BT connection and disconnection - beware homemovers!

hazeljane24

When I moved into a rented property I was told it was up to £150 to set up a line, luckily we found out from our landlady that there was already a landline connected to the house from the last tennant. If someone moves and doesn't take their line/number with them, if you phone BT within 3 months or before they disconnect it then you can take that line on in your name for free, no connection fee. Thats what I did which was simple and straight forward. The problem arose that when I left. Just watch out they don't try and sting you with disconnection charges!....
...I had a nightmare today where I tried to tell them I'd moved (when I eventually got through after 2 days of trying and being passed from pillar to post) I obviously got through to some jobs worth who insisted that I had to pay £100 because I had left the property and no longer required the line!!! This for those of you who haven't guessed is a load of crap! He tried telling me that I had to pay it as I HAD to have the line disconnected or had to continue with the 12month contract despite the fact I wouldn't be there and didn't want the next tenant to run a bill up in my name and also I did not need to have the line transferred to the new address. I'd ever been sent any contract or terms and conditions... he told me he couldn't change the name to my land lady or the next tenant... and he refused to let me speak to a manager! So I hung up, rang trading standards, called BT back ready to put up a fight and -it must have been a miracle -got through to a lady who said that I DID NOT have to pay for the line to be disconnected and she arranged for my final bill to be forwarded to my new address - no hassle. So the land line is still connected at my old property but is not my responsibility and can be taken over by the next tenant for free- all they have to do is ring and activate their account within the next 3 months so they can use it. As I don't require a land line at my new address in the end is has worked out ok. But what a nightmare! Many people wouldn't have known better and paid the disconnection fee leaving them out of the pocket and the next tenant who would have to pay for the line to be reconnected.

The tip I want to share here is that if you are in a similar situation, check to see if there is already a landline set up for the address to save you paying for the line to be reconnected later. When you come to leave specifically ask for your final bill and make it clear that you are NOT asking for a disconnection. Because if I'd have not known any better, or luckily gotten through to someone who judging from my previous BT experience was actually helpful, I genuinely thought I may have had to pay this £100.

Tips I got from speaking to trading standards:

I called Trading Standards as I'd never received a contract, terms and conditions or information on cancellation charges: they said to ask BT to send you a copy of the contract you signed and their terms and conditions, if they can't do that and BT rely on a verbal contract, they have to prove they actually told you (E.g. retrieve the recorded phone conversation at the time you agreed to take on the service). And if they can't prove that they told you then they CAN NOT force you to pay the cancellation fee.

I hope this helps someone out there. I know my self from it being my 1st home that there was a lot I didn't know before the experience. The same applies to other house hold bills, I had to make it clear that I was requesting my final bill and was not responsible for the bills at my new address so they didn't automatically transfer them.

Good Luck to all you other movers out there!

jpruby

Very helpful write up hazeljane24! I was charged £125 to connect my BT line 6 months ago, now unfortunately Bt told me i would have to pay a connection because there was not a line, of course I didnt know if there was or not so could not argue, was I ripped off? probably!

Now im leaving my property Bt are wanting £70 disconnection fee, chancers, money for nothing:mad:

normanmark

You do realise its not a disconnection charge but the cancellation charges for breaking your side of the 12 month contract early?

With regards to what trading standards say, BT don't technically have to retrieve the recording, if you use the service (ie make and receive calls) thats as good as saying that you're happy with the contract and agree to the terms & conditions.

wantmemoney

:rolleyes: BT and their contracts

http://www2.bt.com/movinghome
Moving home:
Organise your move

The more notice you give us about your move, the more likely it is we can set up your services on a day that suits you.

Under our contract with you we require at least 14 days notice to stop your line at your current address. In addition by giving us at least 5 working days notice we will aim to activate your BT Broadband connection at the same time as your phone line.

If you are moving to a newly built home - or want an additional line - it may take slightly longer.
How much does it cost?
If there's a working BT line in your new property connection should be free of charge, but if the line needs to be reconnected to BT or a new line is required a connection charge of £124.99 will apply. Our advisors will confirm this when you call.
If your moving plans change
If your plans change, let us know on 0800 800 150 and we'll do our best to help.
.......................................
FAQ
Can I transfer my current BT Together Option or my Option 1,2 & 3 package? If you have any BT Together Option it will be automatically transferred with you. However, if you have the BT Together Local package, you will need to transfer to one of our new BT Together Options

Moving home is not breaking a BT contract. It's simply transfering the service. It's simply changing the billing address.

jhp

wantmemoney wrote: »

:rolleyes: BT and their contracts
Moving home is not breaking a BT contract. It's simply transfering the service. It's simply changing the billing address.

