Re: [LUG] OT BT contracts.....

On 28 December 2010 16:07, Henry Bremridge <henry.bremridge@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 10:33:03AM +0000, Dava wrote:
> Eion MacDonald wrote:
> >On 27/12/10 19:22, Dava wrote:
> >>I'm not good with words and my legal knowledge isn't good either...
> >>would anyone out there be willing to help me in canceling a BT contract
> >>before the finish date? My sister is with BT and she wishes she hadn't
> >>signed up to them, if only she had asked me first! P2P is completely
> >>unusable, i left a file going for over half an hour and it was stuck at
> >>0% and 0kB/s even with a huge seed to leecher ratio and downloading from
> >>50-103 peers. Its disgraceful!! Any ideas?
> >>
> >>Regards
> >>
> >>Dave
> >>
> >
> >1. Read the contract!
> >2. It will itself within the wording have an 'expiry clause' or 'expiry
> >date'
> >3. If these are set rigidly, i.e. "The minimum period of this contract
> >is 18 months from the starting date, which is XX/YY/20ZZ (or date of
> >signature"
> >4. Then you have a problem, as yes, you can cancel provide you pay the
> >full rental and contractual amount due to BT up to the date specified,
> >until fully paid they may not transfer the contract.
> >
> >5. Most contract for rent of services (e.g. ISP, phone, Car hire,
> >television hire, service contracts for servicemen's attendance)
> >deliberately estue any warranty on performance of service or service
> >quality level other than ' what a reasonable person would expect'.
> >
> >6. P2P is a contentions issue,as BT see it as the realm of the
> >potentially illegal and they to protect their own finances and avoid
> >being sued as accomplices in illegal activities will throttle all P2P
> >services.
> >
> >7 Unless your contract specifically allows P2P downloads/uploads you
> >may have a major problem with proving 'bad service' or "service below
> >the standards expected by a reasonable person", which as breach of
> >contract would allow you to cancel and obtain a rebate.
> >
> >8. BT contract wording is not my field, but the day job is vetting
> >contracts and accepting, negotiating modifications, or rejecting them on
> >behalf of an engineering company to minimise risk in engineering
> >construction , supply and service of oil rigs, petroleum refineries.
> >
> >9 You need to look for :
> >What level of service was promised ( did they say P2P was allowed?)
> >How long to expiry?
> >Event which could trigger expiry before time date?
> >
> >10. It may seem strange but why not try a registered letter to chairman
> >stating what you find objectionable in level of service and request how
> >to improve..
> >
> >This is necessary to set your 'line in the sand' if you going into an
> >opposed cancellation of a contract as it sets , date objections raised
> >and notified.
> >What you consider reasonable?
> >What you need,
> >
> >PS Did your sister keep any contemporaneous notes of her discussion
> >(telephone call) with BT for her ISP services? Did she say she would
> >want to use P2P? You need name of person at other end , date,time,
> >handwritten contemporaneous notes etc etc. OR was it done over internet
> >acceptance which does not allow any deviations from BT's standard
> >contract, as her 'click' to accept is deemed reasonable knowledge.
> >
> >PPS From this you will see the companies I advise never take part in
> >e-commerce bidding due to the 'click' of acceptance without recourse to
> >negotiate.
> >
> >For my background see www.lockgorm.co.uk
> Thanks for the info on this, im going to look into it today and see
> what i can do
>

Also try www.ofcom.org.uk

(A certain cynicism would argue that the reason for offering a discount for
1 years service - taking the contract price per month down from £13 to
£9.9+ is to allow BT to book revenue upfront. In which there is not a cat
in hecks chance they will refund)

--
Henry
Photocopies or faxes of my signature are not binding.
This email has been signed with an electronic signature in accordance with subsection 7(3) of the Electronic Communications Act 2000.
Digital Key Signature: GPG RSA 0xFB447AA1
Tue Dec 28 16:07:43 GMT 2010

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux)

iJwEAQECAAYFAk0aC1YACgkQrysVpvtEeqHwvAQAzhRzK82GqcnBUj+lPszj8Xvt
GzJT8wPp3cqNN1+b8MIuQ8HaVsUMU7HIjrOEFiZOQRCHI3rNa/eCT/BUPqjYLS8n
RDV7FSdg/oh4rasgtAeyQ0IyzkRy6M3It02OMEqtH0aMewarW55ALji5gUXCiFXm
4V7XxOqgm7CdrHXycfw=
=e79g
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--
The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG
http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list
FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq