BT Broadband Down- cancellation fees

andylowes9

Hi all,
I’m in a contract with BT for broadband which I signed up for in April 22 (couple of months ago) therefore we are past the cooling off period,

My broadband has been down for 9 days now -
on day 1 - they said it’d be fixed on the day, day 3 - they said it was a problem at the exchange and that it’d be fixed within 4 hours
day 4 - they said it’d be fixed by day 6
day 6 - said it’d be fixed by day 7
day 7 - said they’d send an engineer out to be fixed on day 10
day 10 (today) - they sent an engineer to my flat who couldn’t fix it because it’s a problem at the exchange (which I already knew) and that it’d be fixed by day 17

i have rung BT multiple times this week to try to cancel as I already have a fibre connection to my flat with another provider so could easily make the switch. They have said it’d cost £370 in cancellation fees. I’ve tried arguing consumer rights, threatening ombudsman etc but they are just standing by the contract. Surely They can’t charge me £370 to cancel a service I’m not receiving? 

I’ve had to push back a virtual job interview as I don’t have a reliable data connection, 

Does anyone have any suggestions for getting them to waive the fee? I really don’t understand how they are not backing down on this, I am disgusted with their customer service as well (one guy told me that the loyalty team can’t waive my fee because they get bonuses based on how many customers they don’t allow to cancel!! - obviously things like this go on but I couldn’t believe I was given that as a reason) 

thanks in advance,
Andy

Aylesbury_Duck

andylowes9 said:

Hi all,
I’m in a contract with BT for broadband which I signed up for in April 22 (couple of months ago) therefore we are past the cooling off period,

My broadband has been down for 9 days now -
on day 1 - they said it’d be fixed on the day, day 3 - they said it was a problem at the exchange and that it’d be fixed within 4 hours
day 4 - they said it’d be fixed by day 6
day 6 - said it’d be fixed by day 7
day 7 - said they’d send an engineer out to be fixed on day 10
day 10 (today) - they sent an engineer to my flat who couldn’t fix it because it’s a problem at the exchange (which I already knew) and that it’d be fixed by day 17

i have rung BT multiple times this week to try to cancel as I already have a fibre connection to my flat with another provider so could easily make the switch. They have said it’d cost £370 in cancellation fees. I’ve tried arguing consumer rights, threatening ombudsman etc but they are just standing by the contract. Surely They can’t charge me £370 to cancel a service I’m not receiving? 

I’ve had to push back a virtual job interview as I don’t have a reliable data connection, 

Does anyone have any suggestions for getting them to waive the fee? I really don’t understand how they are not backing down on this, I am disgusted with their customer service as well (one guy told me that the loyalty team can’t waive my fee because they get bonuses based on how many customers they don’t allow to cancel!! - obviously things like this go on but I couldn’t believe I was given that as a reason) 

thanks in advance,
Andy

What does the contract say?  It's no good threatening them with consumer rights or the ombudsman unless you know whether the cancellation fees are enforceable in this situation or not.

If they've breached your contract and that allows you to end the contract early and without fees, you have a case.  If the outage doesn't constitute a breach of contract then it's a case of negotiating what you can, or taking firmer action once sufficient time has elapsed so that it constitutes a breach.

So, what does the contract say?

Browntoa

If it's a residential contract you have very limited rights .

Business contracts have tighter SLA thresholds and give you many more rights 

Andy_L

https://www.bt.com/terms/post1stsep2020voiceandbroadband

"10. When you can end the service and this agreement

f. If you have regular or repeated, continuous or irregular faults with the BT Broadband service, or we agree that the standard of service you get is consistently below what you might reasonably expect, we may, after an individual assessment, let you end the agreement without paying a charge for leaving early. Please get in touch if you'd like to talk about this."

Presumably you're speaking to a call centre jockey? Do they understand that you want to cancel under the above clause rather than just cancel?

The_Fat_Controller

What does the contract say regarding a timescale to fix a fault ?

Many contracts specify an ISP has 30 days to fix it before you can leave without penalty.

You will probably be due compensation for time without service, once again, read those Ts and Cs. 

Olinda99

BT owe you £8.40 per day it is down - at this rate you might even make a profit !

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/costs-and-billing/automatic-compensation-need-know

bris

Who would you be moving to? Not sure if you are aware of this or not but most broadband resellers don't have their own equipment and anyone else you go to would be using the same equipment, if it's down now it will still be down with a new supplier.

It's like gas and Electricity, the same providers supply the utilities, it's just resold by someone else.