Posted: 27th Apr, 2007 By: MarkJ
British Telecom (BT) has faced heavy criticism from a London judge after its engineers mistakenly cut off the broadband connections for '
Capital Fortune Mortgage Advisers' and then refused to reconnect them:
In a terse judgment, BT was ordered to pay costs to Capital Fortune Mortgage Advisers and the national telecoms provider was held to be in clear breach of contract.
The battle began some 11 days ago when incompetent BT engineers mistakenly cut off the award winning mortgage broker's broadband connections at its London service centre. The action caused the loss of thousands of pounds and left homeowners across the capital unable to complete their mortgages.
There were fears that BTs actions could push the company to the brink of bankruptcy, threatening legal action and costs if the London mortgage company did not back down.
The court, however, stepped in with an emergency injunction on Friday, ordering BT to reactivate the companys internet forthwith. BT immediately complied. Today, the national provider was reprimanded for its behaviour.
BT lawyers had earlier claimed it was physically impossible to reactivate the lines, only to back track later and claim that, by allowing BT customers to obtain an injunction, it would open the floodgates to customers using the courts.
Rob Killeen, founder of Capital Fortune, commented at the company's victory celebrations: We have achieved our first landmark ruling for consumer protection. BT has been reminded that it cannot abuse its dominant market position and, in the future, it will be forced to respond efficiently when customers report problems.
Regular readers will have seen similar behaviour from BT in the past, although it's been awhile since anything quite like this has cropped up.
Capital Fortune informs us that the full judgement will shortly be available from its website.