Hi

Im trying to cancel BT but they wont let me as per the title. Basically I rang on Saturday requesting a new line as we are moving from Telewest to Sky. That all went through fine and they took the £50 deposit and all was ok.

The BT line was due to start today at 6am, it hasnt and is still not active now. After speaking to Sky and realising that we are going to have problems with Sky Broadband due to location we have decided to stick with Telewest.

I checked BT and as long as the line is not active and that they do not provide any service to me i can cancel without charge. I rang and after 40 minutes on phone and being transfered twice they are basically saying that i cannot cancel without charge as the service will be provided within the next 24 hours and therefore they cannot cancel it. They admitted that they are not providing my services yet but as its on their system as going on within the next 24 hours the work is done and that is tough. I can still get out of it by giving them 3 months line rental plus a £13 charge.

Can they do this? I know they can if i have the line but i dont at the moment as they admitted!!

Well if you have the proof that it says if the line is not been supplied yet you can cancel free of charge then I don't see why not. They are probably just chancing their arm or they don't know their conditions or small print which sometimes customer service folk don't have a clue. I would give them another call but think they close at 8pm sorry.

It's a little unfair to put companies to expense setting up equipment for you only for you to cancel, you should give them a reasonable period of time. It costs them to set up all these things.

The long and short of it is no, BT cannot refuse to cancel an order and refund a deposit.

That would drop them in it big style under the distance selling directive.

Not if the service is already connected or work has been carried out to connect the service.

BT will try anything there a horrible company

As I have already said the line was not connected, they didnt need to do any work as the line was already installed and they just needed to switch it on according to them. I cancelled before they provided me their service, as they state in their terms and conditions you are able to do. If they had of said that you cannot cancel it 24 hours before then thats fine but they dont.

But the service was not connected when the OP called to cancel.

Under the DSD BT advisors should be telling customer "You have the right to cancel, at no charge, up until the point in time the service is connected."

It doesn't matter if any costs have been incurred by BT, as long as the request of cancellation is placed before the service is supplied.

Exactly right. The person who took the money on the phone even told me the day and time that the line would be activated and said that if i wanted to cancel and not incur any charges then i must do so before that time. I did and amazingly they said that they have 24 hour window.

Sent them an email and got a pretty quick response. They have actioned the cancellation and will "attempt to avoid any charges for myself".