Termination Charges BTTV

[keithplympton]

Although I only took out my 24 month contract in June I yesterday - 19th Nov - contacted BT to cancel the TV and Entertainment part. This leaves me with telephone and broadband.

I have had the basic Entertainment pack of Now TV at £9.99 and Netflix at £6.99, paying £17 a month.

Margot, who I spoke with, was very pleasant and organised this for me, however I have been told in an email that: “charges for ending your contract early — because you're stopping your service before the end of your contract, you'll need to pay about £213.05 for the months you've got left”

Why is this? I have given 30 days notice, so I am abiding by the 30 day rule for stopping both Now and Netflix, so I won’t owe anything to them.

I will also be returning the box once BT sends me the return packaging.

I have roughly 19 months left of the contract so this termination charge equals £11.22 a month. But for what exactly?

Can anyone advise please? Thank you.

[iniltous]

ETC are due because you have not kept to the terms of the contract , you may not have stopped all services , if you had , presumably the ETC would be greater, but this is not just a BT , or Telecom industry thing , it’s most business, if you had an energy deal with a provider on minimum term and quit early , even though that company hadn’t supplied gas and or electricity for the period , the fact is you committed to a deal and then elected not to see it out , the fact that the ‘product’ wasn’t supplied simply reduces the amount of the ETC to less than what the monthly figure x the number of months left would be, ‘stand alone’ Netflix and or Now TV can be cancelled with 30 days notice if out of minimum term , presumably you took these out as part of the 24 month deal

[rbz5416 · Accepted solution]

This is the peril of being forced to enter into a 24 month contract. People's circumstances can change making payment difficult to impossible & then find themselves in your position. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for these long contracts to exist for TV or broadband except to benefit the supplier.

But unfortunately you agreed to these T&Cs when signing up & the only saving grace is that you aren't being billed the full amount. The 30 day notice only applies outside of contract.

[keithplympton]

Thank you for your reply. I appreciate your help.

[StewM]

Hi @keithplympton this is from the Tariff Sheet 

My understanding, is that the ETF should have been given to you prior to the cancellation was done.

What will I be charged?

What you're charged depends on how long is left to run on your minimum contract period, factoring in any discounts you may have. The following steps are used to calculate the ETC:
 We take the remaining amount you were due to pay up to the end of the minimum commitment period
 We take off VAT
 We take off the costs we save (e.g. in payments to suppliers) as a result of you leaving early
 We give a 1% discount for early receipt of your payment
 We add VAT to the final ETC

Stew

[keithplympton]

Thank you, BT might have said the figure but the line was so bad I probably missed it.

To be honest the ETC makes me think it would be best to reverse my decision and stay with the BTTV part of the contract.

Guess i need to eat humble pie and ring up 150.

I appreciate all the help from everyone though.

Thank you.