Happy BT outcomes bring festive cheer

Two Computeractive readers will have a little extra money to spend this Christmas after receiving good outcomes from BT. In Issue 513, we reported that Edmund Hobby wanted to cancel his broadband contract after BT moved him on to a more expensive deal without telling him. This broke one of Ofcom’s golden rules, introduced in 2012, that providers have to warn customers if they are to be moved to a new deal. You are given a 14-day cooling-off period to cancel without a penalty.

Also, providers must give you 30 days’ notice of any price increase. They can charge you should you decide to cancel your contract early, but not if the price rise is above the rate of inflation (which stands at 2.8 per cent: www.snipca.com/26298).

Even if the rise is below this rate, you can take your case to an ombudsman if you believe the increase will be ‘materially detrimental’ to you. This doesn’t just mean you’ll be worse off; it specifically means you won’t be able to afford necessities, such as rent, mortgage, utilities and food.

After approaching BT with this information, Edmund emailed us to say: “Within a very short time I received an offer of a very good deal. I should like to say thank you to Consumeractive”.

In the other case (see Issue 509) reader David Harrison wanted to cancel his BT TV contract because the set-top box was faulty. BT let him do this, and also said he could keep the box to access other channels, sparing him from having to buy another one.