BT cancellation charge

I have been with BT for 18 months for broadband and telephone service. In that period I suffered faults on 2 occassions and each time they send out an engineer after 4-5 days. Waiting that long with telephone or broadband service - my work as disrupted and lost a lot of telephone calls. So decided to switch to Virgin.
However, BT are trying to charge me a 'Broadband cancellation charge' of £30. I was never told about this charge when I joined nor is there any mention in the contract papers that I received. I queried this with them. A BT person rang me today and said that the £30 charge is not for leaving; I did not obtain a MAC code off them so they are charging me this amount. I told him he was talking a lot of nonsense. Why would I need a MAC code if I was moving to Virgin (a cable company).
It appears that they are slapping this random £30 charge for all leavers and expect majority of people not to notice or fight back. If anyone does query it then they give him some technical googlygook to confuse them.
I am taking this to my solicitor and reporting it to Trading Standards as well.

It's a condition of your contract with BT:

In reference to www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerOrders/control/termsandcondi...:

As a condition of our service, you must, when you end your broadband service request and use a migration authorisation code (MAC) or another recognised transfer process to move to another service provider. If in breach of this condition you do not do this you will have to pay a broadband cease charge of £30 by way of compensation to us.

The most your solicitor can do is argue it is unfair, but I doubt that'll play.

Read your Ts & Cs carefully.

4-5 days to get a repair - why? That is when you should have complained. Or are you using a residential service for business in which case the 4-5 days is normal. If your work is reliant on service then you should have a business grade service with NBD response. I doubt if Virgin would be any better.

In reply to a post by akkers:

I am taking this to my solicitor

£200 for a solicitors time to argue £30 ??

You might be better talking to customer service and ask nicely to waive the £30 they may do it if you hint you might return at a later date.

http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProduc...

It is a charge from Openreach to all ISP's. Whether that ISP passes the charge on to the customer is up to them.

BT clearly state in their Terms and Conditions that they do pass the charge on to the customer.