12 month rolling contract

[M4T VW]

Im switching over the BT for my business. Im with a small company at the moment for B/B & phone as they installed the phone system here when we bought the place 4 years ago.

They phone today to say someone was trying to take controll of our numbers.
I said this was ok etc and she said there was a cancellation fee to pay on all 3 services!
£60 for the B/B
£20 for 1 line
£40 for the 2nd line.

At the time when i signed the contract (4 years ago) it was not a rolling contract. Since then it was upgraded to a rolling contract without me signing anything.
Apperently they did notify us but i cant remember anything:lol:

So is this correct?:confused:

[coiler]

sounds like absolute rubbish to me!

after a year you should be able to cancel with 1 months notice and any fee's this extra month would bring!

[Spaceboy]

If you've not signed anything, they've not a leg to stand on imo.

[Pepp77]

sounds like absolute rubbish to me!

after a year you should be able to cancel with 1 months notice and any fee's this extra month would bring!

Generally this may be true, but not always for example all of our contracts are rolling 12 month contracts and you have to notify us 3 months before the start of the new year that you wish to cancel for the following year or it automatically renews.

Saying that though in this instance you should have had to agree to a rolling 12 month contract, but even so cancelation fees may still apply, for example our broadband offerings are 12 month rolling contracts, but even after the 12 months there is a cancellation fee (unless they migrate the number away), this is however told to the companys when they sign with us.

[SENTY]

i think you will find you are accepting the contract by using the phone..
thats IF they sent you the contract but you never signed it and sent it back, having a copy and using the products IS accepting the terms of the contract..

im not a lawyer but thats how UK law was a while back when i was in a similar situation.

[DoubleTop]

this was raised a while back with BT doing exactly the same, turning a 12month into a rolling 12 month. If only I could remember the outcome

[SENTY]

i remember the outcome and thats what ive stated IF you carry on using the phone you are accepting the terms and conditions.
you cant claim you didnt accept the contract when you still carried on using the phone
you can only claim none acceptance IF you stop using the phone.

[DoubleTop]

It never went to any sort of court though Senty, it was an Ofcom thing and they gave communications firms until April 1st to change to follow the guidelines they released following a complaint from a rival firm about how BT dealt with it.

As a result, BT now send letters 30days prior to the contract being "rolled" and other firms should follow the same guidelines. So if they have not then an Ofcom complaint is in order to be registered by the OP. Goes back to June2009 and it was TalkTalk who complained.

M4T VW, you may wish to have a read through this (http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/telecoms/policy/addcharges.pdf) in order to remind the service you are disconnecting of the guidelines on rolling contracts. It would be down to them to prove they sent you notice of a change of contract to rolling terms with disconnection charges. I guess you're changing due to the poor service and quality from other threads, failure to deliver a service is also a breach of contract as well. Dont' take it lying down for sure, not with those values.

DT.

[M4T VW]

Cheers all

Thanks for the link DT, Page 15 is the intresting part.
I dont remember recieving a letter to say it was being extended so i dont think they did enough to warn us about it. If you were to tie someone in for another 12 months you want them to know about it. They have our e-mail, fax, phone and address. At least 2 of these should have been used and not just a letter in the post.

I will pass this onto the boss and get him to draft up an e-mail to them tomorrow.

BT will still take control of the line anyway, So they have no choice!