BT refuse to release me from my contract!!

WilliamsSJ

Like it says in my thread title. I've been with BT for a few years now. But they are refusing to let me go without a hefty penalty!!

Their combined package has been the bog basic and cheap service I've required. Their TV and Phone contracts went from a 12month contract, to a rolling one, month to month. But unbeknownst to me, the Broadband contract auto renewed for another 12 months? It would have been nice to have been notified of this??

I initially signed a contract for Broadband of up to 25mb/s. And as the months have gone by, the speed has dropped significantly. I have horrendous lag and dropping issues which have gotten worse and worse as the months go by. I've kept a record of the drop in speed using the "broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk" website. Some days its drops to as low as 6mb/s, and the service drops out 10 to 20 times a day. Which is very noticeable as I mostly watch streaming, recorded or "on demand" TV services, and then try to do some work on my laptop with the tv in the background. Everything just grinds to a halt!!!

I called BT wanting to escape and go to another provider, and so I let them know about the slow speeds and lagging and signal drop outs. They refused to release me without the Technical teams approval? But depsite their technical team trying to fix my speed and issues (one of wich was an engineer callout as it was outside my property) nothing has improved.

Despite their efforts, the service remains the same, and still they refuse to release me from my contract without a hefty charge of £135??

I'm sure that a contract works both ways? I pay for a service, and if that service isn't provided adequately, then the provider is surely in breach of the contract. I've given them plenty of opportunity to rectify the problems, but nothing seems to have worked.

I just wondered what I should do next, and maybe get some advice?

Many thanks.

littleboo

You need to give them reasonable opportunity to resolve the issue. How long has it been ongoing? What speeds were you getting before the problem, how are your devices connecting - wired or wireless?

WilliamsSJ

I've given them over a month now to fix my issues. I've reported problems on five occasions, allowing them 48 hrs to make changes and then a week for a engineer to come out to fix the exterior issue.

The issues have been going on for over six months and are incredibly frustrating. I was watching the cricket on sky sports last week. The internet dropped six times during the match. Four of which where when wickets fell... Just made it pointless trying to sit and enjoy a match in the TV. Even recorded programmes have big gaps and pixellation due to slow speeds.

And i've had speeds starting initially around 20mb/s, slowing to around 10mb/s and today as low as 6mb/s. I just tested it now and is 12mb/s.

I'm paying for 20-25mb/s. And not getting any where near that!!

Ohh and my TV and Youview box are LAN networked. My iphone and macbook are WiFi.

iniltous

Your broadband cannot re-contract itself for a new minimum term, if you had an initial minimum term that has expired , you would now be on a rolling 30 day notice to quit contract.
If BT say you are within a (new) minimum term , then that suggests you recontracted at some point , and obviously anyone would only recontract for a new minimum term if they offered some sort of inducement to do so.
If you don't recall agreeing to a new minimum term for money off , or something included for free , you should query it, ask what date you agreed to this new minimum term but a good indicator is , are you paying full list price for your BT services or is it discounted, if it's discounted, then 'price to pay' for this discount was a new minimum term, this is pretty much industry standard.

As far as wanting to leave because of a technical problem, you have to give them a reasonable period to fix the problem, if they fail to fix the problem, they may agree to let you quit penalty free, but it's them that make that decision, not you, all you can do is persue them to fix the issue and after a reasonable period they haven't , suggest that as they appear unable to fix the issue, you want to be released, but a 'reasonable' period could be several months, not a few days

WilliamsSJ

I have never been offered an inducement or benefit of any sort. If anything the cost of subscription increased slightly.

I refer to my second post above. I've given them over a month to fix the issues and have called many times. They just refuse each time.

I will call them again in a minute and see what today's excuse might be! I shall also ask them when my Broadband renewwed and when I agreed to a new contract period. I'm sure they will just use the old "acceptance of service" get out clause!!

iniltous

WilliamsSJ wrote: »

I have never been offered an inducement or benefit of any sort. If anything the cost of subscription increased slightly.

I refer to my second post above. I've given them over a month to fix the issues and have called many times. They just refuse each time.

I will call them again in a minute and see what today's excuse might be! I shall also ask them when my Broadband renewwed and when I agreed to a new contract period. I'm sure they will just use the old "acceptance of service" get out clause!!

As already said, if your original minimum term has expired, and you have never been in touch with BT , and them with you ( apart from the fault issue ) then you cannot possibly be inside a new minimum term, there is no such thing as an automatic renewal with a new minimum term, if they say you recontracted , there should be a note of the date/time and what was agreed...
If they contact anyone , close to the expiry an original minimum and ask them to recontract , without any deal being offered ,presumably they wouldn't get many takers, after all if a new 12 month minimum contract is the same as the existing rolling month to month one, why would anyone accept ?, AFAIK, if they call , it's with some sort of deal.

With the latest round of price increases, they , as well as showing how much their services were going up by , offered to keep the price the same as the pre increase price, but that was in return for a new minimum term, you didn't sign up for that did you ?

Any time there is a price increase , you can leave penalty free, if you are going to leave within 30 days of the notification ,you may have missed the boat in the last increase, but the next price increase is never too far away...you may have to wait until then to leave or wait until the end of this new mysterious minimum term , or pay the ETC's

Unfortunately, it's not within your gift to say , fix the fault within a month or I want to be released without penalty, but if you haven't already you should contact the executive level complaints, or perhaps post on the BT Comunity forum, the Mods seem to be able to help
https://community.bt.com/