How to Complain to BT and cancel your contract with no penalty

I treat my broadband and phone like any other annual bill that gets reviewed each year. I compare and swop my service providers each year to make the most of generous new customer offers and high cash back available when I click through and switch via TopCashback. You can normally get £100 to £150 cash back, FREE CASH! for switching via TopCashback! In 2018 I swapped over from EE to BT. There was a good deal for landline and broadband and I received £120 cashback.

I spoke to a professional from Aerial Installation about cancelling my BT contract, and they said, “There are several ways to cancel your BT broadband service. However, it depends on whether you’re changing to a different broadband provider, whether you’re moving to another address or whether you’re cancelling for an entirely different reason. And, it is very much possible that exit fees that might apply when you end your BT service”. However read on to see how I avoided my penalty.

How to Complain to BT and cancel your contract with no penalty

Problems from Day 1

The problems started pretty much from day 1 when the transfer over from EE to BT failed on two separate occasions. The switch was due to happen in July and ended up being completed in September. I made a complaint at this point as I had to spend hours on the phone sorting out the issues.

I won’t bore you with the story, but I was passed from department to department, had to explain my story multiple times. Eventually I got a resolution and received some compensation of around £50 for the inconvenience. First point to note, always ask for compensation when you have had to spend time resolving issues.

I spent the next year using BT broadband. I was never particularly happy as the broadband speed was very slow and often sporadically stopped working. Whenever I called to complain they assured me that all was fine with my line. I knew that I would be leaving this company at the end of my 12 months as I had had enough of mistakes and poor levels of customer service.

Contract Issues

What I hadn’t quite appreciated through not reading the T’s and C’s properly when I signed up was that I had signed up to a 12-month phone contract and an 18-month broadband contract. Sneakily done there BT.

When its came to month 13 I was tied in and had to revert to standard monthly landline billing of £20ish per month. I was raging at this point that they had tricked me into a contract that was mismatched. So, I asked to leave. I was told the cancellation fee as I was still in broadband contract was £180!!

I was not prepared to accept this and by this point I wanted out. I was not going to pay a penny more to BT for anything with the terrible customer service, shoddy slow product, high prices and sneaky customer lock in tactics.

Complain to BT

I complained and complained until the compliant was escalated. Eventually I was passed through the customer resolutions department. Big piece of time saving guidance here, ask to be put straight through to here if your complaint warrants it. I was appointed my own complaints person who listened to my troubles of the past year and agreed that my issues were a huge concern and none of them should have happened.

This one lovely advisor agreed that my contract could be terminated with no penalty payable thus allowing me to swop everything over to Sky instead. Getting another TopCashback new customer bonus in the process.

Moving to Sky

I moved and was paying the same price with Sky as I was with BT, but with fibre broadband with speeds of maybe 10 times what I was getting with BT. I did also get £80 of cashback as I processed the broadband transaction through TopCashBack.

Sky is not perfect. I hate the amount that we pay each month for Landline, Broadband and TV.  Sky sports being the big expense. But it works. And on the odd occasion when I do have a problem their customer service has always been first rate.

Don’t accept the terrible customer service from BT and give up if you have an issue. Escalate to the customer resolutions department and ask and ask again for compensation if things have gone wrong. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. As a final goodbye, they gave me a £40 credit to my bank account to say sorry.

Have you had issues with BT, how did you get a resolution?

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Lynn Beattie

Aka Mrs MummyPenny

Personal Finance Expert

I write about personal finance made simple, lifestyle choices that will save you time and money, as well as products and services that offer great value.

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56 Responses

  1. Uh-oh… I’ve been looking at moving from Sky broadband to BT, because the download speeds on Sky are extremely slow; we can’t use Netflix, and downloading takes way longer than it should – BT is apparently around 8x faster. I haven’t made the move yet, but I think I’m going to have to.

    One suggestion, learnt from bitter experience; if you make a service call or complaint, always note the date, time and name of the person you spoke to. Even if you think that first call will solve the matter. Because if, as I had with first utility, you end up making a lot of calls (about eight), and sending a lot of e-mails (also around eight), trying to get the problem sorted, you have got better evidence when you ask for compensation.

