Legal help needed

[MrRockliffe]

Here's the problem. I've just moved house which is only 500m away from my old one, in terms of driving distance. I notified BT that I'd be moving 8 days before I did so. They told me that they'd have everything setup a few days after I moved in (by today). They rang me the other day telling me that Fibre wasn't available for the new house, which I had no choice but to agree to because I was in a contract. They didn't connect me yesterday and said they'd ring me today. No luck. Due to having 1 bar of signal at the best of times, it's been a struggle to get anything done. I did, however, manage to check last night about to fibre situation as I was a little confused that a 10 year old house merely 500m away from my old one couldn't get fibre. Lo and behold, I can get it. I even went on BT's speed estimator (not their phone line checker when buying a package) and they estimate a speed of 71 Mb/s - which is obviously fibre speed. I checked Sky's site and they offer fibre, so do plusnet, talk talk, EE, John Lewis etc etc.

I rang BT today, told them the situation and they said they'd have to pass it on to their tech team. I want to know wether because they can't offer me the contract I originally signed up for if I'd be able to leave my contract now. I've already had enough of BT messing me around telling me they'd ring me etc. I NEED internet for college work as all of my documents are cloud based (so is my whole computer back up).

I'd also like some links for proof rather than just telling me I can - I don't want to get into a legal battle and have no ground to stand on.

Many thanks

[RobbieRoy]

Okay, you need to sort some facts out.

1. What does your existing contract say about moving property and the associated transfer of service? I'm not an expert in BT contracts but do think that if there is no break clause in the instance of moving property then there will be some arse covering clause that says that BT can't guarantee the quality of service in a new residence.

2. That said, is the BT supply to your new pad a new contract and has the old contract to supply your old place been terminated?

In both cases your issues are to do with service levels of providing a (possibly new) service in that they have dragged feet in not connecting you and haven't provided you with correct advice or service concetning one of their products, namely fibre.

What to do will boil down to complaining vociferously (check out the Which website) and be willing to walk elsewhere if need be.

Hope this helps

[MrRockliffe]

Looks as though the old contract was terminated. In terms of the contract, I don't know. Web browsing isn't possible - I can only use tapatalk for Hexus. Chrome refuses to load web pages 90% of the time. Problem is, fibre IS available at the property - I can even order it online! However, they're refusing to upgrade me to it as they started a new 12 month contract on standard broadband.

[RobbieRoy]

See if you have any rights to terminate the contract, for instance within a certain timescale of its start. If you can, dump them and find another provider who can give you the broadband you need.

As I said, check out your legal rights on Which, also check your early cancellation rights, especially if you paid initially on-line or with a credit card. Finally, look at the OFCOM site.

I'm afraid in these sort of situations you really need to do some legwork and find out your contractual and legal rights - and don't give up!

[MrRockliffe]

Thanks for the advice - with no Internet and 1 bar signal its tough!

[RobbieRoy]

Okay, I have had a look for you and BT's standard conditions say that you can cancel the contract free of charge if you do so within 14 days from the day they accepted your order, which should be the day that they agreed to supply your new place. Otherwise you can cancel but would have to pay around £250 to do so.

[Saracen]

A couple of quicks thoughts, both of which boil down to "get proper advice".

1) A lot of insurance policies have a "legal cover" feature (sometimes optional) and, depending on policy, it may ir may not be limited in scope (I.e. motor issues with motor policy, etc). So check household contents, mitor, etc. Many of these policies include free legal advice for exactly this type of thing.

2) Weird one, this. Check out your BBC Local radio stations. Round here, we have a "consumer"program most mornings. You may have the same. They LOVE this kind of thing. They investigate (impartially) and IF the consumer has a genuine complaint, they pressure the supplier to sort it out.I It levels out the power imbalance. And the supplier isn't named .... UNLESS they fail to deal reasonably with a (justified) complaint.

I've done a few of these in the past, MrRockliffe, and I can assure you that often, big companies don't really focus 'trivial' consumer complaints, but I've rung the Press Office inquiring on behalf on major press outlets (genuinely, I'm a journalist) and when they realise that :-

- first, the consumer has a genuine complaint or problem, and
- second, some twit has been ignoring it, and
- third, the press/media has got hold of it and bad PR is about to occur ...

.... well, lets just say the call from head office tends to focus the "twit's" mind considerably.

So .... see if your BBC local radio station has a 'consumer advocate'.

[MrRockliffe]

I may very well do that. It's frustrating as I can actually order fibre for the house now via BT, but every time I click on upgrade my broadband and go through the steps it comes out with an error. BT won't do it over the phone because they're still convinced I can't get fibre

[Gerrard]

What does it say here when you put your phone number in?

https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/main.html

I'm in a similar position. Having moved from a place that had Inifinity to a new build that apparently has FTTP (I spoke to an Openreach engineer who said everyone here does; he did it himself!) but doesn't show up on their system. Not unusual for a new build, except that some properties in my road do and some don't; I would guess a first come, first served and they've now run out in the cabinet.

[Revvvhead]

Is Virgin available in your area?
If so switch to them, much better service than BT in my experience.
I wanted to move a cable that came into the middle of my living room wall, BT wanted £190.
I asked Virgin and they did it for free when I moved my contract to them.

[MrRockliffe]

Even if virgin was available I wouldn't go. Poor service in my area. Having said that, there are many people with virgin routers near me even though I can't supposedly get it?

I don't currently have a phone number - my old one shows up as an expired line or something. I have tried using it but no luck unfortunately.

[RobbieRoy]

Any news MrR? Hope you've been able to get somewhere over the weekend!

[MrRockliffe]

No where. BT rang on Friday but no signal at the house so couldn't take the call. Also got the train down to Angmering and back this weekend so a lot of travelling and not much time for anything else.

[Flibb]

Have you looked for local BT wifi hotspots? Access to them is included with BT broadband contracts. If you get stuck I have a three 3G mifi unit you can borrow, you just need a three PAYG data sim to shove in it.

[MrRockliffe]

I'm with three - no signal in the area. There is one, but they've canceled the broadband on the online account so we can't use BT wifi. It worked for a day but then when fibre stopped at the old house it hasn't been usable since.

[RobbieRoy]

Got any further in the last fortnight, Mr R there in Cardiff?