Now I've been happy with my BT service for the last six months, but I don't use most of the 'free' services I'm paying for (e.g. BT Sport, wifi out and about, calls on my phone line) and these are outrageous increases given current wage inflation of c. 3%.
I thought I would use my right to cancel within 30 days of a price hike and move elsewhere, however I would need to move both the broadband and phone to get any sort of a decent deal (I think only Plusnet will take a broadband only customer without the phone line being with them, and they'll charge a connection fee and an extra £2.50/month for the privilege), so you basically need to move both broadband and line rental. Luckily both were going up in price, so I can cancel right?
Apparently not, since I had bought the line rental saver, the cost of my phone line isn't going up until the saver ends in January, so I can't cancel that. Plus I would lose my remaining 6 months of non-refundable line rental saver (c. £85). I asked to raise a formal complaint via web chat and was quoted all the T&Cs I signed up to, but they still lodged it for me. I argued that I was effectively locked in to staying with BT, paying the higher price due to the loss of line rental I had paid for in advance. I also argued that this wasn't really in the spirit of Ofcom's 30 day rule.
I then spoke with somebody from the BT in the UK who informed me that because I had received free connection initially, and 12 months hasn't passed I would need to pay the connection fee in addition to losing my line rental saver were I to cancel the phone and broadband with BT. Surely this can't be right; if I've already paid the full 12 months line rental they can't add on a £130 connection charge for paying for 12 months of service and then not using 5 months or so of it...
Do I have a leg to stand on here? Is there any way I can get in contact with the regulator directly or do I need to get one of these deadlock letters from BT (I think we're there already based on today's conversation).
I'm thinking of just cancelling the broadband anyway, since I'm probably not going to need it for a few months. I'm hoping they would waive the £30 disconnection charge given they are the ones putting their prices up within my contract term.
BT ADSL (Lewes 2000-2005) - 512/256k, later upgraded to 2048/256k
University of Kent JaNET (2005/06) - 10/10meg
BeThere (Canterbury & Hoddesdon 2006-2008) - c. 21/1.3meg
AOL broadband (Exeter 2009/10) - 8/0.5meg
Virgin Media (Islington 2011-2013) 50/5meg
Virgin Media (Greenwich 2013-2015) 120/12meg (peak more like 2/12)
BT Infinity 2 (Greenwich 2015-) 70/20meg
University of Kent JaNET (2005/06) - 10/10meg
BeThere (Canterbury & Hoddesdon 2006-2008) - c. 21/1.3meg
AOL broadband (Exeter 2009/10) - 8/0.5meg
Virgin Media (Islington 2011-2013) 50/5meg
Virgin Media (Greenwich 2013-2015) 120/12meg (peak more like 2/12)
BT Infinity 2 (Greenwich 2015-) 70/20meg