No one said moving home was breaking a BT Contract did they.

Both the OP and the subsequent poster jpruby have said they did not take up service at new address. So therefore a cancellation fee applies.

wantmemoney

I'm sure BT customers (and potential victims) who are about to move house and want to avoid bing ripped off by BT's 'disconnection''reconnection' charges will find the two previous contributions to the thread very useful.

http://www2.bt.com/movinghome
as I read it:
You give BT at least fourteen days notice you are moving so they can deactivate your existing line.
You do not have to pay a BT disconnection fee.
If there is an existing working BT line in your new premises you do not pay their £125 connection fee. Reactivation of that BT line is free.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2007/nov/10/moneysupplement.internetphonesbroadband
BT gets lines crossed with fee for all
Saturday November 10 2007

People moving home are being charged a £125 reconnection fee by BT - even if the previous owner was a customer of the telecom giant. Those who call BT to complain have been left waiting on hold for hours.Two weeks ago, Guardian Money told how BT was penalising people moving into a new home where the previous occupant had switched their landline to a rival supplier.
Now it appears the former monopoly provider has been taking advantage of consumer confusion, and its dominant position, by applying the same charge randomly to thousands of customers moving house.
The £125 fee, which, some might say, makes a mockery of Ofcom's attempts to bring down the cost of phone and broadband services, came about because it seems no one at the regulator considered what would what happen to "movers" under its new regime.
It does not help that the BT department responsible for connecting new customers appears to be in chaos. People are complaining it is impossible to contact - and those that do get through are often given contradictory information.
Some customers told Guardian Money they have spent more than 10 hours on the phone trying to resolve the problem, while others complain the £125 fee was "absurd" and "exorbitant".
Meanwhile, engineers are not turning up to appointments. In 2005, Ofcom insisted that BT create a separate company (now called Openreach) to manage the engineers who connect homes to the exchange. The split was intended to give all the telecoms companies equal access to the exchange network, to stimulate competition.
However, one of the unintended consequences of the decision appears to be much higher reconnection charges when a customer moves house.
BT's residential arm is allowed to charge the £125 fee if the previous occupier switched their landline to a rival supplier, through what is known as local loop unbundling. It appears to have plucked this unregulated figure out of the air, as it pays Openreach considerably less for the switch.
The problem is occurring when someone informs their telephone provider they are moving and that they want to terminate their contract.
After extensive questioning this week, BT revealed that the imposition of the charge largely depends on whether the house is near a busy exchange, where demand for lines is high. In that case, lines freed up are being quickly offered for re-use. In quiet areas, they can sit undisturbed for up to five years.
New occupiers are automatically charged the £125 fee, regardless of who used to supply the phone service. However, BT said this week that the charge should not be payable if the previous occupier was with BT. This has been refuted by readers' experiences.
Police officer Fred Trott contacted Money after reading our original article. He said he and his wife had been charged £125 when they moved into their home in Haslemere, Surrey.
The previous owner had been with OneTel, but had agreed to switch their service back to BT before they moved out. The Trotts moved in but faced an endless battle to make BT see this - its staff insisted the £125 fee was payable.
The pair, loyal BT customers for many years, say they have spent more than 10 hours on the phone to various BT departments trying to get the charge repaid - but to no avail.
A spokesman for BT says the current position regarding the £125 fee is "not ideal" and that it is looking at how it can be changed. "Where a working line exists, our intention is that reconnection should be free - but a charge of £125 applies where we have to involve an engineer.
"Where a customer is returning to join BT from a local loop unbundled competitor, our systems default to charging £125. We do intend to change this as soon as possible. It is one of a number of complex changes arising from BT Retail's adoption of a new IT system to comply with its commitment to the regulator, Ofcom."
It also confirmed that it has now refunded Mr Trott's £125 charge.
Ofcom says it is aware of the situation and that it is working with the Office of the Telecoms Adjudicator (OTA) to rectify this problem. "The matter should be resolved by next spring," says a spokeswoman. "It is important that customers are confident in the switching process and it is essential that there are no obstacles in the way. We are working via the OTA and industry to have all telecoms providers on the new system by spring 2008."

MORPH3US

normanmark wrote: »

With regards to what trading standards say, BT don't technically have to retrieve the recording, if you use the service (ie make and receive calls) thats as good as saying that you're happy with the contract and agree to the terms & conditions.

