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Warning when moving - Don't trust BT. People great, systems terrible

AndrewGG — Sun, 13 Aug 2023 15:07:04 GMT

Just want to post my experience of moving with BT as it has not been good.

Wished to move service to new address in same postcode. Rang 5 weeks before move and very helpful person set up to move broadband and phone on day of move. However confirmation received with date 6 days later. Rang again and explained we were flexible on move date and helpful service agent booked date we could both work to. However again confirmation came through with different later date. This time I tried booking move date with on-line tool and established by making multiple date requests that there was a 6 week lead time on moves. So booked for earliest date available and moved 5 days earlier so had no internet or phone for a week.

One week after service restored, friend informed us our number was unobtainable. Checking revealed our number had not been transferred, we were on a new number. Worse whilst we had free calls service on old number, they were showing over £20 of charges on new number. Rang customer service (system said they were experiencing unusual call volumes and sorry for the delay - I was calling on a Sunday afternoon!). After long wait, a lovely lady in their Newcastle service centre rebooked the number transfer (the system sometimes forgets to do these!) and removed the charges.

Not over yet! Reviewing everything with her we discovered I had been put onto a 12month contract with early cancellation charges despite only needing the service for 6 month before we move abroad. After she had long discussion with her supervisor, she has given me a complaint ID and explained that changing things now would possibly result in the service being cut off but the issue was logged and I should provide the complaint ID when terminating service to avoid charges.

So I am left with the distinct impression that the people I have dealt with at BT are uniformly helpful and resourceful but the company cannot be trusted. There is a distinct bias toward over-charging and under delivering. Don't trust, check everything.

Re: Warning when moving - Don't trust BT. People great, systems terrible

NigelB72 — Sun, 13 Aug 2023 15:14:29 GMT

I had completely the opposite experience during our home move. About a week before we moved, I realised that I'd gave them the wrong house number so they amended the order, sent me a 4G box in case of an activation delay and actually completed the move on the original move day. Once we were connected, I then upgraded my service to 130mbps G-Fast

Re: Warning when moving - Don't trust BT. People great, systems terrible

iniltous — Sun, 13 Aug 2023 21:30:17 GMT

AFAIK, home moving starts a new minimum term , it doesn’t simply continue whatever remaining term you had at the previous address , if you were already outside a minimum term at the previous address , once the home mover is completed to the new address you can no longer leave penalty free ( with a 30 day notice ) as you could have done if still at the old address but not re contracted.

TBH , if you knew you would only be at the new address for a short while ,and didn’t want to be within any minimum term , you probably should have considered one of the very few providers than don’t require a minimum term , but they tend to be much more expensive per month and would have ( no doubt ) charged an ‘installation’ fee to cover their upfront costs, rather than amortising it over the minimum term which is what the companies that require a minimum term do.

Apart from these few niche providers that will take a new customer without a minimum term , if you had decided to use a different mainstream provider at the new address , that would almost certainly have come with a 12/24 minimum term anyway so having a new minimum term with BT is hardly a disadvantage in that respect , and at least , if using the home mover service as opposed to changing provider there are no BT early termination charges , assuming you were within a minimum term at the old address .