We've just got the letter from BT that they are increasing our broadband and telephone costs soon. Without going into detail, we are paying over the odds with them anyhow as they automatically renewed our 12 month contract when we moved house back in September and put us on the full whack contract price, seeing our bills go from £40 a month to £65. Their customer services are also the worst I've ever had to deal with and we can't wait to leave them.
I've heard that you can leave your contract mid-term if the supplier increases costs, so long as you notify them within 30 days of them making contact.
We've checked out some deals and we can get a similar package with Sky for less than half the price we are paying now (12 month contract).
The only problem is, the Sky package is regular ADSL broadband rather than the 50 meg fibre we have now. To be honest, I think we can get by without fibre as nobody in the household plays games and we only watch streaming services occasionally, but need to clarify this.
A couple of questions for the hive mind;
Has anyone left BT because of an increase in price? How easy was the whole process (I'm guessing long waiting times on the phone with people from central Asia)?
Is Sky's regular ADSL package fast enough for the occasional streaming of Netflix at HD resolution (not 4k)?
There seems to be big increases from major suppliers for both line rental and calls.
fwiw I found switching to Sky painless especially having moved home several times. They did everything they said they would in a timely manner.
BT were a nightmare to leave, I don't understand how they're still in business. Their call centre is the worst, staffed by halfwits and some struggle to understand English, let alone speak it clearly.
Just to add that Sky are increasing line rental by £2.50 per month and line rental by £1.59 per month, effective March.
For info their call charges are increasing, the worst increase is for daytime mobiles - from 11.5p per minute to 19.35p per minute.
BT were a nightmare to leave, I don't understand how they're still in business. Their call centre is the worst, staffed by halfwits and some struggle to understand English, let alone speak it clearly.
I can very well imagine this. Their call centre staff lie, don't log calls, hang up on you etc. Even worse than our brief but stressful experience dealing with Npower when we moved into a new house where they were the existing energy supplier.
I posted about similar the other day. My internet was going to £55 inc line rental. 15 mins on the phone got it to a better package for £33 a month all in (80mb fibre unlimited).
I dont use sky or watch much tv or use the phone line so didn't care about other bits.. but I think its free weekend calls
[quote=alexxx ]I posted about similar the other day. My internet was going to £55 inc line rental. 15 mins on the phone got it to a better package for £33 a month all in (80mb fibre unlimited).
Was that haggling for a better deal with your existing provider ? And was that BT or Sky ?
If your contract with BT ended and you are now effectively 'out of contract' then phone up, ask to be put through to the retention team and negotiate. I did this, binned out stuff we didn't need and with line rental, unlimited infinity broadband & evening & weekend calls (we pretty much never use the landline) got them down to under £35/month. FWIW - I spoke to a UK based customer service chap who couldn't have been more helpful.
I can very well imagine this. Their call centre staff lie, don't log calls, hang up on you etc. Even worse than our brief but stressful experience dealing with Npower when we moved into a new house where they were the existing energy supplier.
I was at screaming point so sent them a letter via recorded delivery stating that I was ready to commence the Small Claims Court process and they had seven days to resolve before the official paperwork was sent. It did the trick and I claimed the costs of mobile calls as reimbursement.
Ahhh.
From the sublime to the ridiculous.
Lesser of two evils, both have thier plus points but customer service always lets them down.
Sky broadband repairs schedule a 2 weeks delay, TV engineer a similar timeline.
I'm with BT and just told them because they were upping my price £2.50 a month and next month I'll be off the intro period that I was moving and he just offered that instantly.
I don't mind BT - they own the line and their retention team are fast.. support is dire if you need it but once the line is in it's normally ok.
£33.30 for 80mb unlimited fibre and line rental for 18 months is good tho! I'd go with plusnet if you hate BT as Sky are just as hellish if stuff goes wrong.. maybe worse
Personally I'd move to PlusNet. Yes they're owned by BT now but cheaper and customer service is way better.
Most people I know usually want to get away from Sky not move to them.
Their ADSL is also unbundled in some areas which means Sky own the equipment in the exchange, and that means changing to another provider can be more hassle and you may not get the same quality of connection either moving to them or if you left in the future. Fibre is another matter, not sure if Sky just use Openreach fibre or have their own.
I left BT mid way through my contract due to them increasing their prices. The chap on the phone said I still had x months left before I could switch but backed down immediately when I said I wanted to leave due to their price increase.
With sky are you still tied in to using their router?
Yes, same tied to router issue.
Sky supply is tosh, and I won't be using them again.
Are you *sure* you can get out mid contract?
Thanks for confirming
Regarding BT customer service their non UK call centres are truly appalling, we had an intermittent broadband and the call handler accused us having too many devices connected. Got so fed up with their lies I emailed the CEO of BT - CEOemail is your friend. What a difference that made, engineer at the house and an Executive Customer Care Team (based in Newcastle) on the case giving me updates on what they had done and what they were doing - everything now resolved
Sadly we live in a rural area so are pretty much restricted to BT
Whichever you are with, they are both pretty abysmal when it comes to customer service, unless they are trying to sell you something of course. We moved from BT 18 months ago after they spent 2 months and a dozen promises to fix our knackered internet. We moved to Sky, it was fixed within 24hours and was 3 times faster.
I have been with Sky for more than 20 years never had any problems. But most of all they sponsor pro cycling which I don't see many other companies rushing to do, so I'm happy to spend my hard earned with them.
On the other hand what the Murdoch empire is involved in... 😉
Anyway as for BT support, email is okay, but twitter is better.
When I was still billed by BT for the line, I ranted about some issue I was having on twitter and hadn't even '@bt' but just mentioned BT. Very quickly had a support guy contacting me and we had it sorted out soon after.
That said, with PlusNet, just go on the community forum and post up on there. Responses are from the support guys and they've always sorted out problems for me with no hassle. They've been like that since before BT buyout and after.
Anyway, nothing here is anywhere near as bad as Virgin.
I got the same deal as alexxx when our first 12 month contract came up, if you let them tie you in they'll knock a fair bit off. Got infinity 2 for less than we paid for infinity 1 last year and no letter so far.
We were with sky before, it was ok, not as fast and always went down on a Sunday night. The current options are no cheaper than were paying now, so I've stuck with BT.
I'll see if I can haggle a better deal with BT tomorrow then.
Spoke to BT retentions this morning and they matched the Sky deal to keep us. £240 a year saved.
BT sales/retentions seem to be completely random. Sounds like the OP got a good result. I managed to change my mother's broadband deal from one BT admitted was appalling to a good deal, all done online using their web chat. Tried to do something similar a week later to our own and was told I had to phone them; they wouldn't budge on prices unless I went on to a 2 year contract and even then the price was way worse than what they offer to new customers (and they wanted more for our 10mb service than my mother now pays for 70mb). I'm consequently in the process of moving to Plusnet. The whole process is even worse than insurance renewal.
Boom good work!