Hi,

I'm about to move into my first home and I've been shopping around for a good broadband and home phone deal and have decided for various reasons to go with Talk Talk. The flat I've bought doesn't have any existing phone-line in it. I realised I'd have to get a BT engineer out to put in a line for me, as I've been told that they are the only people authorised to put a new line in, (btw, is this true - are BT the only ones allowed to install a new BT line?) as they own the telephone exchange. I understand that the installation of a new line costs £124.99. It's a bit on the expensive side, but I accept that a telephone engineer is a specialist job and that there are the obvious basic costs of cables and sockets which need to be covered.

However, the cost which I am finding it difficult to swallow is the £70 fee for taking out a call plan with BT (which you are forced to sign up for when BT install a line for you) just to cancel straight away. I don't want a call plan with BT - I simply want them to install a line - so why should I have to pay to cancel a contract for a BT call plan that I don't want in the first place? Can they legally do this?

If BT have the monopoly on installing new phone-lines in properties, the competition commission should really be looking at this unfair advantage they have for forcing people to take out one of their contracts, especially if, like me, they don't want to, but are still being forced to pay £70 for the privilege of cancelling it!

Has anyone come across this same problem, or know of a way of getting around it?

Thanks,

Cat

I've read through the link 'page' below and as far as I can see you could have/can go for the first option which is free while I think you are talking about the third one that comes out to about £70. Why don't you double check it and if I'm right go for that/cancel if you're within the cancellation period/complain if you feel you've been missold asking for a copy of the phone call if you signed up that way? I must say that I think it's a disgrace that BT are using inertia selling saying they'll sign customers up at the end of each twelve months for another twelve months unless the customer says no.

http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayCategory.do?categoryId=CON-TOG-OPT-R1

Cat,

As a first time buyer you have now discovered the virtual monopoly that the dinosaur BT still manages to cling onto. After years of being ripped off by BT and watching them make outrageous profits, I finally got rid of them, replacing them with Bulldog. Off course they still own the exchanges, and they charge any 'independent' telco's a rent, so they still get paid.

There is light at the end of the tunnel, since it's only a matter of time before a wireless service is made available which will make hardwire connections to houses obsolete, and hopefully will bring about the end to this ex-state monopoly.

drumster:

I've read through the link 'page' below and as far as I can see you could have/can go for the first option which is free while I think you are talking about the third one that comes out to about £70. Why don't you double check it and if I'm right go for that/cancel if you're within the cancellation period/complain if you feel you've been missold asking for a copy of the phone call if you signed up that way? I must say that I think it's a disgrace that BT are using inertia selling saying they'll sign customers up at the end of each twelve months for another twelve months unless the customer says no.

http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayCategory.do?categoryId=CON-TOG-OPT-R1

The auto renewal after each 12 months only applies if you take the special offer. The standard contract is 12 months, then one month notice.

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Circumstances alters cases!!

It is BT Openreach who physically install lines. Any Teleco can approach them to install a new line, The Post Office, Plusnet, Madasafish, BT, The Phone Co-op are just a few. Those that could but won't include Talktalk who prefer to get the customer to pay someone else to do the dirty work. Understandably BT and the like are not going to go to the trouble of arranging a new connection only for the customer to say "thanks for that, I'm off to Talktalk now" hence the need for minimum contracts.
If you want Talktalk then get them to install your line, there's nothing stopping them other than greed.

Fnarr has beaten me to it. It is Carphone Warehouse you should be having an argument with, not BT. But by the tenor of your initial post it does seem their deceptiveness works - you are expressing anger with BT, not Talk Talk.