CORRECT, but what contract? If they can't prove that they told you it was a 12 month contract (i.e. with a signed contract or recording of them telling you) then they can't prove you agreed to it. You could have not been told it was 12 month contract in which case its not fair to make you stick to one.

olly300

normanmark wrote: »

The above probably won't be to everyones taste on here, but being someone who used to work in the telecommunications industry I get frustrated by the amount of consumers that fail to take responsibility or do their home work when they commit themselves into contracts (they wouldn't do it for their own jobs!)

As a customer who has also worked in the telecoms industry, has threatened and complained about telecoms suppliers to the regulator I'm extremely fustrated that telecomes companies still don't understand stand they to have to abide by the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999. The telecoms industry needs to clean their act up and not try to rely on the fact that a customer paying a bill agrees to all the terms and conditions of a complex verbal contract with no recordings or paperwork, as if the customer takes them to court the company's case can easily be taken apart.

wantmemoney

:rolleyes:
I'm sure BT customers (and potential victims) who are about to move house and want to avoid bing ripped off by BT's 'disconnection''reconnection' charges will find the above contribution to the thread very useful.

http://www2.bt.com/movinghome
as I read it:
You give BT at least fourteen days notice you are moving so they can deactivate your existing line.
You do not have to pay a BT disconnection fee.
If there is an existing working BT line in your new premises you do not pay their £125 connection fee. Reactivation of that BT line is free.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2007/nov/10/moneysupplement.internetphonesbroadband
BT gets lines crossed with fee for all
Saturday November 10 2007

People moving home are being charged a £125 reconnection fee by BT - even if the previous owner was a customer of the telecom giant. Those who call BT to complain have been left waiting on hold for hours.Two weeks ago, Guardian Money told how BT was penalising people moving into a new home where the previous occupant had switched their landline to a rival supplier.
Now it appears the former monopoly provider has been taking advantage of consumer confusion, and its dominant position, by applying the same charge randomly to thousands of customers moving house.
The £125 fee, which, some might say, makes a mockery of Ofcom's attempts to bring down the cost of phone and broadband services, came about because it seems no one at the regulator considered what would what happen to "movers" under its new regime.
It does not help that the BT department responsible for connecting new customers appears to be in chaos. People are complaining it is impossible to contact - and those that do get through are often given contradictory information.
Some customers told Guardian Money they have spent more than 10 hours on the phone trying to resolve the problem, while others complain the £125 fee was "absurd" and "exorbitant".
Meanwhile, engineers are not turning up to appointments. In 2005, Ofcom insisted that BT create a separate company (now called Openreach) to manage the engineers who connect homes to the exchange. The split was intended to give all the telecoms companies equal access to the exchange network, to stimulate competition.
However, one of the unintended consequences of the decision appears to be much higher reconnection charges when a customer moves house.
BT's residential arm is allowed to charge the £125 fee if the previous occupier switched their landline to a rival supplier, through what is known as local loop unbundling. It appears to have plucked this unregulated figure out of the air, as it pays Openreach considerably less for the switch.
The problem is occurring when someone informs their telephone provider they are moving and that they want to terminate their contract.
After extensive questioning this week, BT revealed that the imposition of the charge largely depends on whether the house is near a busy exchange, where demand for lines is high. In that case, lines freed up are being quickly offered for re-use. In quiet areas, they can sit undisturbed for up to five years.
New occupiers are automatically charged the £125 fee, regardless of who used to supply the phone service. However, BT said this week that the charge should not be payable if the previous occupier was with BT. This has been refuted by readers' experiences.
Police officer Fred Trott contacted Money after reading our original article. He said he and his wife had been charged £125 when they moved into their home in Haslemere, Surrey.
The previous owner had been with OneTel, but had agreed to switch their service back to BT before they moved out. The Trotts moved in but faced an endless battle to make BT see this - its staff insisted the £125 fee was payable.
The pair, loyal BT customers for many years, say they have spent more than 10 hours on the phone to various BT departments trying to get the charge repaid - but to no avail.
A spokesman for BT says the current position regarding the £125 fee is "not ideal" and that it is looking at how it can be changed. "Where a working line exists, our intention is that reconnection should be free - but a charge of £125 applies where we have to involve an engineer.
"Where a customer is returning to join BT from a local loop unbundled competitor, our systems default to charging £125. We do intend to change this as soon as possible. It is one of a number of complex changes arising from BT Retail's adoption of a new IT system to comply with its commitment to the regulator, Ofcom."
It also confirmed that it has now refunded Mr Trott's £125 charge.
Ofcom says it is aware of the situation and that it is working with the Office of the Telecoms Adjudicator (OTA) to rectify this problem. "The matter should be resolved by next spring," says a spokeswoman. "It is important that customers are confident in the switching process and it is essential that there are no obstacles in the way. We are working via the OTA and industry to have all telecoms providers on the new system by spring 2008."

further reading on BT honesty

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=424323&in_page_id=2
BT Call center cover-up
14 September 2007

BT covered up a massive fraud by call-centre staff to ensure it held on to a contract worth more than £1billion, a tribunal was told yesterday.

