Termination fee

Agusya

Hi, maybe someone here knows the answer. So Im moving house and Im within contract with Onestream broadband till March . Im aware there would be termination fee (£113 ) cost of my broadband til March is £76 , so I said when I phoned them I would be just paying my bill till March since its less. Ive been told I cant to that because you cant have 2 active internets running at the same time (ppl moving in bringing their broadband with them) and their system will be triggered and I will need to pay termination fee . Can anyone confirm if this is correct? (I tried to look online but its too confusing ) thanks

MorningcoffeeIV

Yep, that's correct.

Poet1291

I'm not expert but that doesn't sound right. I've just found this from citizen's advice, although I believe it is from 2018 "Under Ofcom rules providers are able to charge consumers up to 100% of the value of the remaining payments, minus the amount they save by not having to supply the product anymore." [I can't post links but search for Broadband exit fees An analysis of the cost of leaving fixed telecoms contracts]. What you've said is also not what is in the onestream price guide, here on page 14 for early termination, it should be less than the remaining £76. [search for onestream Residential Fixed Line Price Guide] Do your own calculations for your service (don't forget any additional charges like for the router!) and don't let them charge you £113. If they are still unhelpful, start formally raising a complaint, broadbandgenie . co . uk has some pages on cancelling broadband and making a complaint that seem helpful

Agusya

Poet1291 said:

I'm not expert but that doesn't sound right. I've just found this from citizen's advice, although I believe it is from 2018 "Under Ofcom rules providers are able to charge consumers up to 100% of the value of the remaining payments, minus the amount they save by not having to supply the product anymore." [I can't post links but search for Broadband exit fees An analysis of the cost of leaving fixed telecoms contracts]. What you've said is also not what is in the onestream price guide, here on page 14 for early termination, it should be less than the remaining £76. [search for onestream Residential Fixed Line Price Guide] Do your own calculations for your service (don't forget any additional charges like for the router!) and don't let them charge you £113. If they are still unhelpful, start formally raising a complaint, broadbandgenie . co . uk has some pages on cancelling broadband and making a complaint that seem helpful

They add to it “activation of the broadband “ or something like this if you werent charged this at the start due to promotion or whatnot 😆 thats like 60 quid ,  what a life 🫣 

iniltous

If you think about it , you move home but want to continue pay monthly for a service you can’t use anymore ( because it’s cheaper than the early termination fee ) , new occupant moves in , knows nothing of this , and obviously wants their own broadband, so they apply for service ( it doesn’t really matter what ISP they chose ) , the system generates a communication that your service will be disconnected in favour of the new occupant service, it’s sent to the address you have moved out of , after around 10 days the new service starts and your service is ceased , generating a final bill , so you can’t simply continue to pay monthly until the end of the contract, you could ( if you know the new occupant ) ask they don’t apply for service until March and use your service , but that’s dangerous as anything they do would be against your account.
You should check , the ETC shouldn’t be more than what you would pay if you continued to pay monthly , for one thing there is a VAT saving , so you should check the T&C’s as that doesn’t seem correct .

Rob5342

This doesn't sound right, normally you just pay what you would have been paying monthly as a lump sum. Where did the £113 come from? Could they have worked out the remaining line rental and not taken any recent payments into account?

Agusya

Rob5342 said:

This doesn't sound right, normally you just pay what you would have been paying monthly as a lump sum. Where did the £113 come from? Could they have worked out the remaining line rental and not taken any recent payments into account?

They sound very dodgy on a phone. There is definitely £60 for activating the line which I didnt pay at the start due to promotion. I phoned them again to pay this £113 and this time was told it’s actually £190 they twist the conversation round it this way that they don’t explain nothing to you. And this time the guy said that you cant have 2 broadbands at the same address because they dont have control of keeping your one one when the other one coming but they can move it elsewhere if the line is free and they have control over this not triggering the other broadband already there being disconnected. All of this sounds like !!!!!! . And then he said he can move it apparently with engineer coming over for free and this move coats £60 but maybe I wanna haggle ? So i said £30? So apparently I will get it moved for £30 soon . So dodgy 

iniltous

TBH , moving home and keeping  the current provider at the new address is the most obvious thing to do as far as avoiding ETC’s , it’s strange that you didn’t consider this first ,( unless the service you had from them was terrible and moving home gave the opportunity to leave them behind )
Provided they can offer service at the new address , keeping the same provider is usually the most cost effective thing for customers within a minimum contract period , presumably Onestream use Openreach, so no issues In providing service at the new address.

Agusya

iniltous said:

TBH , moving home and keeping  the current provider at the new address is the most obvious thing to do as far as avoiding ETC’s , it’s strange that you didn’t consider this first ,( unless the service you had from them was terrible and moving home gave the opportunity to leave them behind )
Provided they can offer service at the new address , keeping the same provider is usually the most cost effective thing for customers within a minimum contract period , presumably Onestream use Openreach, so no issues In providing service at the new address.

Well Im moving in with someone and here is already broadband at this address. Obviously. Not sure if you actually read my posts since Im mentioning 2 broadbands running at the same address 

iniltous

OK , your original post is open to interpretation, 2 services  running at the same address I assumed would be the broadband you wanted to continue to pay for at an address you didn’t live at anymore , and the broadband the new occupants of your old address would doubtless want to have provided,  it wasn’t clear to me that you couldn’t easily take your broadband to your new address.

Its not impossible for Onestream to provide a new ( second ) connection at the address you are moving into ( the one that already has an existing broadband service )  , but you would be liable for the installation charges involved in getting a second line into the address ,and it probably would be similar to the ETC anyway ( so not actually saving any money )  and obviously Onestream would have to use the appropriate order type to ensure the existing line with broadband wasn’t  interfered with and a second line installed, but this would mean no ETC at your old address , Onestream may not want to do this , but it is doable.

TBH , if your original post had been something like , I’m moving into a property that already has broadband , so I can’t take my own broadband with me to that address , is it fair that I’m being charged ETC , then the answer would be ‘Yes, that fair ‘ ,
Any unfairness is that ETC shouldn’t be more than what you would pay if you continued to pay monthly until the end of the contract , but you seem to also have an extra charge to pay that’s not part of the calculation of the early termination charges ,  it’s an additional charge that’s for something else, like a deferred installation charge from when the contract was first taken out