BT Staff told me no termination fee, then tried to charge me?

SunsetDreams

I was looking to switch from BT to Virgin as the speed increase is too good not to take.

I entered a new contract in April, and I was fully aware there would be a cancellation fee.
So I went online to the BT Live chat, to ask what this would be.

The staff member on the live chat said to me that there would be no termination fee. It surprised me but I thought nothing more of it. I have the transcript of the chat, and the staff members name.

So I called the next day to cancel, only to be told there would be a termination fee.

I argued and said that I had it here in black and white from a member of BT's staff that there would be no termination fee. They put me on hold for 10 minutes, I'm assuming the guy went to ask his supervisor or whatever, and came back to the phone and quite frankly was panicking and I could hear his nerves through his voice but he tried to argue that I would need to pay the fee.

So what are my rights here if anything? Since I have it in black and white from a chat transcript do they need to honour that? Or is he right and I would actually need to pay the fee?

Any advice would be appreciated.

iniltous

I think you will be liable for ETC ( after all you were expecting as much, having entered a new contract as recently as April )
The Customer Service Rep may have made a mistake , or the system they use to check dates etc, may have given a false indication, but I’m not sure that is a legal basis for you to claim that you shouldn’t have to pay simply because you have a transcript of an on line chat where an incorrect statement was made....
There was a case , a few years ago, where a Sky representative made a false statement along the lines of £100 per day compo for every day without service ( or something like that ) and went to BBC Watchdog to complain ( or a similar programme ) and the Sky executive they had on, said they would honour the statement ( around £1000 ) even though they were under no obligation to do so, but IMHO, the punter came across as money grubbing , the chances are the CSR probably got sacked, and the BBC presenter looked embarrassed as the compo was excessive for a few days without service