BT and others contract price increases

DavidBranwell99

Since January 2021 BT has added a clause to its various contracts as follows:
“The monthly price will increase every year from 31st March. That increase is based on a percentage comprised of i) the Consumer Price Index (CPI) Rate of inflation which is published in January of each year (ignoring any negative figures) plus ii) 3.9%.” 
Since then other providers (all?) have added the same clause (TalkTalk uses 3.7%).  This is clearly inflationary because the CPI reflects the current annual rate of inflation.  It is also designed to block the previous customer get-out if prices were increased mid contract.  Is there any way to challenge this move?

The_Fat_Controller

On what grounds do you think you can challenge a contract to which you have agreed ?

emmajones1976

The obvious way to challenge it is not to sign/agree to it from the outset.

If they added it mid-contract, were you not offered a get-out at the time it was added?

Jenni_D

I think EE were the first to impose this change (to new contracts). I'm with BT and when I renegotiated in January this year I was aware of this clause coming into effect.

It'll be interesting to see just how inflationary this will be ... CPI has been very low for the past several years but I can see this rising quite markedly for the next couple of years due to the pandemic and Brexit.

JJ_Egan

OP is wrong as BT added the CPI increases notified  back in 2019 to future bills from march 2020 .

Ofcom have agreed with this sort of increase notified on all contracts and all adverts from September 2019  .
Get out was only for unarranged in contract price increases under Ofcom rules .

DavidBranwell99

The_Fat_Controller said:

On what grounds do you think you can challenge a contract to which you have agreed ?

I haven't agreed to sign-up yet but there doesn't seem to be much choice.  Do you know a broadband provider who hasn't added this clause to their contract for new sign-ups?

Neil_Jones

DavidBranwell99 said:

Since January 2021 BT has added a clause to its various contracts as follows:
“The monthly price will increase every year from 31st March. That increase is based on a percentage comprised of i) the Consumer Price Index (CPI) Rate of inflation which is published in January of each year (ignoring any negative figures) plus ii) 3.9%.” 
Since then other providers (all?) have added the same clause (TalkTalk uses 3.7%).  This is clearly inflationary because the CPI reflects the current annual rate of inflation.  It is also designed to block the previous customer get-out if prices were increased mid contract.  Is there any way to challenge this move?

So don't sign up then.

But you'll be hard pushed to find anybody at the cheaper/budget end of the market who doesn't have such a clause.

Sky don't have a CPI thing (neither does now) but they have had the other right to raise prices outside of this.

Zen Internet has a what they cal "lifetime guarantee": https://www.zen.co.uk/resources/docs/default-source/document-library/standard-terms-and-conditions/lifetime-price-guarantee-terms-and-conditions.pdf - but you'll pay more for this from the off so even with increases from the budget end of the market it'll probably work out the same anyway.

JJ_Egan

DavidBranwell99 said:

The_Fat_Controller said:

On what grounds do you think you can challenge a contract to which you have agreed ?

I haven't agreed to sign-up yet but there doesn't seem to be much choice.  Do you know a broadband provider who hasn't added this clause to their contract for new sign-ups?

Those that have not a clause raised prices last two years in contract .

Yes you can get out but fewer and fewer to move to .