I remember last year (August to be precise) receiving a call from BT to say you're nearing the end of your contract and whether you'd like to re-new. Since I couldn't be bothered looking around for someone else, I said yes.

Tthis year I haven't received any notification whether by letter, telephone, or email.

I have a feeling this might be a deliberate ploy by BT not to give their customers a chance to switch.

Or, it they may not be doing it to perhaps save some money, it must cost quite a lot to keep a record of when customers contracts are at an end and then have staff ringing to check renewal, and, maybe they are relying on the customer to remember when their contract ends.

I sincerely doubt it'll cost that much for alerts to be shown to BT staff re. end contracts.

Maybe not for one person, but multiply that by how many other customers contract period is about to end and that cost soon mounts up.

Doubtful. Auto-renewing contracts haven't been allowed since the beginning of this year. If your contract has expired then you can switch whenever you like.

Thanks for the above (especially the bit about the banning of automatic renewals)

Hi, funny that this has come up so soon.

This link is something that I wrote a couple of weeks ago.

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1723524

Glad I'm not the only affected by their lack of comms, but follow what I have done and you should receive a refund of anything they may have overcharged

I thought it just becomes rolling one month? surely they don't put you on another 12/18?

Your contract is on going until you decide to leave / Switch.

You just have a minimum term to complete. Even then there is only way a get out clause

no company is going to write to you or call and say..'you are now free to leave penalty free, they may of course ring or write and offer some incentive to renew for another minimum term, BT only contacted people who were on the now outlawed auto renewing contracts, to give them a chance to say they didn't want to renew, although it had a bad press, the auto renewing contract did give a discount, so you did pay less than someone on the same plan, but wasn't on an auto renewing contract.

They are crafty crafty! Happened to me and until I got my bill in, I never realised they'd whacked £10 on it as I'd come out of certain reduced line rental contract after the 12 months were up!
Has its good and bad points

Have had nothing from them for 4 years they just run the service on. However this morning I suddenly found my broadband had become a BT wifi hotspot after 7 years of not being one - I presume as someone had turned something on without asking. I read that they can only do this when they renew a contract and soemone doesn't opt out, but they seem to have done it anyway.

Not true, as I just found out this afternoon. You now have to contact them each year to stay on a plan if it includes a discount, because the discount only lasts for 12 months.

No notification from them whatsoever that we (my father and I, with separate accounts) were no longer on renewable contracts because they were banned by Ofcom. No notification whatsoever that we would now need to contact them each year to continue to benefit from our discount. Previously, we would get a letter from them each year to remind us of the renewal, telling us we didn't have to do a thing if we wanted to stay on the plan, and that suited us perfectly.

The end result? A 76-yr-old pensioner is overcharged for 6 months (I was overcharged for 2 months). It would have been longer had he not had me to help him. Plus, there is no way in hell he is going to be able to remember to contact them each year. The very least they could do is send a yearly reminder to their elderly customers. Shame on BT.


If the overpayment is less than £10, they will only deduct it off your next bill, which means waiting another 3 months. If it's more than £10, they'll refund to your bank account (if paid via direct debit) within 5 working days - as is happening with my father.

Quote: "The end result? A 76-yr-old pensioner is overcharged for 6 months (I was overcharged for 2 months)."

Overcharged? You mean you paid the standard charge.

The contracts are like birthdays, the come around every year.

Which is an overpayment in both our cases. BT themselves have admitted this. They've even failed on both accounts to refund the overpayment within their promised five working days. Total shambles.


You must've missed the part where I said they used to send a letter reminding customers of the renewal, which said the customer did not need to do anything. Now they suddenly expect customers to contact them each year to keep their discount - but they don't bother telling the customer that? A change that crucial should be visible in the online account at the very least.

If someone offered me a discount for a specific period, I would make damn sure I would make a note and phone them at the end of the term!

what is the current contract agreement?? is it for 18 months or 24 ?? it does not say on my contract.

It wasn't sold quite like that though. It was sold as a specific plan at no extra cost, on a renewable 12 month contract, with correspondence saying - and I quote - "We'll write to you again the month before your new minimum term ends to let you know what to do". You can't say you're going to do something and then not honour it and expect the customer to know that you've made changes you haven't told them about. There is nothing in the customer's online account to say the plan has changed either! Are we supposed to be psychic? I wouldn't be surprised if other customers take the matter to Ofcom.

As for our accounts, it just went from bad to worse yesterday. Not only had we been told they hadn't actioned refunds, but they also hadn't renewed us back on that same plan, despite them telling us on the phone 8 days previously that they had! This was with both accounts. We were finally transferred through to a very helpful Scottish person, who used a different system to put us back on the plans, sent us emails to confirm it all, and gave us £3 off our line rental each month for the next 12 months as a form of compensation. I'm just glad it's all over. And yes, I have it diarised for next year now that I'm finally aware of their new procedures.