    1. Good call regarding the keeping notes and records…poor BT though had no chance with me!! Good luck with BT thats all I will say!!

    2. Hands down worst company for customer service, ive never had so many problems with getting my internet to go live.
      I went with BT because they had an amazing deal on in the black friday event November 2018, there was £30 amazon gift card, £120 credit card, and £70 m&s vouchers, plus 50 speed,
      Sounded fantastic, but then it began, installation date set, i waited in all day but nothing .
      I rang for them to tell me the contract has been cancelled, i asked who by but they couldnt/didnt have a clue, so i told them i am the only person who can cancel, dont listen to anyone else and i even suggested setting up a private pin, not interested as said it will be done in a couple of days, this went on till march…

      4 months i had to wait so be prepared, i think they didnt want to uphold the offers as to this day im still trying to get some of them, absolute joke, i need to know if ive got grounds to leave, i did get some compensation but it was only £50, make sure you download a recording app on you’re phone because they all lie, i think they get off on it, you get passed about from dept to dept,

      After a while you dont want to ring them because you know how stressful it makes you.
      Granted the net speed is pretty good when it works, it does dip quite alot.

      So id try someone else.

  2. We had massive issues with Talk Talk – told we would be fined if we weren’t home when an engineer came but they never turned up, refused to let us out of contract even though they weren’t providing usable broadband. Ended up cutting our losses and going with Sky.

    1. Nightmare story. I think its common with lots of the broadband peeps, although have to say sky have been pretty good. I would NEVER go back to BT.

  3. BT are terrible for this! I won’t touch BT anymore, my mums recently had problems with them also. I’ve been with Sky for 5 years now and never had a problem. I’m so glad you got this sorted.

    1. I had problems with my old bt tv box.
      Called bt they said that they have a pro bt tv box which is better as it is newer.
      When my contract was going to end, out of the blue they said as you have a pro box you was signed up for anther 2 yes contract which they did not at the time.

  4. Eugh, I hate both BT and Sky! We used to have internet with BT and they forced us to move to Sky for some reason. Then Sky tried to backdate us a payment for 8 months for not having Sky TV with their internet package (which we were forced to have through no choice) – it was a right palaver! When we moved house Sky took 3 weeks to connect our internet. 3 engineers and numerous phone calls kept telling us we were connected, then finally they realised we weren’t and sorted it out! Now we are with Virgin and it’s expensive, but we’ve had no issues!

    1. There are so many stories of issues with broadband providers! Often routes back to BT as they are ones who own the cables and the network. I had such a terrible experience so anything compared to that is good! I did look at virgin but yet it was mega expensive.

  5. BT really are a company with dubious motives and absolutely no customer service. A sequence of calls over 3 months to cancel all TV, Broadband and phone services, after the initial 12 month contract, resulted in a different story, or economy with the truth as to what actually had to happen, resulting in me transferring my phone line to another provider and paying the best part of 20 days for broadband and TV packages that I will not be able to access.
    Shame on you BT and your purposefully misleading and underhand tactics to ensure you exact as much money as you can with the minimum of customer service.
    I will never use BT again and will encourage everyone I talk to to avoid BT like the plague

  6. I was with sky on £26 a month contract (includes any time any network land-line/Mobile, international calls, fiber broadband) one day the internet stopped working and sky tried fixing but nothing helped (the engineers were from bt) after 3 engineer visits I was left with no internet for a month. The bt engineer said “if you are with be we will fix it in an hour you see sky doesn’t even know what they were doing” he insist us to move to bt.

    I got confirmation from him (verbally) if the problem still presit I can leave bt without any demand or fees.

    I got switched to be in two weeks, shocking! It was the same old story. The problems still presist. I had to pay £38 a Month only for evening and week end calls and I cannot make any calls at day time. I contacted by many times asking them to terminate the line. But they said they won’t help me and said their engineer said it verbally and there’s no proof. Bt said if I quit I will have to pay £200 penality.

    This just happened within one month of the contract. Now I don’t know what to do. Am paying for something which I am not using.

    Bt is hell! I would never want to do business with be ever again. I want to quit be and run back to sky.

