BT moving house

martyhill87

I'm due to move house in april, I currently have BT Tv broadband and phone. The address i'm moving to has Virgin because Bt cannot offer fibre broadband. I'm currently paying for bt infinity 2 package but with no fibre at the new address only copper with speeds up to 20m/b. Bt are trying to say to cancel my contract it will cost £266 as my contract isn't up until november. Is there any way i can get out of paying off my contract under the grounds that they cannot offer the same service as i am currently paying for?

Browntoa

No , you agreed to the contract , not BT's fault you moved

mije1983

martyhill87 wrote: »

Is there any way i can get out of paying off my contract

Death, or bankruptcy. Take your pick

Of course you could always just stop paying. That's if you don't care about your credit rating for the next 6 years, or don't mind the hassle of DCA letters/visits. Not an avenue I would recommend though!

dan-_3

I sympathise with your situation, mainly because I'm in the same boat and BT are charging me £295. I was about to raise the same question to the friendly crowd at MSE, but I note that the initial response you received from the person in charge of the board was not particularly helpful and not exactly in the 'consumer champion' spirit of the site.

I fully admit that I should have read the T&Cs more closely, and second guessed the person in the call centre who told me I wouldn't pay cancellation charges if I moved. However with all the support on MSE for people who should have read the small print on other services (PPI, anyone?), I would have thought there might be some ideas/loopholes floating around the forum.

All I can suggest is trying the MSE recommended 'Resolver' service, which will at least steer you through the best way to make a complaint.
http://www.resolver.co.uk/

Good luck

Browntoa

Consumer spirit is no factor

Your are looking at "goodwill" to break the contract

iniltous

dan- wrote: »

I sympathise with your situation, mainly because I'm in the same boat and BT are charging me £295. I was about to raise the same question to the friendly crowd at MSE, but I note that the initial response you received from the person in charge of the board was not particularly helpful and not exactly in the 'consumer champion' spirit of the site.

I fully admit that I should have read the T&Cs more closely, and second guessed the person in the call centre who told me I wouldn't pay cancellation charges if I moved. However with all the support on MSE for people who should have read the small print on other services (PPI, anyone?), I would have thought there might be some ideas/loopholes floating around the forum.

All I can suggest is trying the MSE recommended 'Resolver' service, which will at least steer you through the best way to make a complaint.
http://www.resolver.co.uk/

Good luck

Slightly misleading, BT can offer service, it's just not Infinity...if you move your line and 'broadband' to the new address there wouldn't be any ETC, the OP presumably wants to use Virgin at the new address, even though BT ( albeit not Infinity) is available...in those circumstances it's hardly surprising that BT would look to uphold the T&C's the OP agreed to...simple solution is use BT until out of any minimum term

mije1983

dan- wrote: »

I note that the initial response you received from the person in charge of the board was not particularly helpful and not exactly in the 'consumer champion' spirit of the site.

What Browntoa said was factually correct whether or not you found it helpful. Yes, they could have replied with 'it's outrageous, call BT and demand to cancel free of charge'. That may have sounded more helpful, but would have been totally incorrect advice and would not have actually helped the OP (or other visitors to this site) as they would think they were entitled to more than they are.

If BT were not playing by the rules, then yes this is a consumer champion site and the OP would have been given some true advice. But from what they have written, BT have not done anything wrong.

dan- wrote: »

I would have thought there might be some ideas/loopholes floating around the forum.

If there were, they would be heavily publicised on the site. Unfortunately there are not. This is a money saving site, but not at the cost of ignoring your legal responsibilities.

Apologies if you didn't find this post helpful....

dan-_3

I appreciate that this thread is a bit old now, but here's an update in case it proves useful to anyone in a similar position: in the end, BT waived the termination fees they were planning to charge me.

My original mistake was trying to argue it on the basis of the incorrect or incomplete information I was given over the phone. This was negated by the small print that I should have read in more detail.

The more successful way to present the argument was that BT were unable to offer an equivalent product at the new property. In my case, the old house was on an FTTP (fibre to the premises) connection and the new house was FTTC (fibre to the cabinet). In practice, this means the old connection was consistently 76Mbps and capable of up to 300, whereas the new connection tops out at about 20Mbps. Contractually, these are both under the same 'infinity' product, so no guaranteed refund, but the difference in line speed was enough for them to coinsider waiving the hefty fees.

This will not work for everyone, but may be of use if someone in a similar positon stumbles across this thread in the future. Don't give up at the first knock-back, and you might get somewhere.

PS. I still don't understand why people here have rushed to the defence of BT, while other boards on MSE are happy to do all they can to rinse financial or service companies for refunds over perceived mis-selling. Feel free to quote paragraphs of contact law at me if you like, but I won't be coming back to this thread to read them. Good luck to all.

[Deleted User]

dan- wrote: »

PS. I still don't understand why people here have rushed to the defence of BT, while other boards on MSE are happy to do all they can to rinse financial or service companies for refunds over perceived mis-selling. Feel free to quote paragraphs of contact law at me if you like, but I won't be coming back to this thread to read them. Good luck to all.

Point out anywhere where someone has 'defended' BT, it's okay I'll wait.

Yet another poster who doesn't like actual facts but wants everyone to feel outraged on their behalf.

@Browntoa says 'told you so' by the way

Browntoa wrote: »

Consumer spirit is no factor

Your are looking at "goodwill" to break the contract

onomatopoeia99

dan- wrote: »

PS. I still don't understand why people here have rushed to the defence of BT, while other boards on MSE are happy to do all they can to rinse financial or service companies for refunds over perceived mis-selling. Feel free to quote paragraphs of contact law at me if you like, but I won't be coming back to this thread to read them. Good luck to all.

"I don't understand why" .. "I won't be coming back to this thread".


Well, you're not worth bothering with then, are you?