Staff made millions of false calls to themselves in order to meet bonus-linked performance targets under the contract with the Ministry of Defence. The fraud, which went on for at least four years, involved the use of computerised ' autodiallers' to maintain an artificial call rate.
An examination of phone records found that one operator who would normally handle 100 calls in an eight-hour shift was logged as answering 412 calls in just over an hour. The MoD was tipped off about the scam and asked BT to investigate in June 2004 - when the contract was up for renewal.
It concluded there was no case to answer and it was not until the following year, by which time the contract had been renewed, that another tip-off led to a second probe and the fraud was exposed.
Five BT managers were sacked for their roles in the incident. One of them, Joseph Hewson, from Ossett, West Yorkshire, has taken BT to an employment tribunal claiming unfair dismissal.
Mr Hewson, who worked at the company's Wakefield call centre, insists he had only been following orders. He claimed he had not been aware of the 2004 investigation, describing it as 'simply useless' and 'an absolute sham'.
Mr Hewson told the tribunal in Leeds: 'In June 2004 when an anonymous informant caused the first investigation to take place upon the instruction of the MoD, this was at a time when the contract was in the renewal phase. This renewal was worth over a billion pounds to BT and so they could not let anything affect it.'
The fraud also involved call centres in St Helens on Merseyside, Dumbarton in Scotland and Kettering, Northamptonshire.
Mr Hewson said: 'Everyone in every centre was fully aware that auto-diallers were being used. I was fully aware that auto-diallers were there and being used. I knew it was wrong and every single other person knew it was wrong. I couldn't do anything to stop it.'
Mr Hewson said a 'bullying culture' within BT was so bad it was impossible to speak out or refuse to organise the false calls. He said the company was after 'scapegoats' and other managers aware of the fraudulent activity had not been disciplined in the same way.
BT does not accept Mr Hewson was forced into co-operating with the scam and insists his dismissal was justified. Earlier this week, Anne McHugh, 28, one of the other sacked managers, lost her case for unfair dismissal at a tribunal in Liverpool.
The MoD said a 'thorough and wide-ranging investigation' had been carried out into the 'artificial inflation' of target-linked ' successful' calls and compensation would be paid by BT.

normanmark

It's something thats stated in majority of T&C's (taken from a mobile operator's T&C in fact)

Please note by using the Service you will be deemed to have accepted these terms and conditions

But in this case I don't see a cancellation charge for breaking the contract early as unfair. It'd be the same if you wanted to cancel a mobile phone contract.

I can only agree with so much of your point, i agree about unfair terms & conditions, but where do you draw the line? Consumers need to sit & do the research, with my old phone contract T&C's came on the back of the bill every time it was sent. Whilst I can see points that its not put in flashing Las Vegas lights but its not their duty legal bound to do that. If i was getting into something of a lengthy contract (phone, work, selling house - any contract!) i'd read it through just to ensure, or ask questions to advisor's!

Anyway back to the point, the money charged by BT is for the user breaking their side of contract early.

diamonds

olly300 wrote: »

As a customer who has also worked in the telecoms industry, has threatened and complained about telecoms suppliers to the regulator I'm extremely fustrated that telecomes companies still don't understand stand they to have to abide by the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999. The telecoms industry needs to clean their act up and not try to rely on the fact that a customer paying a bill agrees to all the terms and conditions of a complex verbal contract with no recordings or paperwork, as if the customer takes them to court the company's case can easily be taken apart.

exactly, if you have not signed a contract with T&C you can challenge anything, mobile, BT, Primus, Orange, infact a little tick on the internet agreeing to MSE terms & conditions is worth nothing without your signature and the date of signing, you think thre Bank of Englang bailed out Northern Rock over the phone with no paperwork or T&C signed ? get real........evrything has to be signed for or its not legally binding


never signed for your online mobile contract ? request your PAC if they say no - ask them to prove you signed a service agreement with T&C and if they say no they dont have it how can they enforce it - signing for delivery of a handset does not = signing T&C or a contract, they can charge you the cost of the phone as per thier invoice from manufcturer/supplier which you are entiltled to see with the demand for payment but try inforce a 18 month contract with no service agreement or T&C signed any judge would laugh your Telco out of court