  7. my experience with BT has been a nightmare since December 2016, Firstly i went 28 days with no Broadband , made numerous calls to their complaints department and was always promised the issue would be dealt with , blaming the Engineers for the problem .. I finally after 3 weeks , managed to get hold of the email address of the C,E,O, of BT, he sent me an apologetic email and stated he had escalated my problem to a number 1 priority . Within 1 hr i had 2 phone calls from senior officials wanting info on my situation after explaining they promised it would be fixed within 24 hrs and it was with 3 months free of any bills…2nd the service through BT Infinity was poor , tv stations kept disappearing, Broadband would shut down for no reason , so now i decided enough so i had Virgin Media installed . Now BT have sent me a cancellation fee of £422 plus £80 for equipment . no way am i paying this after 2 years of shoddy service . I hope this statement makes people aware of the problems you may suffer with BT

  8. As Lynn says with BT you have to talk to customer resolutions to get anything done at all. Before I left them 5 years ago I was getting the run around as at that time my bills were increasing each year but new customers signing up were getting the same service for half the price. I had been with BT at that time for more than 30 years so was asking for some sort of benefit for being a loyal customer. When they informed me that they could offer me nothing I informed them that I would be leaving and they kept quoting penalty payments. When I informed them that it was the end of my contract period they then informed me that within the T & C’s you have to give a months notice (before the end of your contract period) therefore you are automatically tied in for another 12 months. My wife ended up taking the phone off me as she thought that I was being unreasonable with the person that I was talking to (she is much calmer dealing with customer services) but within 5 minutes she ended up putting the phone down on them. After trawling the internet I eventually found some information that pointed to customer resolutions and after writing to them I eventually got sorted out with a few apologies for the way that I had been dealt with. I still left them and went with Sky. For the past two years and until they change their minds I am getting free fibre as I was getting both sports packages and they had an offer on of free fibre if you signed up for 18 months of both sports (which I was on anyway) and it was free fibre for as long as you stayed signed up. I only pay £10 extra as I wanted increased speed of fibre with unlimited downloads but I am more than happy with that price.I am paying £10 per month for what BT would be charging £35.99. I have only had 1 problem in the 5 years that I have been with Sky and they sorted that within 1 day and they kept me informed about what was happening right through to the conclusion. My daughter is currently having much the same problems as everyone else above with BT as they are the only providers in her new house so she is stuck with them but she has been without a phone line so no services at all for the past eight days with no engineers turning up and 45 minute waits on the mobile. Thankfully her mobile is not with BT it is with a reliable company.

  9. I wondered how I had ended up with my BT Broadband and Line Rental Saver contracts out of sync. This year I haven’t received notice of my Line Rental Saver contract coming to an end but because I keep a sharp eye on my bills I noticed that my last bill included a few days line rental. On going to the website to renew, I notice that what I am offered is 12 months line rental at a reduce up-front price accompanied by an 18 month broadband and free weekend calls contract. Sharp practice or what !

      1. Perhaps not sending reminders out is another way to squeeze more cash out of customers.
        I’ve just phoned to renew my Line Rental Saver and there was no mention of a contract duration period other than a caution that withdrawing from the contract early will incur charges. I can only imagine that in this case it means before 12 months has elapsed.
        The agent told me that email reminders aren’t issued any more. Funny that, because they’re still promised on the website and the order confirmation I’ve just received 🙂
        (Incidentally, I phoned the number for Sales as listed on my bill: 0800 800 150. I still had to wait a good 10 minutes for my call to be answered. Clearly not too interested in making a sale. I normally use my mobile for calls now so just waiting for Cityfibre to roll-out FTTH locally.)

  10. My boyfriend has recently got into the military and as a result I’ve decided to move back home. I’ve gone to cancel our contracts at our flat and BT is the final one. I phoned up and I can either pay £226 (!!!) to cancel our contract or keep paying the £28.99 a month for 12 months. I hadn’t realised in December that securing the lower price for another 18 months would actually keep me in a fixed contract for that period, with the astronomical price to cancel. Anyone know where the £226 came from? I’ve checked T&Cs and can’t find it and just seems too random? Help please? 🙁

    1. Go to the top and make a complaint as have suggested. dont faff with call centres and repeating the same story again and again.

