Hi Everyone!

Am hoping for some help regarding the following issue. My suspicion is that to go further would likely cost me more than I would recover so if that is the case just let me know. But hopefully someone in here will be able to give some advice to help.

Back in the summer of 2013 I took out a BT Sport subscription package. A couple of months later I got a job offer in a different town so I cancelled my Sky and BT Sport at my address knowing that I can get a good deal at the next place. In October I moved into the new property, booked Sky and BT Sport and everything was great.

However I was an idiot and didn't properly check that BT had cancelled my initial subscription. And hence it was only in February last year when I moved house again and went to cancel my BT Sport that I realised my account had 2 direct debits from BT Sport. This came to about £800.

I had noticed that I was being charged by BT Sport when checking my account but because the charges were around 15 days apart I never saw that it was being done twice a month. Also I did receive emails from BT about my account (& adverts for things) but it was only for one of the two accounts.

I raised this with BT and asked that the account that I had asked to be cancelled be refunded to me. They refused and offered me 1 month's charges as a good will gesture. Needless to say I was not happy with this.

I requested a SAR which they complied with. It showed the information for both accounts. Weirdly the first account was dated to have started on the 26th September (10 days before I was due to move and 10 days after I had put the deposit on the new lease). I explained to them that this could not be right due to the circumstances, but they said that's what their data said so it must be right. There was no information regarding me taking out either account, and the only correspondence in the SAR were the recent calls I'd made after I had found the mistake. To me it felt a lot like anything more than a year old was no longer on their system.

As they were not willing to go further I contacted the Ombudsman service about it. I have the full story if anyone is interested but to cut it short they saw 100% in favour with BT. The first response I was really unhappy with because they made a number of factual claims that were completely untrue (like they said I should have noticed because I was getting emails for both subscriptions which I was not and never said I was). But their point was basically that I should have noticed so BT are not doing anything wrong in not paying it back, and because BT have no record of the cancellation then I am not entitled to any refunds. They completely ignored everything about BT saying the account started after I knew I was moving and had cancelled the Sky subscription to which the card was linked.

So it feels to me now that I go small claims court. I'm happy to go into mediation as well. The problem is that I am worried that I will either have to hire a solicitor which will cost me more than I am looking to get back, or they will just use their solicitors to tie me in loops and then force me to pay their legal expenses.

So, worth pursuing? Or chalk this one up to a learning experience and curse the name of BT forevermore?

was this by DD?

was this by DD?

Yes

well surely the DD guarantee comes into play here?

go get all those payments back, there was no active DD for that contract