A woman who failed to read the fine print of a ’60 page’ document has been charged £1000 by her broadband provider.
What 54-year-old Joanne Batty thought would be a £65 job turned into a hefty investment as she came to the end of a two-year broadband and landline phone contract.
The HR firm manager called the company to renegotiate the end of her agreement, hoping to carry on as she was – with three landline handsets.
But Ms Batty claimed she was told she’d need to swap her three landlines, for a newer updated cloud-based model with three new handsets.
What followed was a document ‘around 60 pages long’ being sent to her door which the unassuming customer described as ‘not user friendly’.
Keen to get on with her work and citing ‘missed phone calls’, Ms Batty admitted she did not read the document all the way through before signing it.
Though she claimed a customer service arrangement had told her prior to signing the cost would be £65 per handset, including installation.
It turned out this figure was actually £150 per handset, plus £150 installation fees.
What 54-year-old Joanne Batty (pictured) thought would be a £65 job turned into a hefty fix as she came to the end of a two-year broadband and landline phone contract
When the new service failed to work, engineers were sent to her house on two separate occasions to try and fix the problem – incurring another £150 per visit.
Again, it didn’t work and went a third more senior engineer was called upon for another £150, they left without fixing the problem.
It comes as Ms Batty hadn’t noticed the £150 fees in the contract she had signed.
Six months of back and forth saw a culmination of close to £1000 worth of engineer visit fees, installation fees, monthly costs, and ‘threats’.
A fed up Ms Batty decided to email the managing director of her provider, within 24 hours receiving a call from the CEO who agreed to wipe all charges and pay compensation of around £100.
Her new service was then fixed ‘within 20 minutes’ after it was remotely set up.
But the manager maintained the stress had been sky high and she missed out on business during the time her phones were not working.
The Leeds local said, according to a Sun report: ‘I suppose not reading the terms and conditions didn’t help but the document was so un-user-friendly.
Ms Batty was informed her broadband and landline would be cut off if she didn’t pay the hefty £1,000 bill (file image)
‘They kept saying I’d signed it so I had to follow it through.
‘The contract was very long and excessive and repetitive.’
Ms Batty was informed her broadband and landline would be cut off if she didn’t pay the hefty £1,000 bill.
Her situation was eventually resolved in December 2024 and she has now teamed up with Adobe Acrobat to argue AI can simplify complex small print in contracts.
