BT Broadband "No Minumum Contract"

cousin_borat

Has anyone else experienced this.

I'm changing to BT broadband since leaving the country in September and didn't want a year long contract. My housemate applied for the a/c in his name. However BT sinitially said that they would'nt accept the account. Finally under some duress they offered the Broadband, provided an initial deposit of Eur150 was paid which would be refunded at the end of 12 months.
The reason they claim is that the house is rented not owned at present.

No min contract, cock and bull if you as me. I was surprised that nobody else has posted similar issues with BT on this forum leading me to ask if this has happened to anybody else.

rymus

there was a few posts not so long ago about the requirement of a deposit... If they said they'll only refund the deposit after 12 months and not when the account is terminated then there may be a sticky issue in the brewing.

Scruff

i wouldnt trust Esat\BT dodgy as hell accounts department to refund the deposit after 12 months.

That also seems extremely dodgy. No theres no minimum contract but we'll just hold on to your €150 deposit for 12 months. Dodgy, very suspect. is it even legal?

did i mention it sounds dodgy??

jor el

I don't get why they are looking for a deposit on this. I mean, what are you going to do, run away with the internet or something? It's just stupid.

I have had BB from BT in two seperate rented houses and they have never asked if I was a home owner or renting. If they did ask I'd refuse to tell them on the grounds that it is none of their business and has nothing to do with getting a broadband connection.

Have you got the phone line in your name though or is it under the landlords name? They might want more info if the phone line is under a different name, mine have always been in my name.

cgarvey

Clarify with them that its refunded after 12 months, or after the contract expires, having givin due notice (as defined in the contract). If they say 12 months, then I'd get a copy of an ad from a newspaper and quote it's "no minimum contract" line in a complain to the ASAI, and CC ComReg as well. Hopefully they just made a mistake, and it is the contract term, not 12 months!

.cg

cousin_borat

The current Eircom phone line is in my housemates name as is the application for BT Broadband.

It will be interesting to see what happens, TBH I'm waiting to see what exactly they try to get away with. My housemate was the one talking to them, sales said 12 months.

A couple of companies that I have set up Networks for have leased lines from BT and I was considering moving another company to BT as well. Looking forward to talk to the account manager about their crappy home user service, see what they have to say then.

Diabolus

Perhaps the deposit is incase you run off with the modem/router and dont pay your first bill?

cousin_borat

cousin_borat wrote:

The reason they claim is that the house is rented not owned at present.

As I said this is the reason they gave on the phone, whatever the real motive is...

Zombrex

Diabolus wrote:

Perhaps the deposit is incase you run off with the modem/router and dont pay your first bill?

Then why hold it for 12 months ...

The deposit is to encourage you, mafia style, to stay with the package for 12 months while still allowing BT to claim that they offer a service with no minimum contract ... it smacks of total bullsh*t to me, but what do we expect from EsatBT. :rolleyes:

dahamsta

Wicknight wrote:

Then why hold it for 12 months ...

I was told six months on the phone, and that's what I'll be holding BT to. If they try to keep it longer, I'll take them to Small Claims Court.

The deposit is to encourage you, mafia style, to stay with the package for 12 months while still allowing BT to claim that they offer a service with no minimum contract ... it smacks of total bullsh*t to me

So does this I'm afraid. This is a deposit, they have to give it back to you when you leave; if they don't, they'll be committing fraud and you can report them to the Gardaí for it.

Seriously, I'm no fan of BT, but there's an awful lot of idle bull in this thread. Tenants present more of a risk than owners, therefore BT feel they have to do this to protect themselves from having their equipment nicked or large overage fees built up.

Aside from the fact that it's badly implemented - par for the course for BT - it's perfectly sensible. If you want to bitch about something, bitch about the idiotic implementation.

adam

jor el

True BT may feel the need to protect themselves from tennants running up a bill and not paying but you do have to register a direct debit from either a bank account or credit card, so this should really be enough. Plus, why do they only ask this of a few people? If this were policy then they would ask everyone. I signed up for broadband only a few weeks after moving into my new address and they never asked if I was a tennant or owner.

But then, as you say, this is BT and consistancy would not be their strongest suit.

dahamsta

jor el wrote:

you do have to register a direct debit from either a bank account or credit card, so this should really be enough.

Cancelling a DD is trivial. Charging back a transaction isn't that trivial, but it's not that hard either, and the consumer is in charge (i.e. it's unlikely the issuer will contact the merchant). A deposit is the obvious alternative.

Plus, why do they only ask this of a few people?

It seems to be a relatively new policy, so perhaps it was introduced before you joined. There's also probably a risk assessment involved. I could be viewed as a risk because they set their debt collectors on me to chase after NoLimits money, and I told them to shove their fraudulent debt up their collective asses.

But then, as you say, this is BT and consistancy would not be their strongest suit.

Much to my surprise, their new consumer sales & service lead contacted me late last week to apologise for a problem with my order and assure me that he was keeping an eye on it. Course it shouldn't have happened in the first place, but it's a start. Man's got a lot of work ahead of him if he hopes to turn it around though, I hope he's got the stamina.

adam

Solair

I've been with Esat, EsatBT and now BT Ireland and have always found their billing / accounts department to be an utter mess.

We'd lots of problems with activating telephone service. i.e. we'd apply, they'd do nothing. We'd ring them up, they'd never heard of us before. Send out another application form, the same thing over and over and eventually you'd mysteriously be connected with no warning.

We changed phone number (due to mallicious calls problem) and transfering the Esat service was a total nightmare. They wanted us to apply from scratch, new direct debit mandates etc etc..

Did that, and they carried on charging for service on a phone number that didn't even exist anymore. Phoned them up, they did something but it kept on charging.

Eventually phoned up, went totally mad, got the Bank of Ireland involved (as the transactions were unauthorised) and suddenly had a cheque and apology in the post.

Recently, I applied for BT Broadband, and to be fair to them things seem to have improved. It was active on the line with in 4 days of the call and there was no question of having to fill in the same form 47 times or anything!

I wouldn't trust their accounts department (if they actually have one) at all.

I wonder if their parent company knows what a fiasco it is?

It seems to have some kind of IT or internal communication problems.