Automatical renewal of 12 mth Contract!! Can BT do this?

[Emeye]

Nipped home at dinner to be greeted by a letter from BT.

I couldn't believe what I read.

They say that they will automatically put me onto another 12 months phone contract unless I tell them otherwise!! If I don't tell them by the 27th of Feb that I don't want them to do this, I will be stuck with them for another 12 months unless I pay £7.50 for every month left of the contract!!

This sounds crazy to me - what if the letter went missing in the post!?

Also the letter is worded and ordered in such a way that if you were not concentrating you could easily miss the very important fact that they will start a new 12 month contract for you.

I really can't believe this is allowed by law and I am so angry I'm going to phone them and tell them they can shove it up their arse as I'm about to move house anyway.

[Sixpackpert]

Erm, always been like this hasn't it. It's the terms of their contract isn't it?

I'm sure you'd be pissed off if your phone stopped working at the end of 12 months because you had forgotten to renew the contract.

Edited for speeling.

Edited by Sixpackpert on Tuesday 2nd February 15:23

[K87]

Seems like you're just causing a fuss over nothing!

They've given you 25 days to cancel if you want to so what the problem??

Surely it makes more sense for contracts to automatically renew unless you say as it saves you the hassle of renewing every year.

[ooo000ooo]

IIRC this is a new thing for BT but quite common for other service providers? With BT you would have previously had an initial contract for a set period of time and then after that could have cancelled with 7 days notice.

[Emeye]

Not really - I would have assumed the contract should go onto a month on month contract after 12 months, just like my mobile phone does, and my broadband etc etc

What boils my p1ss is the crafty way this is done - I'm sure plenty of people fall foul of this due to the clever way the letter is structured. Okay so people have to take responsibility for there own actions, but what really annoyed me is that after all the nicey nicey we're doing you a great favour BS, they tac on the end that if you don't call them to stop the renewal in time you are stuffed unless you pay then £7.50 for every month left of the minimum term - i.e. £90!! What if you were on holiday etc?

Edited by Emeye on Tuesday 2nd February 16:42

[ooo000ooo]

I know of one company that doesn't send any letters and just recontracts you for another 12/24 months unless you move your service elsewhere peior to renewal date.

[anonymous-user]

AFAIK, bt and the likes use a rolling contract system. So that way you dont need to keep ringing up and renewing things. Car insurance works the same way, tesco and aviva work this way, as do the post office, but you have to read the small print as this is perfectly legal

[bazking69]

Either walk or roll onto another 12 month contract.

It is that simple. They have even written you a letter giving you the option...

[Emeye]

I'm still not convinced by the sneaky way they do this, especially the £90 charge if you try to cancel after they have renewed the contract. There should be a cool down period like there was with the car insurance policy I just cancelled.

I also don't think there is any legal requirement for the supplier to inform you of their automatic renewal policy as I have been caught out by this before!

IMO the law is skewed too far in the suppliers' favour.

[K87]

Whats the problem though? They've given you plenty of time FFS!

[Emeye]

K87 said:

Whats the problem though? They've given you plenty of time FFS!

Read my last post again - I've explained the problem!

PLUS - I disagree with having to sit on a phone listening to some stty hold music for 10 minutes so that I can experience the pleasure of someone in an Indian call centre who cannot speak English wasting my time trying to persuade me to stay.

I also object to the fact that it was not made clear originally that the contract was a 12 month rolling contract.

I'm big enough and clever enough to sort these things out, but I have been caught out before so I fully expect many people get caught out too.

[onomatopoeia]

Emeye said:

Nipped home at dinner to be greeted by a letter from BT.

I couldn't believe what I read.

They say that they will automatically put me onto another 12 months phone contract unless I tell them otherwise!! If I don't tell them by the 27th of Feb that I don't want them to do this, I will be stuck with them for another 12 months unless I pay £7.50 for every month left of the contract!!

One of their options, for free evening and weekend calls for £10.50/month line rental requires you to agree to a 12 month rolling contract. It's the one I'm on, because I'm not going to another phone line operator and it's the cheapest line rental. At the time I took it out the free weekend calls option was also £10.50 but did not require the 12 month rolling contract.

It was explicit that the 12 month rolling contract was required at the time I took it out.

[Neil H]

Standard practice if they have your CC details or a direct debit. I got caught out by the AA last year, they sent an automatic renewal notice while I was out of the country for 3 weeks, when I got back I found another years membership had been taken. No amount of complaining got it refunded either, the fkers.

[Emeye]

Neil H said:

Standard practice if they have your CC details or a direct debit. I got caught out by the AA last year, they sent an automatic renewal notice while I was out of the country for 3 weeks, when I got back I found another years membership had been taken. No amount of complaining got it refunded either, the fkers.

I rest my case.......

[bazking69]

What's sneaky about it? They sent you a letter a while beforehand clearly outlining the terms and giving you the option to say 'no'...

[anonymous-user]

Its the first time I have heard that - maybe you are on a non-standard contract as others said.
I just switched my BT line rental to Sky after 20+ years - no problem at all. I recently started sending my calls to Sky - as rental cheaper & free evening calls start at 1800 (BT just changing theirs to 1900). BT then started to charge me for 'free services' such as £2.75 a month for caller display!. When I queried they said this was an incentive to send calls back to BT. I pointed out that it was an incentive to switch line to Sky too as caller diaplay is free of charge with them!. Goodbye BT. They then sent me a charmless letter saying that they would send me a final bill 14 days after line rental switches. If I do not pay immediately they wil pass my details to a debt collection agency (Thanks BT, I was never 1 day late paying a bill in that 20+ years!)..

[Jasandjules]

No, there is no acceptance of another contract by silence.

Therefore, they cannot simply engage you in a new contract.

Just write to them (don't spend ages on the telephone) and send it proof of posting and tell them to sod off, and if they do collect any DDs you can get them back.

[WorAl]

Stop moaning, write them a letter if you don't want to phone them, stating that you do not want to continue the contract. Send it recorded delivery, job done.

As mentioned above, it happens a lot, with many companies, insurance etc etc. I bet you'd be back on here twisting like a girl if they decided not to just go ahead and cut off your phone, then contact their complaints department, moaning that they are a bunch of useless s.