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Cancelling broadband early due to redundancy

ayronc — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 12:14:48 GMT

Hi, I'm in contract till July next year for broadband and I've just been made redundant. My employer has been paying my broadband (as I worked from home) which is very pricey at £51 p/m. I did not question the cost at the time of taking this contract as my work paid it so I wasn't really caring. I just called BT to see what my options were and was told if I cancel early I'll have to pay £250 and there was nothing they can do. I think this is a bit ruthless or is this fairly standard when you're cancelling early due to unforeseen financial circumstances. I was hoping they might be able to either put me on a cheaper contract or I would just cancel and go with another much cheaper supplier.

Re: Cancelling broadband early due to redundancy

imjolly — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 12:30:23 GMT

sorry but you have a fixed term contract and if you cancel before end of contract then yo have to pay cancellation charge . this is basically your remaining months of contract discounted for single payment - £250 sounds about right

if you have lost your job then maybe you can qualify here

https://www.bt.com/exp/broadband/home-essentials?s_cid=con_bt_dg-home_awin_aff_vidAJM_110483-Editorial+Content&vendorid=AJM&utm_source=Affwin&utm_medium=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bt.com%2Fexp%2Fbroadband%2Fhome-essentials&utm_campaign=110483&awc=3041_1645094835_8db5e34aa3189a1e2d1144312948112e

Re: Cancelling broadband early due to redundancy

chrisjp — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 13:12:21 GMT

£51/month is not really "very pricey". Most of us with FTTC are paying this sort of amount or more. The only exceptions are new customers who have not had a BT service before, who are offered deals at about half that price.
BT's commercial model is to persuade such new customers, at their contract renewal, to "upgrade" to Halo 3, which offers a few extra bells and whistles and this comes in at around £50/month.
I would imagine that you'll be wanting some sort of broadband service even though you've been made redundant, and £50/month isn't too bad a price.

Re: Cancelling broadband early due to redundancy

iniltous — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 14:07:11 GMT

I suppose a mistake was to have the bill in your name and your employer paid you to pay the bill , rather than the bill in the employers name and they paid it directly, if that were the case the ETC would be your employer responsibility.

As stated , your change in circumstances is unfortunate, but your electricity and gas , your water and council tax don’t make allowances, so it’s why you think your broadband supplier would be different .

The way your ETC is calculated, if it’s £250 ( when the monthly is around £50 ) you will have quite a few months remaining , it’s not simply 250 divided by 50 so 5 months remaining , after the deductions are taken into account you probably still have around 12 months left on your minimum term, as stated , presumably you still need broadband, and even if you could get the same broadband for around £35 , £15 a month more than necessary for 10-12 months , until you are outside the minimum term is better than £250 , when you still would have to get a broadband connection in .

If you now qualify for a social tariff ( if your unemployment gets you a qualifying benefit ) you may be able to transfer to ‘Essentials’