Leaving BT...

jake000

jake000

jake000

Associate
Joined
28 Jun 2006
Posts
1,664
Hello everyone,

I am trying to leave BT because my contract is up on the 10th of July.

I phoned them up last week to cancel but they have told me the following...

I moved 3.5 months ago, so my phone line went to a new 12 month contract when I moved - no one told me this because they messed the order up, cancelled it, re-ordered the transfer, escalated it, a complaint went in and they went over the transfer date by about 10 days.

They then told me that because no one will be using the BT line anymore, I have to pay "about" £31 to de-activate the line. With this, all I can think is that's their problem, not mine. Why am I paying to leave when my contract is up???

Shouldn't it be a simple case of I phone up and cancel because my contract is expiring, they tell me to give 30 days notice, so I do and I pay a final pay (in my case, a normal months bill plus about another 8 days for the overlap from cancelling and my normal monthly bill date) and that's the end of it because the contract is up?

12 month contract, it's over, end of? Am I missing something?!

If they had told me 3.5 months ago when I was moving that I needed a new 12 month contract on my phone line, I would have just said no and paid the remainder of the contract and cancelled early because it would have been cheaper. I feel very mislead.

Can anyone give me any suggestions on this problem please?

Thank you :)
 
Unless you're switching to Virgin Media, you will be using the line so the de-activation fee is nonsense. Otherwise, you basically need to complain that no-one told you about the 12 month contract renewal when moving house. They'll have to go back through their call recordings to verify this (this is exactly why I have an app on my phone to record every conversation I have). If they still don't agree, you can escalate to the ombudsman.
 
I am switching to Virgin Media but why do I need to pay for the line to be de-activated? If no one is taking over it, that's their problem that they will lose money, not mine. Yes, I have done exactly that and complained and I am waiting for a manager to call me back. I phoned again today to see if I could get an update but they couldn't tell me anything. The last time I complained though, the manager phoned a day or two after they should have and it took about 3 weeks to sort out. Virgin Media is being installed on Friday, so I was hoping to have this sorted out before then.

Thank you for the help :)
 
Cease charges have nothing to do with contracts. To quote BT:
The Broadband Cease Charge is a compensatory charge raised in certain circumstances to cover the additional cost to BT of the work required within an exchange to recover equipment and amend records when a Broadband line is ceased.

When will the charge be raised?
This charge will be raised should you:

  • Switch to a Cable provider
  • Switch to another Broadband provider without following the standard transfer process*
  • Cease your Broadband completely
  • Cease your Broadband and move outside of the UK
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IIRC this is a charge imposed by Openreach and then passed on to the customer by their ISP.
 
Thanks for the replies everyone :)

I still don't understand why I need to pay the charge. I've been under contract. The contract is over and I'm allowed to do what I want. I'm being penalised for BT not receiving money from me anymore. It's not right.
 
The contract for my phone line and fibre should be up but they are trying to say I entered into a new 12 month contract when I moved. They never told me about that though.
 
If it's a broadband cease charge then it isn't a contract issue with your ISP. If you were under contract you'd need to buy yourself out of that and then pay the cease charge on top.

You need to be clear about what they're charging you for (£31 is the cease charge).
 
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It's difficult to be clear when I don't understand the charge in the first place. Regardless of why I'm being charged it, I don't agree with it because I shouldn't be penalised for leaving by having to pay a charge because the line won't be active. BT will lose money for me not being a customer anymore, that's their problem but being charged 31 pound is making me leaving them my problem. I find it obsurd.
 
Did you read the T&Cs when you signed up? Have a look at item 39 of their terms here.

And just for completeness (as I'm bored)...

I have the same terms on my Plusnet connection.

If you Google almost any ISP name + 'cease charge' you'll get a hit.

Even Zen (who are apparently perfect in all ways ;)) have this in their terms...
12.4 Subject to clause 12.7, where the Fibre Broadband Service is terminated within the Minimum Service Period, you will remain liable for the charges for the remainder of the term. This will be in addition to any cease charges for termination of the Fibre Broadband Service itself.
Click to expand...

If you put enough effort into complaining they may decide to take the hit and waive the charge. It's not something they need to do.
 
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I don't understand how they can restart a contract at a new property. The contract is with the customer not the property. If you need to activate a ceased line then you pay a charge. Why they need to restart a contract i don't know it should carry over to the new property.
 
r7slayer said:
I don't understand how they can restart a contract at a new property. The contract is with the customer not the property. If you need to activate a ceased line then you pay a charge. Why they need to restart a contract i don't know it should carry over to the new property.
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Playing devils advocate here...

