No agreement signed: am I obliged to pay for minimum term ?

J

jrewing

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I need broadband at home as I work from home, but unfortunately there was no supplier for fixed line or wireless BB in my location. After months of struggle with dial-up etc, I finally bit the bullet and went for expensive satellite broadband through Eircom. After a lot of difficulty (dealing with Eircom is a lot of hassle!), it was finally installed about 6 weeks ago.

Then Murphy's Law struck, and a wireless provider entered the area, providing a faster service, with higher capacity for less money....no-brainer. They installed their kit last week and it's great.

Now I went back to Eircom to get their kit removed, 6 weeks after installation. They have come back and told me I am in a 6 month minimum contract and will probably be billed for this time. I am arguing that I never received any correspondence from them regarding the broadband connection, and have not signed any agreement with them. Her insistence that the Terms and Conditions are on the website doesn't hold any water to my mind, as I was never refered to the website by any correspondence from Eircom.

To be honest, their handling of Sat BB is pretty terrible. It took 3 months to install, despite an initial quote of 28 days and it is near impossible to find anybody to discuss it on the phone. As I've signed no agreement with them, I don't think I am under any obligation to pay them for services not received. Am I correct ?
 
Most broadband providers sell online and you don't physically sign anything to be bound by the contract terms & conditions. I presume that this would apply here too. As far as I can see you have signed up to the agreement by entering into the purchase. The contractual issues are presumably separate from any service issues that you had?
 
And I ordered my UTV broadband via their website but am tied into their terms & conditions as far as I know. Note that a contract does not have to be signed for it to have legal standing and (if it came to it) a court would most likely find that there is an implied contract here by virtue of your ordering and receiving the service. Basically I don't think that you have a leg to stand on in terms of getting out of the minimum contract period. But check with ConsumerConnect if you think that you might have.
 
If they billed you for a service and you paid for it you are basically entering a contract with them

However, if they failed to supply the service you paid for then you may not be bound by the contract

At least that's my understanding .. :)
 
Well that's it...they have never billed me, nor sent out an acknowledgment of my phone order, nor sent a service agreement !

I called them once, ordered the service, and have had no other correspondence with them.

I cannot say they did not provide what I requested, it's just that something better came along. However, they in no way, shape or form made me aware that there was a minimum term attached to the order. That is my gripe...
 
You are in a contract paper signed or not, a deal was agreed and the contract created on installation of the dish ( ie they did their part ).
You could possibly argue that this contract was broken before it even started when the installation took 3 months!
maybe you can split the difference under the scenario that you wanted it for 6 months it was 3 months late and you only need 3 more months.
I deal if you have already used it for 3 or close months.
 
Because of the way that eircom (and indeed An Post) is set up under legislation means that once schemes (which given prices and terms and conditions) are put in place and published by the Government Publications Office, the ordinary citizen is deemed to be on notice of them, so express contracts do not have to be signed
 
Eircom invested in setting up your account and need 6 months to avoid making a loss. Seems like you are trying to find means of and excuses for ripping them off for their investment, which means of course they pass it on to their other customers. Do the decent thing and pay your way so others don't end up picking up the tab would be my suggestion.
 
To be fair the original poster is just asking if he is obliged to honour the minimum contract period. I am pretty sure that he is but just because he's asking doesn't necessarily mean that he's trying to rip anybody off. If I could find a legitimate way out of such a minimum contract period then I too would take it. Just in this case I don't think that such a get out is possible.
 
The spirit of the agreement the poster entered into with Eircom has not been challenged, only the legitimacy of it, ie. does the fact nothing was signed mean the poster can renege without legal consequence? There is no mention of alternative consequences, moral or otherwise. I have to say I am no fan of this attitude. There is a fair parallel here with being undercharged in a shop; you've done nothing illegal but someone else will nevertheless pay for what you have taken.
 
My opinion here, and I've been successful on arguing this point with other telephone provided services and contracts, is that if Eircom did not tell you that there was a 6 month minimum contract when you spoke to them, and if they didn't tell you that the terms and conditions were online somewhere to be reviewed or they didn't subsequently follow up by sending you documentation, then they cannot come back afterwards and tell you that a term of the contract is a minimum of 6 months.

I would say that if the above is the case, then you're not obliged to be held to the 6 month minimum contract term.
 
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