All I want is a replacement settop box - but forced to get digital voice?!

[DarrenDev]

Nothing happened without you being contacted first.  When your minimum term contract ended, you were contacted to encourage you to move to a new deal.  When the entertainment package changed, you were contacted with an offer to move to a different package.

It is interesting in one answer it is "You're paying for an entertainment extra package every month which doesn't give you access to a single piece of content anymore - just the right to have an EE TV account" and now "You're not paying for 'nothing', as you couldn't have the Sport add-on without a base TV package". 

This is correct - it doesn't give you access to any content itself ... just the ability to have the Sport add on.  Like I say, you were contacted to say better deals were available.  You chose to ignore it, and continue with what you had - as have many others.  Should we have ceased your service, instead of letting you carry on paying more?

Nothing can be "corrected" - I believe it should be possible to cancel your TV and Sport subscription without needing to recontract.  If you want to move to a different package, it'll be a new contract with the new terms.  You'll need to call to confirm.

[shamblesTB]

You: "Should we have ceased your service, instead of letting you carry on paying more?"

You earlier: "You're paying for an entertainment extra package every month which doesn't give you access to a single piece of content anymore"

So, using your information, BT ceased the service, and let the billing to continue. Thanks for self-illustrating a great example of the surreal nature of dealing with BT!

That has cost between £0 and £216.

No acknowledgement that its a bad situation, or stuff gets missed, or the comms might not be understood, it is the consumers fault, nothing to correct. You can see my thoughts on BT's policies and processes earlier. 

I specifically don't want to cancel TNT sport - but I don't think we should be paying for something you say no longer exists. I will call though on that and let you know what is said. 

[shamblesTB]

To move on, secondly... 

"The term "contract" here is being thrown around as though it means one thing. It refers here both to the service, and also the initial minimum term. You have a contract for service, but you're no longer within the minimum term, and thus automatically switched to the 30 day notice."

There are historic contracts/terms visible on BT.com ( https://www.bt.com/legalstuff/ )   - which contract are we under currently, is it possible to link to the correct one?

[DarrenDev]

No @shamblesTB - in order to continue with the Sport add-on you have, you needed to keep the entertainment base package.  The choices at the end of your fixed term were:

1. Cancel your entire TV package - including sport
2. Do nothing
3. Contact you and tell you of better packages

We chose option 3.  I'd understand you being annoyed if we'd defaulted to option 2.

If you don't want a 24 month contract, then you can take the Sport app-only subscription for £20 a month.  You won't receive a TV Box, and you'll only be able to watch TNT Sports in the discovery+ app.  If you want to take the new sports package, you'll receive a new TV Box, but will be required to commit to 24 months.

[shamblesTB]

I must have missed something as don't understand what is the "Entertainment Extra: £14.80/month" covering now?

You said before on it, "You're paying for an entertainment extra package every month which doesn't give you access to a single piece of content anymore".

Can you clarify as that sum has been taken and is covering 2nd October to 1st November, so is an active current payment for something right now... but what? 

[DarrenDev]

The best comparison I can think of is a mobile phone package @shamblesTB - it's not a great example, but the best way I can explain it.

You pay £10 for a mobile phone service, which includes 1GB data each month - but you never use mobile data.  You then pay an extra £5 on top, to add 1000 roaming minutes - you only use your mobile for roaming calls.

At the end of your 24 month contract, your mobile service continues and you continue to pay £15 a month but the mobile package you were on removes the included data.  You're contacted to say the data is being removed, and it includes the recommendation that you move to one of the new packages ... but you don't use the data, so don't care that it's no longer available.

You still need to pay for the service - even though it doesn't include the data - to get access to the roaming minutes. You can't just have roaming minutes without a service to have them on.

So your options now are:

• Continue with the package that you're not getting great value on, but remain out of minimum-term contract.
• Switch to a new 24 month package that includes international roaming as standard, for less than you were paying before.

[shamblesTB]

So in essence I am paying the now defunct £14.80 "Entertainment Extra" fee to allow the £18.88 a month TNT Sports Pack to be active? 

[DarrenDev]

Yes. Exactly that. Not value for money at all, which is why it was recommended last year that you switch.

[shamblesTB]

BT currently reporting a 20min wait time, some say high call volumes, other say not enough staff. 

On a plus point I know the Miley Cyrus song word for word now as the hold music is on a short loop. 

[Midnight_Voice]

@shamblesTB 

If I’m reading all this correctly, it enables you to subscribe to the Sports package; at the time you took it out, Sports wasn't available on its own.

But even though it now is, you declined to change anything, which left BT unable to unilaterally alter what you were getting, and with no choice but to roll you on, on the existing deal you had contracted for.

Now you won’t change because change involves going DV; which you won’t do, but won’t say why not.

While @DarrenDev ‘s ‘no difference’ is a little wide of the mark (contrast DV’s behaviour during a power cut with POTS) there are battery backup options if you can’t use or don’t have a mobile at the time.

Certainly, when we went DV - moving to a new housing estate where there simply is no copper back to the exchange as POTS demands - BT gave us an adaptor for our existing non-DV phones, and even lent (gave?) us a DV handset when those played up a bit.

We haven’t asked for battery backup as we have mobiles, but we could have, if it had been an issue.