My BT full fibre went live today - can I cancel and buy cheaper elsewhere?

Brimble

I originally ordered full fibre from Vodafone several months ago. OpenReach came, said they needed to dig up the road, never actully did so, cancelled my order a few weeks later, and Vodafone said they will give me about £280 compensation - great!

A couple of weeks later, I thought I'd try again, this time I ordered through BT. To be honest I wasn't expecting it to be successful, so I didn't pay too much attention to the much higher price. To my surprise, today OpenReach turned up and installed it (quite why they said last time that they couldn't do it without digging up the shared driveway I don't know, but hey ho).

So, my new BT full fibre went live today, but is quite expensive - hence a few questions:

 - Can I call BT tomorrow to cancel it (and send the router back of course), and if so would I have to pay for any of the OpenReach work costs etc?
 - Can I then rebook with another provider (possibly Vodafone if they will still take me as a customer despite their first installation attempt failing)?
 - As my fibre has now been installed, can a new provider activate it immediately with the flick of a switch (having sent me the router of course), a bit like how electric and gas switches work, or does an engineer need to visit again to change full fibre from one provider to another?
 - Instead of cancelling by calling BT, what would happen now if I initiated a switch to another provider within the 14-day cooling off period, would that achieve what I want more simply?

Appreciate any tips anyone might have.

400ixl

When are you assuming the 14 days cooling off started? Now as it has been installed or when you placed the order?

When did you place the order with BT?

Brimble

400ixl said:

When are you assuming the 14 days cooling off started? Now as it has been installed or when you placed the order?

When did you place the order with BT?

I placed the order several weeks ago, but their website says:

"Once you place your order you can cancel anytime up to 14 days after your service starts, or when you receive your equipment (whichever is later)."

...but I want to make sure I'm not misunderstanding somehow, so am hoping someone else has already done something similar and can advise whether or not it 'works'.

southsidergs

So despite company X not bothering sorting it previously you now want to potentially go back to them, what a great idea!! A cooling off period is for you to check it's what you want & not a mis-sell not for you to get company Y to actually do what needs to be done so you can then go back to company X

iniltous

A quick look at the BT v VF website shows a small difference in price , so your assertion that BT is a ‘ much higher price’ seems to be pushing it .
Can you cancel , possibly , is it immoral, yes  , do you give a **** , probably not …
There is a chance that if you cancel , the Openreach installation never actually gets recorded by Openreach  , so VF and every other ISP would not know you have now have FTTP installed ,  so with any new order  VF may give you the ‘we need to install’ speech, they may also think you are a cheeky ******* after getting a few hundred in compensation previously , they may think you are  simply trying it on again, ordering again in the hope of getting more compensation , they may tell you they are not interested in your business 

Olinda99

you can cancel.your BT contract at any time.

Brimble

southsidergs said:

So despite company X not bothering sorting it previously you now want to potentially go back to them, what a great idea!! A cooling off period is for you to check it's what you want & not a mis-sell not for you to get company Y to actually do what needs to be done so you can then go back to company X

Nothing to do with either of them not doing anything - as I explained in my original post, it was OpenReach who failed the first time, then succeeded the second time. BT will have lost nothing - they have sent me a router, I would send it back. I don't know how the contracts work between OpenReach and the various providers, but that's between them, nothing to do with me.

Brimble

iniltous said:

A quick look at the BT v VF website shows a small difference in price , so your assertion that BT is a ‘ much higher price’ seems to be pushing it .
Can you cancel , possibly , is it immoral, yes  , do you give a **** , probably not …
There is a chance that if you cancel , the Openreach installation never actually gets recorded by Openreach  , so VF and every other ISP would not know you have now have FTTP installed ,  so with any new order  VF may give you the ‘we need to install’ speech, they may also think you are a cheeky ******* after getting a few hundred in compensation previously , they may think you are  simply trying it on again, ordering again in the hope of getting more compensation , they may tell you they are not interested in your business 

If I use TopCashback, given the various incentives etc, the difference would be £138 over the 24 months - to me, that is a 'much higher price'.

Yes I do appreciate both the moral concern (although I'm not sure what BT would lose, I'd just send their router back to them) and the possibility that I could end up being black-listed - hence asking for people's opinions, and in particular those from anyone who has done this, or at least thought about doing it. I've not decided I'm going to do it, even if someone here said that it is possible and they've done it without issue.

Tbh I'm probably surprised more than anything else that it seems this would be possible - it seems like a loophole they may have missed - but then I guess there will be very people in my situation, so perhaps they don't care, perhaps it's not enough people to bother closing the loophole... (?)

iniltous

As someone mentioned, you are in effect potentially using a loophole, a cooling off period isn’t a try before you buy , it’s to allow a customer that may have been pressured into a sale time to reconsider and then deciding they were pushed into something they really didn’t want , handy for double glazing, solar panel , type business where the salesperson only get paid for ‘sales’ , not enquiry’s so basically won’t budge until you sign up .

You obviously have had more time than the cooing off period to consider , it’s only because the T&C’s are written the way they are that there is this way for you to escape a contract that you freely accepted ….BT  could ( should ) state the cooling off period begins when you initially sign up , then schedule the installation for at least 14 days after that , then you wouldn’t have the option to do what you are considering, but obviously , that’s BT’s problem not yours , the morality is a different matter.

As I stated , you probably can do this , you almost certainly will have to convince BT  you owe them nothing and have various conversations with them , I dare say the first BT bill is already in the works , and cancellation will automatically generate ETC if it’s before a certain date ….not insurmountable problems but a hassle, then there is the possibility that VF have a big red flag against you or your address, and may  cancel any further order from you .

I’m not saying they do , just pointing out the possibility,  Openreach won’t care , their customer is the ISP ( BT or VF ) , BT obviously will care , even if they get their router back , but enough to put your name on a list of time wasters , probably not but much like VF , who knows .

Brimble

Yes on balance, I'm not sure I can be bothered with the potential hassle so I probably won't bother.

Surprised though by the number of people citing morality as an argument against doing this. As if big companies don't do everything they possibly can to get one over on us. Plus this is MSE - for example, this place advocates stoozing, which is not much more than a loophole, basically using credit to gain interest, moving the card before the interest-free rate expires, and thereby making money from the credit provider whilst giving them absolutely nothing in return. There are many other examples of people being encouraged to take advantage (legally obviously) of companies, including unintended loopholes. So it's strange to see people so protective of poor little BT (who would simply be losing the 'sale' to VF, who have equally done absolutely nothing wrong - the only 'failure' was and is with OpenReach) when the reverse is to leave VF in exactly the same position. Either way, one loses the sale and the other gets it, which one seems pretty arbitrary to me, but hey ho.

Pete99

Apparently EE will pay your early termination fee if you sign up with them, even though it's actually a BT subsidiary, seems crazy but so what, I wouldn't get too exercised about hurting BT's feelings considering the way they treat their customers and staff.