  11. I am another stressed out BT customer!
    I lost my phone and broadband at 4pm on 3rd. July and reported it immediately – on the phone for 1 hour and 51 minutes.
    We have a combined phone/broadband business package with BT which states prompt care resolution i.e. any fault is resolved by midnight the following working day.
    One BT call centre told me I did not have prompt care – LIE
    After numerous calls to BT (none of the promised call backs materialised) 4 alleged escalations, the appointment of a resolutions manager (I found out she was on holiday), the appointment of another resolutions manager who did not contact me at all, I was getting nowhere fast and becoming more angry as each day passed.
    I had to go and purchase a mobile wifi unit as the vouchers for the BTwifi hotspot were useless – we are too far away from the hotspot for it to work efficiently as the internet was dropping out every couple of minutes. I defy anyone to try and run an internet based business this way.
    The telephone line finally sprung into life this afternoon – 7 DAYS it took for them to discover that the fault was a loose wire in the exchange.
    Bad news is that the broadband is still not working. BT offered to refund the £28 that I paid for the mobile wifi and a credit for June’s account as a gesture of goodwill.
    I insisted that I needed to speak to the resolution manager assigned to me but was told that was not possible. When I said that I wanted to leave BT due to the appalling service, lack of communication, lack of updates, inability to resolve the issue, I was told that I could only leave on payment of nearly £800. I feel that BT are in breach of contract and as they are not supplying their contracted service there should not be a penalty.
    ANY SUGGESTIONS OUT THERE???????

    1. I’ve contacted them and was told my contract ends July.now been told ends December they are all a bunch of con artists don’t even try to help

    1. That could end up in a debt and dafault issues which affect your credit rating. This is not the best solution.

  12. You CAN cancel your BT Sports within 14 days even though they say you can’t do this. They have inserted an ILLEGAL clause which contradicts an EU ruling. EU Law states that you can cancel an agreement with 14 days if bought online. For them to insert a clause to the contrary is illegal. I took out a contract and they said “Hard luck”, “Read the small print”, “Pay us £197” etc. When I lodged an official complaint and pointed out the EU ruling they backed down and cancelled my agreement with no cost to myself other than my initial £20 activation fee.. What they have done is illegal bordering on criminality. They said their lawyers did this, if so they should be held to account for their actions. Please don’t let them get away with it, this should be raised on “Watchdog” etc.

    Good luck

  13. Im currenty having problems with bt my internet keeps going down no tv sgnal. When i spoke to bt and asked for refund they said (its not a charity) iwas fuming and repled (where is your respect for your customers) they then replied with are you readyfor this? ” WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO BOW DOWN TO YOU ” all igot was a 20pnd discount and a sorry from manager. Still ongoing want to leave but they threaten me with canelation charge. Please can any1 advise me.

    1. You need to write a letter/email to their CEO and make a formal complaint. They will have a recording of this conversation so give them date and time and name of person you spoke with.

      1. BT are shocking tricksters They had my business contract on a double bundle for years they changed my business no without telling me and I only discovered it when I rang our number and it didn’t ring in the shop I have spent hours and hours on the phone with them to be told if this was my fault I would have to pay them!
        They are supposed to be a communications company but it is extremely long and difficult to get through to them .
        We have lost sales through having no card machine
        They wear you down until you just give in
        At the minute they are charging me an extra £609 for terminating a contract I was duped into taking.
        DISGRACEFUL ITS NOW GOING TO THE OMBUDSMAN
        DISGRACE

        1. Oh Susan, this sounds like so much time and hassle to sort out. Go to the ombudsman, call them out on social media, tag me in a tweet and I will hare and tag in a few consumer experts I know. And go the CEO. I really feel for you.

  14. I was cold called by BT about how fantastic their broadband service was, and in hindsight foolishly changed from Sky.
    The Sky service was normally ok, but occasionally was slow or didn’t work at all during peak times.
    When the change occurred, our telephone number changed as well. I assumed the number would carry on!
    The broadband with BT was much worse than Sky, even after one week it never improved.
    So I instructed Sky to cancel BT (within the 14 days cooling off period through) on 12th September.

