This topic

Re: Broadband takeover without my consent

davidmbell — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 20:37:14 GMT

I’ve just had an email saying “we’re sorry to see you go” and all that goes with that, including an out of contract cancellation charge.

Called BT but no one can help at this time of night.

They suggested I try find out more…! Gave me some reference numbers and the supplier “Telecom Plus”.

I live in a house with a name, on a road with about five other houses with the same postcode all with different addresses and names - so quite difficult to get an address wrong on an address picker?

Re: Broadband takeover without my consent

Switcher — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 22:28:53 GMT

Oh woah, that takes me back.

In my case, it turned out that a provider setting up my neighbour’s connection had mistakenly removed the cables connected to my house from the cable management box and reallocated them. Even though I alerted BT about the issue in advance, I was still disconnected on the exact date mentioned in their email, which was incredibly frustrating.

I’m not sure if your situation is the same, but I’d strongly recommend pushing for a technician to check whether your cables are still intact (although they might still be in tact because I am not sure when they would do the change, but thought its worth letting you know). We work from home, so being unexpectedly cut off had a big impact until it was finally resolved. BT compensated us later, but the whole experience was a nightmare. Hopefully, yours gets sorted much more smoothly.

Since Telecomplus is using the Openreach network as well, I’d assume you might be going through the same. When the BT technician visited, they were quite frustrated, saying this wasn’t something that usually happens and they couldn’t understand why someone would take my cables to connect someone else.

Re: Broadband takeover without my consent

JonUK — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 22:14:56 GMT

@davidmbell

You'll need to call during opening hours tomorrow to stop the transfer.

https://www.bt.com/help/contact-bt/account-and-billing

Re: Broadband takeover without my consent

imjolly — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 22:20:38 GMT

Try using message now https://www.bt.com/help/contact-bt/account-and-billing/broadband and see if they can help

Re: Broadband takeover without my consent

davidmbell — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 22:23:10 GMT

Yeah will do, I tried as i only got the email from BT at 7.44pm

will call tomorrow

Re: Broadband takeover without my consent

Leanne_T — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 11:23:03 GMT

Hi there @davidmbell

Please let us know how you get after speaking to the team and getting this email looked into.

Speak to you soon.

Leanne.

Re: Broadband takeover without my consent

davidmbell — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 11:28:17 GMT

Spoke to Utility Warehouse themselves, not remotely interested, said I needed BT.

Called BT, first person wasn’t sure, second person just didn’t totally get what was going on. Third person did. Explained as the transfer request was “so new” he wasn’t able to “press the stop button” (his words, but I appreciate the simplicity he was putting it as. I don’t care about the technicalities.

He’s scheduled a call back with me Monday to confirm the stop is in place.

I just can’t believe it’s that easy for someone else to start this process without me, the current occupant and bill payer somehow approving it first?!

Re: Broadband takeover without my consent

WSH — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 11:46:31 GMT

You'll probably need to phone them again on Monday, as call-back seems notoriously unreliable.

I agree the system seems a little ridiculous at the moment. The ability to at least reply to the "goodbye" email with a stop order would be a start.

Re: Broadband takeover without my consent

Leanne_T — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 14:09:25 GMT

Hi @davidmbell

Thanks for coming back to us with an update after getting in touch with the team.

Once you get the call back Monday, please let us know how it goes.

Thanks.

Leanne.

Re: Broadband takeover without my consent

davidmbell — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 14:36:28 GMT

Now had a call from the retention team offering to save me money by staying.

I explained the irony of that and that I don’t actually want to leave… but he said despite all that’s going on he could save me £4 a month on a like for like deal.

Ive no doubt added another layer of complexity to this situation….

Re: Broadband takeover without my consent

Switcher — Sat, 01 Mar 2025 19:09:17 GMT

My situation was almost the same and it was beyond me how that could be even remotely allowed... Seems like there was no lesson learned. I was also told that they couldn't simply press the stop button because the request was so 'fresh' in their system, so I called back to confirm the stop as requested.

Even though I went through the same calls and requests as they are asking you to go through, I still got disconnected on the date mentioned in the email. Hoping it'll be different in that regard for you. It can be a real nightmare trying to navigate through all of this.

