BT Charged for service even though it was cancelled

vbjr

Hello everyone,

I am having an issue with BT, where they have charged for web hosting (£8/month) for around 5 years even though the service was cancelled back in Dec 2012.

This comes to a total of £480.

Reason why I didnt detect this is because I never looked at the bill and it just was just paid thinking it was phone calls, not to mention my member of staff didnt pick it up either which deals with the payments, I only detected it since my accountant prompted it.

BT isnt playing nice by not giving a chargeback or any type of refund.
its their word against mine and I am sure I called to cancel it as we moved the domain name out and hosting altogether to my designer's service, we cancelled it there and then through the phone, but obviously whoever we spoke to at BT at the time didnt log it on the system.

The only proof there is, is that the domain name, website and anything to do with web services was moved out which is recorded.

BT Created a complaint case but the lady said that more than likely we wont get any money back at all.

Any advise would be welcomed.

ssparks2003

This is not a consumer issue since this is a b2b transaction. Why are your employees not doing their job correctly?

JJ_Egan

Your basic problem is no evidence .
Do you not have a BT Business Account manager .

vbjr

ssparks2003 / sorry I didnt know where else to post it.

Good question re staff, but I just have to deal with it now.

vbjr

JJ Egan sadly we dont have an account manager, or not even sure if we have one assigned to be honest.

But yes there is no evidence apart from tracking the move of the domain name which is publicly available on records.

Fosterdog

The thing is moving the domain is no proof that you cancelled, you could have completely forgotten to cancel or kept he existing hosting there as a backup in case of any teething problems with the new host and meant to cancel at a later date.

What do the terms of your contract say about cancelling? Do they accept cancellations over the phone?

ssparks2003

As a business you are deemed to be able to afford to pay for legal advice so consumer law does not apply. You would need to demonstrate that you had canceled the contract; which as you state would be difficult (especially since you have continued to pay for a number of years) ultimately it is now down to whether BT accepts that made a mistake and if they choose to refund you the money.

unholyangel

ssparks2003 wrote: »

As a business you are deemed to be able to afford to pay for legal advice so consumer law does not apply. You would need to demonstrate that you had canceled the contract; which as you state would be difficult (especially since you have continued to pay for a number of years) ultimately it is now down to whether BT accepts that made a mistake and if they choose to refund you the money.

What? There is no assumption about a business being able to afford legal advice, never mind it being the reason for consumer rights not applying. No idea where you pulled that one from.

ssparks2003

The Consumer Rights Act refers to ‘traders’ and ‘consumers’. When you’re acting for purposes that relate to your trade, business or profession, you’re counted as a ‘trader.’ This means that a ‘trader’ can be a self-employed person, a limited company, a charity, or another individual or organisation.

Under the law, a ‘consumer’ is someone who isn’t acting for the purposes of a business when they deal with the trader. This means that a business that buys goods isn’t counted as a consumer under the Consumer Rights Act, and business-to-business (B2B) transactions don’t have the same protection.

unholyangel

ssparks2003 wrote: »

The Consumer Rights Act refers to ‘traders’ and ‘consumers’. When you’re acting for purposes that relate to your trade, business or profession, you’re counted as a ‘trader.’ This means that a ‘trader’ can be a self-employed person, a limited company, a charity, or another individual or organisation.

Under the law, a ‘consumer’ is someone who isn’t acting for the purposes of a business when they deal with the trader. This means that a business that buys goods isn’t counted as a consumer under the Consumer Rights Act, and business-to-business (B2B) transactions don’t have the same protection.

Under the consumer rights act someone is a consumer if they are acting for purposes wholly or mainly outside of their trade, profession etc. The definition of consumer can change depending on what piece of legislation is in question. For example the old SoGA had a different definition of consumer to the Trade Descriptions Act. Likewise section 75 of the consumer credit act extends to sole traders and small partnerships despite them not being a consumer.

But none of that is what you originally said - which is that businesses aren't given consumer protection because its presumed they can afford legal advice.