ADSL to ADSL migration Cease Fee

I signed up with Sky Talk and Sky Broadband Unlimited in December and was switched 8am on 7th Jan - all fine. I had my landline contract with Post Office Home Phone and received a letter acknowledging before the switch - all fine.

I had my broadband with Eclipse but received nothing. I raised a ticket on 8th Jan and they replied saying they knew nothing about the migration but "cancelled the broadband" on 8th.

Eclipse say I'll have to pay £36 inc VAT for the cease charge they'll be getting from the line supplier (BT Wholesale?).

I can pay this and get refunded by Sky.

But...

Should that charge include VAT? It is a "compensatory charge" of £30 which means it isn't for goods/services so no VAT?

Should I be charged a cease fee at all? It was a "gainer provider led" migration as far as I, Sky and the Post Office was aware. I know Sky have their own LLU but I haven't switched to a cable or fibre service of any kind, just kept the same old copper wire and phone number. Am I on Sky fibre network or something with an ADSL2 Sky hub SR102?

If Eclipse issued a cease order than that is chargeable at the wholesale level.

Under the current migration system the old provider is meant to get informed in the background so that you can confirm whether you authorised the move. If that mechanism failed then you should not be out of pocket, the gotcha is deciding at which stage the problem happened.

Eclipse needed to actually do nothing, and if they issued a cease on the 8th there is a risk that in the next few days the Sky service may suddenly stop working, i.e. wires get crossed at the exchange end.

All you needed Eclipse to do was accept that a migration had taken place and end your financial contract with them.

Thanks for the reply. That's how I understood the situation. As far as I know they are just cancelling the contract but I'll add a support note to try and make sure they haven't issued a cease and nothing happens to my connection on 6th Feb (30 days).

Phoned Eclipse CS and discussed concerns:

Did they put a cease on my line so that it may die? (thanks Andrew, hadn't thought to worry about that)
I followed the user procedure correctly for Sky LLU migration so why should I be charged for a system failure?
Anyway, there should be no VAT on a compensatory charge

Assured my line would not cease, they were just cancelling the contract. But got no further with the other issues so requested a deadlock letter for contacting the Alternative Dispute Resolution service with any remaining issues after final billing.

By the time I'd documented all that as a note to the support ticket, I had an email saying on further talks with the manager they would waive all the charges as a gesture of goodwill.

On closing the ticket I wrote that having been with Eclipse since 2003 it was a shame to end that way.

2003, wow, I didn't know I was so loyal. Most of that time I was on an old "Evolution 1" package, at a reduced rate for the last few years.

Hi,
If this helps put a bit of perspective for you.
First off the cease charge does correctly include VAT, its not a compensation its a service (you will like this... Wholesale make this charge as a cost to send an engineer in to remove the tie pairs from the line when you leave even though they never actually do this but still charge for it!)

When a migration to full LLU happens what they sometimes do is do it as a phone line takeover so in effect a cease of the phone line, this will cause the broadband to drop off but without the advance notice as an ISP should get when you migrate out.
So they might not even know the line has been moved until after the event and sometimes they don't even know unless they look it up.
Script readers will then tell you what they did, "If we get a charge from our suppliers we will pass it on" but very rarely does a charge get raised (although we have had a couple here and there)

There are soooo many sites saying VAT does not apply, e.g. BT should know
http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/products/stati...

As an ordinary punter, who has no way of knowing why BT (for instance) should be wrong, you can see why I was happy to assume no VAT and take it to the next level.

I never found out if my switch on 7th Jan had a "w" or "p" flag (whatever that is) but something I might have chased up with Sky.

I was told by Eclipse yesterday "there will be a cease charge", but I'm guessing they hadn't actually been billed so a bit of a pre-emptive strike.

Interesting info, vivaciti. Obviously an error somewhere in the system but it seems the domestic consumer has to sort it out rather than the professionals talk to each other. Having followed the correct gpl procedure, only contacting the gaining provider etc, I never received the required detailed notice of charges from Eclipse (if they truly were never notified I accept it was not their fault) but what got me puzzled was their initial response insisting I, not Sky, had to cancel as Sky is on a different network. I still believe I can migrate (BT) ADSL to (SKY LLU) ADSL using gaining provider led.

I had a very similar experience with a planned migratiion from Xilo TTB to Pulse8 TTB last year. I contacted Xilo shortly before the planned migration date just out of courtesy really but they were thus far unaware of the move. They also told me they could see from the OpenReach portal the move had been incorrectly tagged as a stop of service instead of migration and I would also be liable for the same charge you mentioned.

This was suspected to be down to TTB's admin processes (or lack of) rather than anything else but I didn't fancy that so cancelled the whole thing.

It all worked out for the best anyway as I later transferrred over to Uno and all good.

Edited by deleted (Thu 14-Jan-16 19:22:46)

In reply to a post by bernado:

This was suspected to be down to TTB's admin processes (or lack of) rather than anything else but I didn't fancy that so cancelled the whole thing.

I can't blame you for doing that. My choice was to double-check I was doing everything right then leave it and trust the system. If the system is at fault it shouldn't (a) cost me or (b) take me significant time to sort out. Unfortunately my approach failed at (b). I could have taken whatever charges Eclipse billed me and forwarded to Sky for re-imbursement, which may have been slightly less hassle? I haven't needed to investigated how good Sky is for that.