Unexpected £70 Cancellation Charge from BT

[krupatel]

Hi all,

Just want to share some info and maybe get a better understanding of what I'm being charged for:

I had a new line provisioned by BT on Option 1. Within a month I asked Sky to take over the line and rental. This week I received a Final Bill with a £70 cancellation charge from BT in respect of Option 1. Having spoken to them and then read the T&Cs I can see this is affective from lines provisioned from 1st May 07. (Note the current terms and conditions came into effect from 1 October 2007, I moved to Sky in August).

Has any one else been suprised with such charges? Anyway to avoid the charge? Should I find the original T&Cs to check the same charge is present?

Thanks

Link to T&Cs:

BT.com | Personal | Terms & Conditions

[Heinz]

You signed up for a 12 month contract and broke it. £70 is a cheap get-out (they could have made you pay the remaining monthly charges in full).

BTW, handing over your line rental to another firm is not a good idea for a number of reasons. One is that, although (I think) you'll now be saving 50p/month by handing over your line rental to Sky, it'll take you 11 years 8 months to 'recover' that £70.

Among the other reasons are the likely inability to access cheap call providers like 1899, 18185 and 18866 and having to pay Sky's rates for 084/087 calls (which are BT's un-discounted rates which almost no-one pays now).

IMHO, leaving your line rental with BT and using Sky as your CPS calls provider would have been better.