BT cancellation charge

[flimflam33]

Hi everyone
I started a contract with bt on 8th Nov '07 and switched to virgin on 19th Feb '08.
I paid bill in full and heard nothing until another bill on 1st July '08 for £206.14.
I rang them and was told it was due to a hub phone? (never heard of one). Apparently they had it set up to my broadband but never charged me, yet it took them to end of June to cancel it then send me the bill.
They said it was because i finished contract too early. I pointed out I had never signed a contract they told me it was the verbal one on the phone when i first joined then informed me the time limit to pull out of the contract was by the end of that first call, I told them that information was not passed to me at all.
I contacted Ofcom who have a recorded message about them looking into the unfairness of charges including cancellation ones and then rang BT back and told them I was waiting for the results of the Ofcam investigation before doing anything else, they told me they would out a note on the account and a hold to stop further charges and letters.
Then this morning I received a letter from a debt collection agency on their behalf for £257.68!
I am on income support and cannot afford this, surely these amounts are wrong?
I also enquired to the £124 bill I had for re-connecting when i first joined as they told me there was no BT line to my house so they would have to completely install one, but when the engineer turned up he said there was a line just someone had cut 3ft off it, so he re-attached that and i still got charged. I was told that charge was what their engineers charged as they were outside contractors and BT had to regain their costs from somewhere!!!
Please help, any advice would be gratefully received

[locutus]

Sorry to be blunt here, but all this sounds correct. If you cancel you will be held to term, broadband talk is added to your account and is free to BT broadband customers, but chargable otherwise (and as you left BT broadband this would then be chargable, and again it has a minimum term the same length of your broadband contract). The £124.99 bill is charged to BT Retail by BT Openrech, they are set up as completely different companies, and that is a flat fee for an engineer connecting you no matter how short the line or how little work it is (nice work if you can get it!).

The only course you can take is write to the debt collection agency stating you dispute owing this amount, and you are awaiting Ofcom resolving the main issues with BT.

[robin9342]

I seem to recall BT had a 1/2 price installation offer last November ref: BT notice number 44/07.

Locutus, I thought broadband talk only worked over BT Broadband? Surely if the BT Broadband is cancelled, so is the bbtalk?

[locutus]

Broadband talk works over any broadband, but it's built into BT'h hardware to make it easier to use. You can plug a normal phone into the hub/router to connect. Google BT Broadband talk and you'll see... its trying to be a rival for skype.

BT now have a £29.99 connection offer if you sign up to 18 month with them, but that doesn't help the original poster.

[robin9342]

Ah, in which case I better make sure BT cancel my bbtalk as well as my bb which I have just cancelled due to their severe throttling of p2p in the evenings (read: throttled so much that p2p is literally unuseable).

My point about the 1/2 price installation offer was that it applied in November 2007, when the OP had their line installed. Therefore they could try and argue for a discount on the basis they should have only paid 1/2.

[locutus]

yeah, but that was subject to an 18 month term, so the savings will be outweighed by the early cancelation charge.

[huggy41]

hi this is my first time in this forum i also had alot of trouble with BT until i manage to talk to the assistant to the chairman and chief executive of british telecom he is a realy pleasent guy and you can understand every word he say's and he helped a great deal in a simalar matter. i am not sure if i can mention his name or give out his office number on here but if i can will somebody please tell me

[locutus]

Send a PM... click on the username and and select "send private message" That person will recieve an email notification and the message from yourself.

[skeandhu]

hi same thing happened to me when i changed to talk talk from bt i got charged a disconnection fee which i was never made aware of when i set up bt account i refused point blank to pay this fee. Chap i spoke to on phone from bt agreeded to refund charge if i paid rest of bill which i agreed too and 1 month later i got a letter from debt collection company . at this point i blew my top with both debt colection company and bt i told bt to listen back to my last phone call to them and see if their worker told me i was getting credited which they did. If they didnt make you aware of your terms of contract then i believe you cannont be held liable

[WebFerret]

If It's any help - current latest rules from BT are that if you cancel your broadband service with them, then they will charge you £20 for disconnection (was £5 odd untill recently).

However this is for total cancellation of the line or service - in other words, you do not wish to have internet access anymore.

But if you migrate your broadband service from BT to another supplier using your MAC code, then this charge does not apply.

Obviously the above only applies once you have completed you original contractual period, otherwise you can expect an early termination of contract charge on top of that.