BT Cancellation Charge and Idiotic Policy

Question

A complaint about BT and their cancellation fees!
I am moving house at the end of February and need to cancel my BT Total Broadband service and BT land line. I am on an 18 month contract with 14 months left to run, so I understand as per their terms and conditions there will be a charge for ending the contract early.
I was advised by BT home moving services, that as I was moving in with my parents, who already have an existing BT landline but no broadband with BT, I would be able to transfer the remainder of my 14 month phone and broadband package to their address and not have to pay a cancellation fee.
My parents would take over the remainder of my contract at their address. My parents are not under any contract terms with BT, they simply pay line rental. So all that would happen is my parents would now have BT total broadband supplied via their existing BT landline and they would continue to pay BT line rental, simple?? NO!! BT Customer Services advised me that during the transfer of my package to parents address, a new telephone number would be assigned to my parents. This is not what they want, they just want to add broadband and BT said we could transfer my contract over. Simply to add BT broadband at their address.
They do not want or require a NEW BT landline number, they have a BT land line number already. For a start my Step dad works from home and cannot spend weeks chasing everyone up telling them of his new number, secondly they don't want to run the risk of being allocated an 'old' number that might have been some 24 hour mini cab firm etc. So because BT cannot guarantee my parents would be able to keep their existing land line number, my folks are having to sign up for BT broadband as new customers and I cannot transfer my existing 14 month broadband and phone package to their address and must now pay a £196 early cancellation fee.
As I plan on only staying at my parents for a few months installing a second line was not an option either.
Totally incompetent service from BT. The reason given to me was that BT and Openreach are two different organisations and as part of the transfer process of a package to another address a new phone number is always assigned by Openreach. Why can they simply not just assign the BT number that is ALREADY IN USE at my parents address to the new package?
All BT had to do was ensure my parents could keep their old BT landline number. So now BT are going to get more bad press as I now blog all about them. What happened to common sense?  I feel BT.com and BT Openreach need a lesson in customer service and efficiency.
Blog: http://blog.halftermdates.co.uk
Website: http://www.halftermdates.co.uk

Answer 1

 HA HA, you make me laugh BT you really do. I'm closing my account on Monday, you know I'm doing that! Give up, i'm off never to return. Seriously BT you really do need to get your departments to talk to each other. You know, left hand right hand.
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Blog: http://blog.halftermdates.co.uk
Website: http://www.halftermdates.co.uk