    Today I got a text from BT informing me there would be a £271.48 to pay for leaving!
    I phoned customer services and after a five minute wait was told by a lady that I would have to pay as there was no record of me cancelling BT within 14 days and I would be charged. I told the lady that I would not pay and she said the debt collectors would be round!
    I phoned again after the usual wait and after looking at this website asked to be out through to the customer resolutions team.
    He said he didn’t have their number, but would look into the notes. The line went dead!]

    Grrrrr I phoned for the third time, another gent who this time I took the full name of. This guy, Alastair Leicester was the polar reverse of his two colleagues and found the cancellation request of the 12th. He agreed to cancel the £271 fee and refunded my first month’s fee of £41.98
    I asked to be put through to his manager and gave the appropriate thanks.

    It does pay to persevere if you have a grievance until you reach the right person.

  15. Joined BT broadband in jan 2018, was promised that prices wouldn’t increase during my 18 month contract, not long after joining the prices increased… they said I could cancel but it was only a rise of £1 so wasn’t that bothered and stayed on for the remainder of the contract.

    All was well and good…
    Summer time last year I received a letter from BT saying my contract was ending soon and that prices would increase… again I was not too bothered as it wasn’t much of an increase so decided to stay on a little longer.
    Shorty after I get another letter saying that BT are going to increase my internet speed for free, Great!!! I thought, suddenly paying the extra wasn’t such a bad thing…
    Starting out 2020 knowing I was out of contract I decided to shop around for a new provider and cheaper deal. I opted for Plusnet and was setup within a few weeks.
    After getting setup I decided to chase BT for a refund due to me paying up a months broadband in advance a few days before the switch over to Plusnet only to discover that BT are in fact charging me £170 for early contract termination… Excuse me, but what contract?!!!
    They said that I had renewed my contract with them summer last year for another 18 months due to an upgrade on my package that I had asked for, no letter stating this or email nothing and couldn’t actually tell me what the upgrade was.
    So BT used that “FREE” upgrade as a way to sneak in another 18 month contract through the backdoor… when I explained this to the adviser he flat out called me a “liar” and that I would be paying the fee’s!
    How the hell can they get away with it? well they’re not as I’ll be taking it up with the communications ombudsman.

  16. Last week I woke up with no internet on calling BT that evening they told me that my account is cancelled they don’t know how and it cannot be re-instated, they assured me that I did not have to pay any fees and would put this to me in writing. I never received this in writing. After a week of complaining to BT and trying to get some sense out of someone it has eventually become apparent that what happened was someone who is having their line taken over has given the wrong number so BT released mine instead. BT have now gone back on their word that I would not be charged any fees and are claiming I owe them a £220 cancellation fee. They claim they sent a letter to say that this would be happening and if I didn’t want the line released to contact them by a certain date, I never received this letter so obviously did not call them and was completely unaware of the situation until they turned my internet off. BT are now saying that I can have my internet re-instated to avoid the cancellation fee but as I was originally told this is not an option I have already signed up to a new provider. They are insisting I pay £220 I don’t know what to do.

  17. I was duped into signing up to a new contract in order to increase the speed of our broadband which was so dire it was like having dial up. I tried to cancel it before the 14 days were up as the new package had made no difference at all, in fact I think it got worse, but the lady on the phone told me I had to give it time to settle down and that it would improve. Needless to say it has not! I have tried to get this sorted and have had several conversations with BT both with their customer services and faults team. In fact the faults team said that it would never improve. I’ve had four engineer visits over the last two months and still no improvement. Twice they’ve said they were putting me through to resolutions and I’ve been cut off. At my wits end now! Oh and after being told that they would never put my direct debit up they’ve just told me it’s being increased by £13 a month!

  18. We had a fault on 1st October they told us it would be sorted out a week later got message saying it’s fixed but wasn’t. Called reported the fault again they said it be fixed by 15 th Oct that day come not fixed no up date nothing so I called them.. my neighbour has also Attached to the fault . She was told it wouldn’t be fixed till 4th jan 21.. so I called them said I have no internet till jan so they suggested the halo so sorted contract got 4g hug to keep us connected haha 20 devices she said more like 3 .. so I have no sky no Netflix that I’m also paying for for no service.. had a big barny on the phone tonight saying your not providing me with a service so why should I pay you all she kept saying was you will be compensated.. really is that it.. then she tried fobbing me off saying it’s going to be fixed by 15th November yer right I know they have to shut the road to fix it.. so we will have no internet or tv over Christmas.. what is best thing to do I’m pulling my hair out..!!!

