Final Bill Query

Rusticginger

Hi, I am looking for some advice please in regards to my final BT bill: I phoned BT in May to advise them that we were moving but unfortunately through conversation it turns out we were unable to take our service with us. At the time the advisor said our final bill would be £291 as we are still in contract with them. Last week I then got my bill from them which was actually £686 (£515 in services and £180 in equipment charges). I am now in a deadlock situation with BT because although they fully admit that the advisor should not have given me that total, they will not honor the original price because of various excuses including the systems don't match up and it didn't take into account any cancellation charges. They wont even let us pay monthly to clear the debt they just want it all up front and I don't know many of us that are stashing away £700 for a BT bill should they be charged unfairly. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance. Ps I am currently complaining through the Telecommunications Ombudsman but this is early days.

JJ_Egan

Equipment its normal to charge if you leave in contract .But £180 is a lot of equipment and i would ask does any of it be new as part of current contract .
Usual cancel of a contract is payment for the remaining months .Was it a 24 month contract ??

Was this a BT Business account by any chance ??

iniltous

If you accept that the larger charge is accurate but you want them to accept the lower figure the BT advisor gave by mistake, you probably won't have much luck, the ETC's are published on the website and will be the final arbiter not the customer service rep
http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/assets/pdf/BT_PhoneTariff_Residential.pdf#page142

Strange you say you are moving but cannot have BT at your new address, why ?, unless you are moving abroad, BT use OR , and OR have a universal service obligation to provide service when reasonably requested to, so unless you are moving to a new development where the developer has locked out OR in favour of some other supplier, then I would think you could get BT services if you wanted.

It seems harsh when a bill like this arrives, but you accepted the terms of the contract,including the minimum term and the ETC's should you quit the deal early, if you didn't change the terms by moving, you would have paid the same amount over the remaining months of the (minimum term) contract anyway, all they are getting is what you were going to pay if you didn't quit early.

The equipment charge does seem hefty, but again if it's in the T&C's, unfortunatly if they give the equipment a value of say £200, and say you have to pay for the equipment if you quit early, for example 18 months, then even if you quit 1 day before the 18 month minimum, the full £200 is due, it's not amortized , so it's not like if you quit after 9 months you only pay £100, it's the full amount until the minimum term expires, then you own it