Posted: 06th Jul, 2009 By: MarkJ
Customers that attempt to cancel BT's Total Broadband service without requesting migration to another ISP will be forced to stump up £25, regardless of whether or not they're still inside of the original contract period. In addition this fee has recently been increased from £18.11.
However
Cease Charges are nothing new in the UK ISP market, though most providers will only apply them when a customer leaves while still inside of an existing contract. Some ISPs also call these
Leaving or
Exit Charges, which effectively defers the cost of a new activation until the customer cancels.
PC Pro notes that the cost will not apply if you're moving house into an area where their service cannot be provided. Curious then that BT should claim the cost to be a "
technical" charge incurred when the correct migration process isn't used.
Regardless, many ISPs do operate similar penalty style schemes, though they only tend to tell you about them from deep within the bowls of small print. In our opinion such charges should be stated within the standard package details for all ISPs, thus allowing consumers to better compare and contrast the pro's and con's of different providers.
UPDATE - 8th July:PC Pro has now posted a list of other ISPs and exit fees:
1. Tiscali - £40
2. Pipex - £40
3. Nildram - £40
4. BT - £25
5. Virgin - £23.50
6. Plusnet - £20
7. Madasafish - £20
8. O2 - £15
9= Sky - no fee
9= Zen - no fee
9= Freedom2surf - no fee