But isn't the contract to provide a broadband service to the customer at the property specified during the order process? It's not BT's fault you moved the goal posts by moving house, this means they incurred additional costs and I suspect is why the contract was renewed when you moved your service to a new property.
 
You're either deliberately being awkward or completely missing the obvious. They aren't holding you to a 12 month contract, it's the cease charge from the original contract that would apply no matter how long you had the line for. You are moving to a cable provider, you agreed at the start to pay a cease charge if you did so, that was for as long as you have a BT line, just because the minimum term clause no longer applies doesn't mean the rest of it is null and void. You still need to pay your bill and give them notice if you wish to cancel, they still need to provide you with a service of reasonable quality and deal with faults etc. exactly as before, the only difference is it's now not subject to a minimum term and instead on a 30 day rolling basis.

It used to be reasonably standard for some providers to insist on a new 12 month contract when moving (I've not been involved for 10 years). BT clearly hasn't done this, neither did Sky last time I moved, this is just the standard cease charge for ending service at the exchange and not moving the service over to another OR based provider.
 
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bremen1874 said:
Cease charges have nothing to do with contracts. To quote BT:

IIRC this is a charge imposed by Openreach and then passed on to the customer by their ISP.
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Fair enough, didn't know that. I wouldn't have thought flicking a switch somewhere would incur a charge but this is BT/Openreach we're talking about.
 
Thanks for all the replies. Just to summarise...

1st issue was the cease charge - regardless of it being in the terms or not, I don't agree with it. I find it completely unnecessary and just another way to charge the customer when they shouldn't.

2nd issue was they are trying to say i'm in a new 12 month contract from when I moved house in March. The problem is they never told me this and messed the whole transfer up anyway. They cancelled the order but I still got an email saying your services will be activated by midnight. Midnight came and went and I had no services. After a phone call, they said my order had been cancelled and needs to be placed again. A week later, more problems and still not activated. Another phone call and a few days later, I finally had my services at my new house. Not once did they mention about a new contract for the phone line. They didn't offer any sort of compensation for the delays and loss of service or anything. I had to keep phoning and making complaints before someone finally called back and took the complaint and even that wasn't dealt with very well.

My monthly charge is £31. I had 4 months left on my contract when I moved. If I had just cancelled instead of taking my services with me, I would have been charged £124. When the contract finishes in two weeks, I would have paid the £124 and now they are wanting another 8 months of line rental charges. If they had told me moving house means a new 12 month phone line contract, I would have just paid the £124 and been done with BT because after all the problems i've had, it would have been a lot easier.
 
DragonQ said:
Fair enough, didn't know that. I wouldn't have thought flicking a switch somewhere would incur a charge but this is BT/Openreach we're talking about.
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About 10 years ago I asked the same question, the costing break down for each truck roll was horrific. It's not just the direct cost of a person/wage/van/insurance/kit, it's all the other indirect costs that come with getting him to the right place at the right time. A while after I asked that question (and it wasn't related, though obviously someone else was looking at the same issue), all the tech's were made redundant and it ended up being outsourced to an agency as it was cheaper.
 
jake000 said:
1st issue was the cease charge - regardless of it being in the terms or not, I don't agree with it. I find it completely unnecessary and just another way to charge the customer when they shouldn't.
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I completely agree that it's crap (an engineer shouldn't need to physically disconnect anything for Openreach to disable the line) but if it's in the T&Cs there's not much you can do.

jake000 said:
2nd issue was they are trying to say i'm in a new 12 month contract from when I moved house in March. The problem is they never told me this and messed the whole transfer up anyway. They cancelled the order but I still got an email saying your services will be activated by midnight. Midnight came and went and I had no services. After a phone call, they said my order had been cancelled and needs to be placed again. A week later, more problems and still not activated. Another phone call and a few days later, I finally had my services at my new house. Not once did they mention about a new contract for the phone line. They didn't offer any sort of compensation for the delays and loss of service or anything. I had to keep phoning and making complaints before someone finally called back and took the complaint and even that wasn't dealt with very well.
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Like I said, if you know for sure they didn't mention anything about renewing the contract then you should get out of this. I had a similar issue with BT when I took a BT Sport package from them and then switched companies two months later. They claimed taking the BT Sport package put me in a new contract, which normally would be the case. However, I specifically asked for confirmation twice during the original call (when I was adding BT Sport) that I wouldn't be put into a new contract. They took a couple of weeks to listen to the audio and get back to me but they agreed that I was misled and would not charge me anything for cancelling the contract. Fortunately I didn't have to go to the ombudsman.
 
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