Moved Home- Can I cancel my contract with BT?

[Deleted User]

I actually have some sympathy for you after getting stung by the same situation twice.

Going back many years, had Virgin Media and moved to a house that Virgin said they could supply, took 3 visits from men in vans scratching their heads before they admitted they couldn't supply broadband so had to pay off the contract (£240?) and move to BT.

Then moved house again unexpectedly, landlord sold up, I was left with £200 of BT contract to pay or accept a drop from 76 mbps to 8 mpbs at the new house so went back over to Virgin. Argued till blue in face that BT were breaching contract because I paid for VDSL but new property was ADSL but got nowhere and debt collection got involved so I just paid up.

I did end up moving again twice after the above but managed to avoid the issue by moving into a Virgin supplied house but that isn't always a choice that can be made.

I do understand a contract is legally binding etc but some goodwill from the suppliers would be useful in those situations if you can prove you have actually attempted to re-connect at the new property but for reasons beyond control it doesn't happen.

Adam_Southward

Update: Email received tonight after missing a call from BT:

"Hello Mr Southward,

 

Hope all is well and apologies I've missed you.

 

Just wanted to update you on the order, I've spoken with Openreach and they have advised the external work was done 48 hours after the order was supposed to go live but for some reason your order has got stuck on their systems. I know that this isn’t acceptable especially after we were unable to provide a Fibre service to you. Openreach have said that your service should be up and running by the 30/04.

I know you mentioned that you would like to cancel, this isn't something that we want you to do but I would understand why. I will get the service on for you and if you still want to cancel you are still able to do so without penalty due to the poor service we have provided so far.

 

I'll try and speak to you on the 30/04 and the service should be live and I can try compensate you for the poor service or if you would like to cancel we can get this arranged."

So there we have it. As I've maintained all along, it's not been an issue of what service BT can or cannot supply, it's their failure to connect me promptly, or even on time and general poor customer service that's been the problem. I tried to do things properly and didn't want to leave simply because my internet speeds would be slower than before. At least they're showing some understanding of the aggro they've put me through.

[Deleted User]

Well done - great result, always worth complaining constructively even though many people on here told you to put up and shut up.

Great result for the consumer which is what MSE forum is all about, contracts / law etc is one thing but there is always room for getting a better results and you have just proved that.

Hope many others read this and have the confidence to pursue things when they haven't gone as planned.

Tokmon

Adam_Southward said:

Tokmon said:

Adam_Southward said:

brewerdave said:

Adam_Southward said:

Elmer_BeFuddled said:

Just to throw my tuppence worth in. We recently moved (7/4/21) and we are with TalkTalk and contracted until 11/21. Our options were to cancel the (£25.50 pcm) contract and pay it up until November. Or get re-connected to TalkTalk for £23.50 pcm for two years.

Seeing as we've never had an issue with TalkTalk, apart from their crappy foreign customer services, we went with option 2. Gladly they could supply our area else I would have had to cough up 7 months of contract for nothing.

There should be some sort of legislation, like other utility companies, where you can get out of a contract without penalty if you move. The future is not always cast in stone.

Agree entirely. Whatever company it is, they don't know the reasons people have moved. Of course, it's largely by choice, but some may have been forced to do it for various reasons. Hardly fair to essentially punish people for circumstances that may be beyond their control.

Not being too sympathetic to ISPs - but if they allowed people to break contracts by claiming a house move ,there would be nothing to stop the householder changing ISP every time a new (better) offer was advertised with cashback.

To be fair, I'm not talking about people simply switching providers or just cancelling outright only because they want to. I'm saying where the previously supplied product you were contracted to is not available, where you've attempted to go through the house move process that these companies have but can't get what you had before. In my case, the broadband speeds being made available to me are roughly a third of what I had before. Will I be charged a third of what I was? Nope. It works both ways and the company usually has the upper hand, not the customer. If energy companies are so casual about switching, why not ISPs?

Again that is entirely the customers fault because they are the one moving and if the customers stayed where they were then they would still be able to supply the same product until the end of the contract.
The broadband being slower doesn't mean it is cheaper for them to supply and they are actually doing you a favor by allowing you to move and reconnect you for no extra charge. They could just say "sorry but the contract is for address X and we will not supply address Y if you move".

Imagine if i agreed with you to buy an item for a price and you will post it to me included in that price. I then decided to move to another country and expected you to still post it to me for the same price? I'm sure you wouldn't be happy with that due to the extra costs for you?

Yet when you move house you broadband supplier has to pay for a re-connection which is extra cost for them and yet you think your the one hard done by...

It's the customer's fault for moving? So no one should ever move if they have a contract then? No matter what? Do you think people should wait until the contract expires before they move? Sorry, but life doesn't work like that.

I've been with BT for over five years and I've renewed/upgraded with them every time my contract was due to expire. I was at my previous property for two and a half years. I only renewed my contract last April, having no idea I'd be moving a year later. However, my circumstances unexpectedly changed, meaning I moved.

I'm hardly a serial complainer and haven't had any previous issues with BT. I followed a legitimate process for the house move and was quite prepared to stick with them. Now I'm almost a month down the line since the order was placed (and over a month since they told me I couldn't have fibre at the new place, but made no attempt to offer an alternative), still waiting for broadband and phone line to be connected. Do I feel hard done by? Yes, because I've been extremely loyal to BT up to this point and don't feel like that loyalty has been returned.