Re: Broadband takeover without my consent

davidmbell — Sat, 01 Mar 2025 19:24:26 GMT

Oh heck, that doesn’t sound good. I’ll keep on at them every few days if needs be. I work from home so can’t risk a drop in service.

Re: Broadband takeover without my consent

iniltous — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 09:41:57 GMT

It’s fair to say that people are motivated to post on forums like this when things go wrong , and don’t when things go as planned ….you may think it’s too easy to ‘takeover’ someone’s connection, but that’s the way the regulator Ofcom wants it , they consider things as simple checks and positive confirmation, rather than no response is consent as barriers to switching , so the ease at which a line can be moved to another provider is by design, not a flaw .

It doesn’t really matter where the mistake was made , it may not be a mistake as such , could be malicious, or ‘slamming’ where a disreputable ISP ‘slams’ a customer onto their service without consent, the ‘failsafe’ , is the ‘sorry to see you leave’ communication , provided you follow the instructions on that communication correctly ( if this is a mistake and you haven’t arranged another provider to start supplying service ) then there isn’t really any reason to expect that this unwanted migration won’t be cancelled….obviously it can occasionally go wrong , but the 95% of the times the cancellation is successful won’t have ‘posts’ on here , only the unsuccessful ones will take the time to complain

Re: Broadband takeover without my consent

davidmbell — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 11:25:58 GMT

Is anyone able to help please?

This is the latest from BT?

Who do I turn to now to stop this?

Hello,
David just a follow up from our conversation on Friday, I have got our back office team to look at this order and they cannot cancel it as it is a one touch switch not a working line take over and it requires the new provider to cancel the order.

Thanks,
Stephen

Re: Broadband takeover without my consent

Christopher_G — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 13:38:27 GMT

Hi @davidmbell

I'm going to send you a private message to try and get you some help with this. Could you take a look at your community inbox and get back to me please?

Thanks

Chris

Re: Broadband takeover without my consent

davidmbell — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 13:55:20 GMT

Been on the phone again this morning, eventually getting connections team in Cardiff.

15 mins on hold and an assurance that they’ve stopped this.

Also went to my neighbour down the road at ELM **** (we’re East ****) and he confirmed they aren’t trying to move their services - and that someone must have accidentally chosen East not Elm when he’s tried to move his provider.

IT SHOULD NOT BE THAT EASY TO DO THIS…

Re: Broadband takeover without my consent

imjolly — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 14:30:52 GMT

obviously been a simple mistake with the address but don't understand why there was a line take over if neighbour did not place an order

Re: Broadband takeover without my consent

Switcher — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 14:53:00 GMT

It is ironic how easy it is for someone to slam your line and how difficult it is to keep it to yourself then.... the so called by design and not by flaw I understand but should it really be that difficult for a customer to stop a transfer they didn't initiate

Re: Broadband takeover without my consent

iniltous — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 15:19:48 GMT

As stated , the ‘sorry you have decided to leave’ communication also gives the number to call if this ‘migration to another ISP is unwanted, in this case it’s not clear if the OP followed the instructions laid out in that letter/email correctly , or called the regular customer service number which isn’t the appropriate place to cancel the unwanted migration.

The recently introduced OTS (One Touch Switching) service should be similar to the system it replaced NOTS (Notice Of Transfer ) in that contacting the new provider is all that’s required, the soon to be ex provider isn’t consulted…and in this case it’s pretty clear the the neighbours choice of ISP took little care in identifying the correct address , hence why the OP was caught up in the error made by the neighbours ISP …..I can’t explain why if the correct process were followed as outlined in the BT ‘sorry you are leaving’ communication the cancellation was anything other than straightforward, however perhaps the OTS system ( which has nothing to do with BT ) isn’t as good as it should be .

Re: Broadband takeover without my consent

davidmbell — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 15:32:08 GMT

You seem fairly hell bent on defending what’s happened here?

If the image capacity of this board allowed I’d show you the screen shot of the number I called.

The email from BT says

Hello David,

We're sorry to hear you're thinking of moving your Digital Voice and broadband to another provider.

If you'd like to chat about the move or have any questions, call us on 0800 085 1756 before 2PM on 11-Mar-2025.

If we don't hear from you, your services will automatically move on 13-Mar-2025.

That’s who I called.