  19. Yes the misaligned contracts for mobile, BB, and land line is definitely one to watch out for at BT and probably other providers too. I would suggest letting the shortest roll over (hey don’t tend to uplift on just one) and then gradually pick them off one by one. They just want you to contact them to start the misalignment process all over again.

  20. Hello guys,

    My problem with BT starts since I’ve made the biggest mistake ever, joining BT. Many problems with the internet speed and wifi signal.

    Last week I’ve managed to solve this, after hours talking with them and finally they replaced the wifi router.

    In the meantime, I’ve checked my new bill, and I saw the BT Sports price has been increased. I’ve called them to ask why and when, and they’ve told me in September they sent an email to me informing about this. I’ve checked all the folders from my email address and I couldn’t find anything about this (even they gave me the date when is appearing in their system the confirmation of sending email). It seems they haven’t believed me, so, I’ve asked to send again the original email during that phone conversation and still that email has not been received. Based of this, I’ve opened an complaint (because they dont let me to leave BTsports, saying I havent made the request in the time slot) and they haven’t come with an resolution, so I’ve requested the deadlock letter.

    Today, I called again, because they promised me a credit of £35 for the inconveniences with the internet speed, and that one was not applied.

    The person with who I speak, it was very bossy with me (because I’m not speaking English very well, maybe…) and at one point he even shouted at me and he called me “mate” many times. I politely request him to dont call me anymore like that and to don’t shout at me. (This shouting was when I’ve asked him to re-send the email with price increasing, after I’ve told him the story, hoping he can help me. Even now, I havent received any email, and it said they have no confirmation of sending the email today, or those two from this week).

    Because he doesn’t give me the chance to explain my problems with BT and because he said many times “for me everything is clear, we sent to you an email in September and we have confirmation of this, we cannot let you to leave BTsports without any penalties”….I asked to raise an complaint because the way his he talked with me. At that point he start to be very angry and when I’ve requested to discuss with his manager, he said the manager is next to him and she heard how he talk with me and she can confirm he havent shouted at me. As well, I asked him to give me the reference number of the complaint but he didn’t and finally he just hang up the call saying “goodbye”.

    I’ve dialed BT straight away, and in 35 minutes, I was not connected to one of the operators (I’m sure they have my number there, and they decided to dont answer)

    Anyone can advice me what I can do? I’m not happy to pay £14 for BTsports when the initial price it was £10/month, and I want to leave BTsports without paying the difference until finishing the contract.

    Thank you

  21. Ive had BT for a few years and had a few complaints and received compensation. I took them to the Ombudsman once and that sorted them out so thats one road to go down. I have to say their Broadband speed is consistent, about 49Mbps, so happy with that. Their customer service could be better but I generally get there in the end. My present problem however is my connection to Sky Q drops out and as a consequence my mini boxes wont work and I cant reconnect them. I spoken to Sky and had an Engineer out but it still happens. Sky says its down to BT, their new Router incompatible with SkyQ so I’ve tweeked some of the BT Router settings following remarks in a forum dealing with this subject. This worked for a while but then reverted back. Have checked on a Sky Forum and some people have a similar problem with their Sky Router so i don’t know who to believe. Was going to go all Sky for compatibility but that seems to knock that solution on the head or go all BT but many of the TV channels are not catered for by BT so would need freeview and thats a nono as don’t have an ariel and don’t want one. T least all my other devices, 2x iMacs, 2x iPads, 2 x iPhones, 1 x Macbook, Hive heating, Yale Security, Ring Video Doorbell and Echo Dot all have good wifi connection.

