I can negotiate all the services at the same time.

I just want to decline the "upgrade" accept whatever that leaves me with and be left alone...

Hopefully MSE are on this already