Also, they flat out lied to me when they stated they'd inform me when fibre through Openreach would be available at my property, because I was subsequently informed it likely wouldn't ever be under the current setup.

At the end of the day, it's shoddy customer service that's put me off them. I could happily accept the slower broadband speeds, whatever they cost, if it hadn't taken over ten days for them to respond to my initial query and then a further three weeks now when my issue still hasn't been resolved. The point is, BT expect loyalty, something I've been quite happy to give in the past. How are they repaying my loyalty now?

By the way, reconnection free of charge when I moved? Only if I agreed to sign up to BT for another two years (something I was ready to do at the time. I'd likely have carried on beyond that point too). Otherwise, I'd have been looking at a fee of £130 odd. So, no. It's hardly a favour when there are strings attached. Defend them all you want, but they're hardly the benign entity you're painting them as.

No I'm not saying people shouldn't move when under contract, they just need to realise they are contracted to provide services at that address for that time period and if they do move house then they will need to factor in the chance of having to pay that contract out in full when they move if that's the only option. 

BT don't expect loyalty and no consumer should be loyal to any particular company. Loyalty never pays and just ends up with you paying more than you need too for your services. You should never be loyal and push for the cheapest price each time your renewal comes up and switch if they can't get near to it. 

JJ_Egan

(You should never be loyal and push for the cheapest price each time your renewal comes up and switch if they can't get near to it.  )

Agree though i would never switch for cheaper and poorer service .

macman

It's not your fault for moving, but it was your choice to move and therefore breach the contract. And referring to what contract and service you had at the previous property is irrelevant. That contract was valid at that address only, and the service you can get at the new address may or may not be inferior.

Adam_Southward

macman said:

It's not your fault for moving, but it was your choice to move and therefore breach the contract. And referring to what contract and service you had at the previous property is irrelevant. That contract was valid at that address only, and the service you can get at the new address may or may not be inferior.

I've stated previously that getting connected at my new home without having to pay for it to be done meant signing up to a further two-year contract (two years being the standard BT contract length), hence me wondering if it was, in essence, a new contract or whether I was still bound by the old one.

As I said, if you read my original post, I didn't initially have an issue with the inferior broadband speed, even if that was disappointing. I accepted it as part of my decision to move. The real point was the lack of customer service and general ineptitude from BT, not to mention the stupidly long time waiting for the inferior product to even be available to me at all. For the record, they've acknowledged that their handling of the situation has been poor and told me I can cancel without any fee. That said, the automatic daily compensation I would receive for not having been connected on my due date probably covers any fee by this point. Either way, by ignoring all the naysayers who said it wasn't possible, because I was the one breaching the contract, and just asking for cancellation has actually worked. Maybe the naysayers were wrong in this instance...

Also for the record, it's now a month to the day since my initial contact with BT, when they (finally) got in touch to try and sort out my issue. Guess what? They still haven't got me connected. They apparently needed to cancel my order so I could place it again (they cancelled it last Friday, 48 hours after they said I should be connected within 48 hours). Given the mess just getting this far has been, I'm not bothering.

Tokmon

Adam_Southward said:

macman said:

It's not your fault for moving, but it was your choice to move and therefore breach the contract. And referring to what contract and service you had at the previous property is irrelevant. That contract was valid at that address only, and the service you can get at the new address may or may not be inferior.

I've stated previously that getting connected at my new home without having to pay for it to be done meant signing up to a further two-year contract (two years being the standard BT contract length), hence me wondering if it was, in essence, a new contract or whether I was still bound by the old one.

As I said, if you read my original post, I didn't initially have an issue with the inferior broadband speed, even if that was disappointing. I accepted it as part of my decision to move. The real point was the lack of customer service and general ineptitude from BT, not to mention the stupidly long time waiting for the inferior product to even be available to me at all. For the record, they've acknowledged that their handling of the situation has been poor and told me I can cancel without any fee. That said, the automatic daily compensation I would receive for not having been connected on my due date probably covers any fee by this point. Either way, by ignoring all the naysayers who said it wasn't possible, because I was the one breaching the contract, and just asking for cancellation has actually worked. Maybe the naysayers were wrong in this instance...

Also for the record, it's now a month to the day since my initial contact with BT, when they (finally) got in touch to try and sort out my issue. Guess what? They still haven't got me connected. They apparently needed to cancel my order so I could place it again (they cancelled it last Friday, 48 hours after they said I should be connected within 48 hours). Given the mess just getting this far has been, I'm not bothering.

Who on here has said that it isn't possible for them to allow you to cancel after raising a complaint because i haven't seen anyone say that?. The fact still remains that you were bound under contract and they could have charged you the remaining amount but they have chosen not too as a way to resolve your complaint, if they had decided you couldn't cancel then they could have legally chased your for the money.

iniltous

Basically, the ETC has been waived as a good will gesture due to the poor service received, nothing to do with the validity of ETC, but a ‘result’ for the OP nevertheless, someone else in the same situation may not get the same offer