  22. “…What I hadn’t quite appreciated through not reading the T’s and C’s properly when I signed up was that I had signed up to a 12-month phone contract and an 18-month broadband contract. …”
    This is the crucial element of your blog post. Where is the contract and where did you actually, physically, put pen to paper and sign anything?
    All that is agreed is some vague services over the phone. Invariably one doesn’t even get an email outlining the contract, the services to be provided and the costs.
    I never did in all of the 20 odd years I’ve been a BT customer.
    They are the worst company in the world to deal with and you know that as soon as you think you’ve agreed something with them they’ll go and change it to something else that you don’t want.
    I’m not changing because I can’t afford to lose my broadband for weeks on end while I switch and heaven knows I could end up with something worse.
    Ho Hum!

  23. I have had a nightmare with bt, we signed up for services to start as we moved house just before Christmas 2020. We were told that we could take our existing landline from our old house to the new house. But after 3 weeks of being in the new house we were told we couldn’t do this as in a different exchange area. So got a new number. Then found out we were being charged for our email, which shouldn’t happen as have bt broadband again. On 5th Feb our whole service with BT, landline, broadband and TV was switched off after asking that we were not charged for emails. It took 3 weeks to get everything back on even though BT admitted it was their error. In the interim they sent us 2 mini hubs as the first one didn’t work. Completely unreliable for working from home as the signal dropped out constantly. As of today, after some compensation. I am still being incorrectly charged, they couldn’t reinstate the original offer we signed up for so are having to be billed and then compensated. But this hasnt worked out as they have taken more than was compensated which doesn’t match the offer signed up for. We are supposed to be able to add and remove items to our package but I can’t access this, as there is an open order for the mini hubs which won’t close down. I no longer need these mini hubs and want to return them to BT but their systems arent having it. I was billed on 6th march, which is due for collection on14th march but am being told I haven’t paid my bill and need to sort it out, even though the bill says it will be collected on14th, we haven’t reached this date yet!! I have spent over 20hours on the phone trying to sort this all out. Someone is supposed to be calling me back on Friday but has told me he keeps getting in trouble for doing call backs to sort out customer problems, as they only want their staff to take incoming calls. I’m done with BT, I’m not a well person and this is adding to my health issues. I think my contract date was moved to restarting on 25th Feb once everything was back on not 21st Dec when I originally signed up but no one can definitively tell me.I want to leave due to how we have been treated but am trapped. What can I do?

  24. I was a BT customer about 6 years ago, moved into a new build house which had nothing previously installed. I was with sky but then changed to BT because I was sick of the crappy service I was getting. BT was just as bad, they promised a certain speed I think it was around 20mps (but along time ago so can’t remember exact figure), what I was getting was 2-6mps. It was awful couldn’t really do anything with it, streaming services were very grainy if they loaded at all, my daughter struggled to do homework as Internet was so slow to load it was a nightmare. I complained so many times to always be told everything is fine with the line. After about 10 phone calls they told me they could send out an engineer but I’d it was my fault I’d have to pay £60 for the visit. This scared me so I refused the visit as was worried it might be something my end and couldn’t afford £60. The problems continued in the end I rang up and told them I was so unhappy with it I wanted to change as I was getting the speeds they said I would. They told me I would have a fee for cancelling as I was only a few months into my contract. That fee was £600. I felt I had no choice as I just wanted better Internet but I told them they could send a bill but I wouldn’t be paying it as they provided a substandard service. I cancelled and change supplier. They sent me a bill (which I ignored for a long time) eventually it went to debt collecting agency and I had to set up a payment plan. I offered them £1 a week awhich they accepted and I’m only halfway through paying it off 6 years later! I went through several different companies for my internet and ended up having several by engineers out to the house. They always say the same thing we’ve changed the ports and cables at the cabinet and that should have fixed it. It always did for a bout a week and then it would start to become really bad again I gave up. Then we finally got fibre installing in the village and I switched over to it. We had a slight speed improvement, although they promised a speed of 68mps I still only get about 15-30mps and a very unstable line drops and picks up all the time and sometimes doesn’t work at all or kicks our devices off it. Never had any explanation until I had another engineer out (number 6 altogether) who told me they shouldn’t have sold you fibre as yes there is fibre cables but they stop at the street and the cable from the street to your property is actually old copper cable this will be having a massive affect on your problem and also you are quite far from the exchange so this will also be causing problems. He went on to tell me BT won’t pay out for new cables as they don’t want to do it. However, now 47 new houses have been built across the road from me so I’m hoping at some point soon this will change.

