www.iva.co.uk

Has anyone successfully obtained a new broadband contract whilst in an IVA?

I have just had the shock of my home telephone and broadband bill going up to £45.70 per month and looking at whether it is worth cancelling with BT and taking advantage of one of their new customer offers but I don't want to cancel to then be told I can't have another contract with them! I hardly ever use the landline but obviously need it for broadband and unfortunately all the cheaper offers for fibre optic broadband or sky broadband aren't available on my exchange so penalised with slow broadband AND higher prices which seems incredibly unfair. I certainly can't afford to pay £45.70 per month (its increased by almost £20 per month!)

My BT bills shot up as well so I'm curious as well. If the new company does a credit check it would be a NO NO. Any answers appreciated.

I'm in an area that is lucky enough to get full fibre optic connectivity to the home (FTTH). I was with Sky but elected to back to BT to get the enhanced service. BT did run a credit check but I was able to have the service. As a tip, I did elect to pay the line rental for a year up front (£100ish), which may have improved out chances

Wish fibre would come to my area quickly, Sky said they would probably come to the area when the fibre switch is done. Only have option of talk talk, plusnet or BT and heard horrors about talk talk but yet a fraction of the price. £45 per month seems a ridiculous amount to pay for a service that is so slow and so unfair to be penalised for not being in a fibre area when those customers seem to get a better price for a better service.

Feeling very nervous about my upcoming first review now, had so many notices in the last month or so about price increases for EVERYTHING, only natural I know but not helpful when in an IVA. Water, Council Tax, Gas and Electricity, Mortgage, Insurance, Pet Insurance and vets fees have all increased and I'm panicking about my IVA payment being increased, especially as my home and mobile phone, sky and broadband will now be increasing to in excess of £120 per month which is far more than is allowed and being in the IVA makes it very difficult to move to better deals.

I am fortunate to have had a small pay rise from my main job but with increases like sky and telephone/broadband unlikely to be allowed as over guidelines my payment is bound to increase. on the other hand its slightly unfortunate that I am not getting the overtime from my second job now though so all of money from that goes straight to the IVA and I don't have the benefit of keeping part of any overtime earned to help. Oh well, its my own fault for being in this position but just needed a little rant

HI Lisa

Don't know if this helps but we have changed our car and house insurance to Swinton while in IVA, they did ask if we had every been made bankrupt but nothing about insolvent.

I changed from Virgin to BT (phone line and Broadband) without any trouble.

I changed to Sky whilst in an IVA. I would like to try fibre optic, for those who have it, is there lots of difference?

Call them and ask in a completely innocent kind of way "When is my contract period up please?"

They look and usually ask why you are asking. Just the usual shopping around as the price has gone up reply SHOULD get a good responce from them and a possible reduction in the bill. They usually dont let you concel and come back as a new customer, and if you do, there will be a BIG delay on the broadband as you need a migration code to swftly move from one supplier to another

Give that a try and see if they reduce your bill

I finally got Fiber Optic with BT when my wife and I moved. 6 meg on notmal broadband and clocking 60 meg download 20 meg upload speeds now. MASSIVE difference, especially for gaming, netflix, now TV etc

It is something I may consider in the future so long as you experience a difference, don't like things that are hyped up to be great and turn out to be very similar to the original. x

Look, just be more upfront about it, but in a nice way. Get the Talk Talk, Sky and Virgin prices (even if you can't get the service) and ring BT and thank them for the quote, but you can't commit to another year because the prices are uncompetitive to what else is in the market place. As soon as you drop in the prices that are around they will make you a better offer. Then push them on that offer...and if not happy, then, say you will think about it.

Then tweet their customer care address and ask why they are so expensive for loyal customers, they will send you a link to give them more details and will in all probability come back with a much better deal.

The Twitter response from them is usually very good and I've had cause to go back and thank them for their help.

BT have to be pushed to be good...if you leave them to their own way of working they are shockingly bad.

font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:<hr height="1" noshade>Originally posted by lesley_

I changed to Sky whilst in an IVA. I would like to try fibre optic, for those who have it, is there lots of difference?

I have 300Mb down 30Mb up (Fibre Optic) its brilliant for us in a house full of Netflix and heavy Internet users (two adults and two teenagers). I really couldn't imagine going back to old fashioned ADSL!

For what it's worth I've not seen a credit check or entry for my broadband. The bigest risk would be calls, but these can be capped, limiting the risk

I'd take a look at plusnet, they are one of the better cheaper suppliers.

Martin

Plusnet are part of BT.

Indeed but I find them to be better than BT customer service wise. I tend to recommend A&A if you can afford it (they are expensive but best CS) or plusnet (CS is ok, offerings very competitive most of time)

Martin