BT Broadband - 255kbs Speed - £24.99 per month

[andygrif]

Originally Posted by Justy

Hi Guys and Gals,

I need some help here. Been with BT for 2 weeks - Paid £129 for the line to be activated cause I've just moved into a new property and all because I wanted broadband. I called bt and was advised that the speed would be aprox 1/4 of a meg and the charge was £24.99 per month... my initial reaction was not a chance but the advisor talked me into it cause 'we (bt) have been having probs with our speed prediction software' and she assured me that the engineer would work to get us a better speed... she even went on to say that if I wasn't happy with the speed that I could cancel. I checked my speed today and got 45kbs... and then it went up to 156kbs so I foned Bt to cancel and was going to phone sky for free broadband but have now been informed that the advisor gave me the wrong info and the broadband cant be cancelled as I'm within contract and that they expect me to pay £24.99 for such an awful service...

does any1 have any suggestions of what I could do??? I'm at a real loss here....

It doesn't matter whether you were given incorrect information or not, you were given the information that forms part of the contract between yourselves and BT.

If you wish to cancel your service, you should document the timeline of events, note the people you've spoken to (if you can) and note what they have told you (i.e that the actual speed would be greater and if it wasn't then you'd be allowed to cancel).

BT will hold recordings of the conversation with the person you spoke to, they can listen to the conversation and what you were told and if you're right then you should be allowed to cancel your service, as under the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 the service was 'not as described'.

If they 'cannot find' the recording then the balance of evidence falls into your favour and I doubt they would try to defend against something they could provide no evidence for.

Put this complaint in writing, send it Recorded Delivery to The Company Secretary and give them a 'reasonable' time frame to correct the problem (i.e seven days) and state that if they fail to solve the problem then you wish to terminate the contract.

If you get no joy report them to OFCOM and the ISPA (and anyone else you can think of) and take advice from your Council's Trading Standards Department - but as far as I can see it if the situation is as you've described it then it's not going to be too much of a challenge to cancel the service.