Dispute with BT over money owed

jayspiece85

need help!!!! currently at war with bt as they allege that they provided my broadband, they say i owe them around £200. they allege they continued to provide my broadband AFTER i had moved to sky. i have taken my complaint to the ombudsman who says bt have provided evidence that i owe the money (this has been going on since 2015 and has involved 3 collections agencies) i have provided my sky bills which show i was paying sky for broadband i only have 1 line at home. but still bt are dragging their feet i feel so wound up and annoyed but i feel like im banging my head against the wall, the ombudsman wont provide me with the evidence BT gave so i dont even know what im defending myself against surely they cant do this?????

Browntoa

if you were in contract with BT and not at the end of your contract period with BT when you moved to Sky then you owe BT money. I assume BT have supplied this information to the ombudsman and they have backed BT


correct me if I'm wrong

jayspiece85

no i was out of contract at the time, however at the time Sky had offered to 'buy me out' of any contract i was in, i joined sky in 08/15 and went live on 13/08 bt say they provided my broadband until 12/15 and that the money is owed as they bills were paid, just not in full.... again this makes no sense as i had cancelled my direct debit and yes i returned the router and the wires to bt. each time i received a letter from a collections agency i rang explained the situation, and the agency has gone back to bt for bt to use a different collections agency, i could have 3 lettered the agency but i dont owe this money the ombudsman has been given by me all of the collections letters my bank statements to show i didnt pay any bills after 09/15 to bt but did pay to sky and my sky bills and letter of confirmation of sky subscription. also the ombudsman said she has been provided with a telephone call between me and bt, which is odd as they have never rang me back, or been able to help when iv gone through 150 or the 0800 that i found on google.

lee111s

Try posting on the BT community forums.

giraffe69

When you say you were out of contract you may have finished your fixed term but if so you move on to a rolling contract. I assume you gave the correct notice?

angryparcel

jayspiece85 wrote: »

no i was out of contract at the time,

do you mean you were over the minimum period i.e you sign up to a 24 month minimum contract after that you continue on a rolling payment, you then still have to give the provider normally 30 days notice to cancel the contract. as you say you have had 3 debt collection letters, which each of these would add further costs to what you owe.

jayspiece85

i was out of contract, due to technical issues i had made it clear to bt i was not going to stay, should have mentioned i received a final bill from bt which i paid in full or rather they took by direct debit, my issue is why they would say they had received payments until 12/15 but just not for the right amount? and why would BT say they still supplied me with broadband but not telephone.... bt forums are useless as is trying to ring them, this issue has been ongoing now for 2 years almost..... and by bts own admission they received the router back..... yet the ombudsman seems to have sided with bt even though i can PROVE i correctly terminated my service and have evidence from sky to back this up along with payments and bills from sky showing they provided my phone broadband and tv oh and my line rental was paid to them too.... this is really exhausting me coz i dont know anybody who has had a similar problem. and for the record i have a good credit rating i pay my bills and if i was in arrears i wouldnt have wasted my time returning the router under threat of a £25 fee for not returning it.

angryparcel

jayspiece85 wrote: »

i was out of contract, due to technical issues i had made it clear to bt i was not going to stay, should have mentioned i received a final bill from bt which i paid in full or rather they took by direct debit, my issue is why they would say they had received payments until 12/15 but just not for the right amount? and why would BT say they still supplied me with broadband but not telephone.... bt forums are useless as is trying to ring them, this issue has been ongoing now for 2 years almost..... and by bts own admission they received the router back..... yet the ombudsman seems to have sided with bt even though i can PROVE i correctly terminated my service and have evidence from sky to back this up along with payments and bills from sky showing they provided my phone broadband and tv oh and my line rental was paid to them too.... this is really exhausting me coz i dont know anybody who has had a similar problem. and for the record i have a good credit rating i pay my bills and if i was in arrears i wouldnt have wasted my time returning the router under threat of a £25 fee for not returning it.

even if you were paying Sky, all BT needed to prove to the ombudsman is that they were still providing a service from their system ( you never cancelled). you cant just say 'I am leaving' and call that cancelling the contract. you have to tell them you want to cancel and they will put you through to retentions to try and keep you and only they can cancel the contract for you. it sounds like the contract was not cancelled, returning a router means nothing as you dont need their router to get their service

Mister_G

The OP joined Sky in August 2015.

The current system of 'Gaining Provider Led' came into force in June 2015.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/media/media-releases/2015/easier-bb-switching

Surely it should have been for Sky to sort out any issues with BT, who they were taking over the line from.

In theory you should not need to tell your current provider that you are about to change.

I know that this is different if dealing to and from Virgin, but both BT and Sky use the OR infrastructure.

iniltous

Did you 'migrate' your service, or did you just call Sky and ask for a 'new' line ?, if you migrated, especially if you ported the number from BT to Sky, then the cease of the BT service is linked with the 'provision' of the Sky service, you don't get an engineer visit to your home as the migration work is done at the exchange...I suspect you didn't ask for a migration but a new (extra) line to be fitted, or perhaps Sky ordered a new line with you thinking you were getting a migration.
If you didn't migrate and got a 'new' Sky line a difference is you get a visit from a OR engineer or contractor working for OR, to 'install' the Sky line, or a text/call saying we connected you ,did you get an 'appointment ' ( told to be at home ) for the Sky service, or just a changeover date ?, if it were an appointment that would suggest a new line not a migration.
If a new line is what was ordered from Sky, strictly speaking you should get a new socket for Sky fitted next to the existing socket for BT, but most people would tell the engineer not to fit this extra 'new' socket but use the existing socket.
If this is what happened , the Openreach engineer could have effectively just disconnected the BT service, and connected Sky in its place, you may think you got what you asked for ( a migration) , but the issue is that doing this doesn't inform BT so although the BT service is disconnected in the exchange , BT (correctly) continue to charge for the service, as they have not been advised of anything, by Sky or you.
In cases like this, the onus would then be on you to call BT and cancel the ( now disconnected) BT service, otherwise the BT bills would continue to be raised.
You could argue the Openreach engineer shouldn't have disconnected BT if you were going to keep getting bills from BT, but that wouldn't be a BT Retail/Consumer problem.