    I’m still really annoyed about having to pay £600 cancellation fee for a substandard service. Which I had more knowledge at the time so I didn’t have to pay.

  25. I asked BT to add sky sports to my BT, it was quick and easy, but I was told nothing. Next thing I had half of other sky channels that I did not want, plus lost channels that I already had. Finally I had had enough of BT and was going to sky. I then received a email from BT wanting a cancellation fee of £835.70. Because I was not going to pay I have been forced to stay with BT although it’s their fault that I wanted to leave. I would never advise anybody to use BT

  26. I switched to BT in September 2020 with a nightmare. I was given an activation date and it took them as they were nearly one week late in activating my connection as result I have £120.00 compensation.

    Yesterday I have discovered BT has breached the contract by lowering my BT internet speed, So I have complaint about it, but are charging same amount. If I fail then I will asked for deadlock letter, so I can complaint to Ofcom and get out my contract.

  27. Stay away from BT! They sneakily upgrade the length of your contract. I began with an 18 month broadband contract and they changed it to a 24 month contract 4 months before the original had expired! Now I’m getting hit with a cancellation fee of £150 and they are stubbornly refusing to reduce or wave the fee. Advise anybody you know to quit BT as soon as their contract ends, when BT starts losing too many customers then hopefully they will start to become a legitimate business instead of running a scam

  28. I signed up to bt on 6th Dec, after being with sky for 16year. They promised better Internet and would be cheaper than sky. I also was afferent 3 months free as a black Friday deal ! This never happened ! They later said it was broadband free only! I was giving 2 week cooling off if it was rubbish promised. So I set my box up on 6th Dec and I can’t receive most channels. I am nightshift so need to try this again on my night off. My day off I spend 2 hours on phone to advisers. Problem does not get solved after I tell them the fault code on screen. I eventually ask to cancel the whole thing within my cooling off period. I end up with an engineer visit and a manger who will follow this complant and ring me after engineer visit. Engineer did not arrive and I had 1 ring on my phone and it rang off ! The manager !! I rang them back after weekend as the manager was off. I told them they 24hrs to get it sorted as we had no TV otherwise j wanted out !! They promised they would if not I could leave. Now after many phone calls it turns out I needed a tv ariel !! I am being told I should have known this !! Howbshould I have known when their own advisers didn’t even know what the fault was !! Next date for an ariel fitted was over a month away. I ask to cancel again to be told we will get this resolved. Now I’ve been told they will cancel tv but not broadband and I owe them the contract money from a very rude manager who I only spoke to once, and unflattering of rhe nightmare I’ve had dealing with them ! I’ve asked for deadlock letter and I won’t drop this ! Anyone else had this from Nov 28th 2021. I was originally sold this via ee.

  29. I am having terrible issues with BT. I am disabled, I have pretty bad fibro fog/ memory issues, mental health issues too and they are caving my mind in. Moved house and had no Internet for 12 days due to a fault on their end. I was told I would be compensated for the days I had no internet. Which when on phone talking to them the guy said it amounts to around £90+ , (so next few bills) I was also told they would wave the £9.99 connection fee as I wasn’t connected for so long. Complaints I made were closed by them once I got connected. Next bill comes in almost double what I usually pay, they fobbed me off with reasons why it was larger bill. cr what they said now. They said compensation wouldn’t be until 30 days after the fault was fixed. Now I have email from them saying – We’re sorry we didn’t fix your service within two working days of you telling us about it.
    We’ve added a £9.33 credit to your next bill to try and make up for it.
    Absolute farce. 2day? 12 days more like. And they still haven’t deducted the £9.99 connection charge. I also have been complaining for a long time in my previous home about slow speeds even though I am supposed to have fast speeds. Now I am complaining to them about same issues here at my new home. It says signal strength is excellent but when streaming the little circle spins for ages before programs come on, sometimes you can only hear sound for few mins before picture comes through. Sometimes disconnects saying check your connections. just Loads of buffering. I have full fibre and live in a 1 bed bungalow. I really want to leave BT, I told them i would be cancelling because I am fed up with them but because I moved home mid contract they started me off again for another 2 year contract when I moved. I can’t help feeling they taking advantage of my mental health/disabilities.

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