This topic

Received a "Leaving BT" email though have never applied to leave

Jellicle — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 13:14:23 GMT

I am in a state of acute anxiety. (Sorry - I'm not sure if this is the right section of the forum.)

I had an appointment for Digital Voice [DV] and as that date was running too close to a holiday I logged into my BT account yesterday afternoon and changed the appointment date.

Shortly afterwards I received a BT email: “Leaving BT: here's a summary of what happens and any charges”. I have never talked to another provider, not even visiting their websites. We want to stay with BT and we want a seamless transfer to DV.

I phoned BT yesterday evening and talked to a very helpful advisor who accepted that I did not and have never indicated any interest in leaving BT. The conclusion was that she rearranged an updated new contract, and rearranged the DV appointment to a suitable time.

She gave me an absolute assurance that nothing would change: we would keep our phone number, email addresses and so on. While we were talking, she sent through an email of “Your BT package details” and the contract summary. Ten minutes later I had a “Thanks for staying with us” text.

This morning, I had a text from BT: “We’ve been given notice that you want to stop your BT services including BT Halo …”

I phoned BT again and talked to a helpful advisor who again accepted that I have never indicated any interest in leaving BT & never talked to another provider. He investigated and found that someone else has submitted our address in an application for service transfer (such as moving into a property. We are not selling or moving house.) He said this has happened twice recently to this address and he believed it’s a mistake, which happens sometimes. He has stopped that order.

I was transferred to another advisor who was also supportive. She said that she has stopped other false order. She has set in place a new contract (to replace the one sent last night, but identical) and she said she couldn’t do that if an AOTO (Advice Of Transfer) was still in place. She confirmed the engineer’s visit.

Again while on the phone a BT text arrived: “Thanks for your order …”, then emails with the contract summary and “Thanks for choosing BT - Your renewal order at a glance …”

This advisor also gave me an absolute assurance that nothing would change: we would keep our phone number, email addresses and so on.

I am extremely worried that the account will be closed anyway; the message yesterday said 22nd September. I am very worried that someone unknown can submit a transfer request from our house address without our account number, that the account holder (me) has not been contacted and that it will happen again.

How far can I rely on the advisors’ absolute assurance the situation has been resolved and that nothing will change: we will keep our phone number, email addresses and so on?

I would like to make it clear that all the advisors to whom I have spoken have been sympathetic and keen to understand and resolve the problem. We have been satisfied customers of BT for many years and want to remain so.

Re: Received a "Leaving BT" email though have never applied to leave

Leanne_T — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 09:42:40 GMT

Hi there @Jellicle

Thank you for posting on the community and letting us know you have received emails advising you are leaving BT.

Have you had any further emails since you last spoke to our broadband guides and they checked this was not the case and you were staying with us? When is the engineer due to visit?

Please let me know how you are getting on and if this is still a worry for you and I will certainly see what we can do to help.

Speak to you soon.

Leanne.

Re: Received a "Leaving BT" email though have never applied to leave

Jellicle — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 10:14:16 GMT

Hello Leanne

Thank you for your reply. So far I haven't had any further emails, but I don't know whether that is because it's been the weekend. The engineer is due to visit on Friday 15th in the morning.

This morning I had a text from BT_SMS saying:

We're still working to provide you with service for your order XXXXX. We'll be in touch within the next three working days with a further update. Please visit btwifi. co.uk / help [I've broken the link for this post] for information on staying connected through our BT Wi-Fi hotspots.

I have no idea what this is about. The advisor on Thursday said she would send out a piece of equipment so that my husband could continue working from home if the transfer to Digital Voice went wrong. The person to whom I spoke on Friday (who set up the second contract) didn't mention this. I haven't followed the link.

Neither of us has a BT mobile phone contract.

I am certain all this has been triggered by my using the option in my account to rearrange the appointment. It seems more than coincidence that I changed the appointment and within minutes the "Leaving BT" email arrived.

I am beside myself with anxiety and I can't sleep. This may seem an over-reaction to some people but it is how I am and it's connected with health.

Re: Received a "Leaving BT" email though have never applied to leave

licquorice — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 10:18:56 GMT

I'm confused as to why you had an engineer appointment for DV in the first place. An engineer isn't required.

Are you moving from a copper based service (FTTC) to full fibre (FTTP) rather than just moving to DV?

Re: Received a "Leaving BT" email though have never applied to leave

Jellicle — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 10:25:36 GMT

Yes, we are. Neighbours' changes have involved an engineer up the telegraph pole, new wires across to the property and new entry into the house.

Re: Received a "Leaving BT" email though have never applied to leave

Leanne_T — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 12:45:52 GMT

Hi @Jellicle

Thanks so much for coming back to me.

I would really like to help you get everything checked over and I've sent you a private message for some extra details.

Speak soon.

Leanne.

Re: Received a "Leaving BT" email though have never applied to leave

Jellicle — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 13:04:39 GMT

Thank you very much, Leanne. I've replied.

Re: Received a "Leaving BT" email though have never applied to leave

Jellicle — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 21:03:28 GMT

We had a 'Sorry you're leaving' letter by post today. It may well have been sent out before I phoned them for the first time - our post is very intermittent. It's still unsettling though.

Re: Received a "Leaving BT" email though have never applied to leave

Leanne_T — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 07:12:57 GMT

Morning @Jellicle

Thanks for coming back to me.

Does the letter have a date when this was sent? Have the executive team been in touch since you last posted on the community and the details were sent over?

Leanne.

Re: Received a "Leaving BT" email though have never applied to leave

Jellicle — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 12:50:14 GMT

Hello @Leanne_T

Someone from the executive team made contact this morning and we had a long but generally reassuring conversation. It seems as if the request to change the appointment somehow was directed as a request to leave the service. At the moment I'm not particularly interested in how it happened. This false request to leave is still running in the background and she is going to escalate to get it stopped. After that, the correct order - for a rearranged appointment - can be progressed and she is going to contact me with an update on Friday.

She completely understood that we want to remain with BT, to keep our email addresses, our emails and broadband. What she was unable to guarantee was that we would keep our phone number as apparently the transfer from copper to fibre can mean that the number is lost. I would be sad about that as our number is a relic of the very first numbers in this exchange (we inherited it when we bought the house) but I understood that she couldn't make promises which might fail.

Thank you very much for your intervention and having our problem escalated to someone who seems to be in a position to do something about it. She was well informed, customer focussed and pragmatic. It was good to be able to talk to her.

Re: Received a "Leaving BT" email though have never applied to leave

Leanne_T — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 12:56:34 GMT

Hi @Jellicle

Thanks so much for coming back to me and letting me know.

I'm really pleased you have had a call and everything has been explained to you by the executive guide.

Take care and please come back if you need help with anything 🙂

Leanne.

Re: Received a "Leaving BT" email though have never applied to leave

Jellicle — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 18:28:59 GMT

@Leanne_T

The person to whom this was escalated has been in touch. It seems as if there is nothing the BT side can do if a third party provider has requested the transfer. I emphasise that neither of us has even looked at another provider and neither of us has ever contacted one.

The ending of our service is going ahead. I am distraught.

I am absolutely horrified that this can happen without BT checking that the current user knows about it and has agreed to it. I realise that this is the situation which the regulator has set up. There is no safeguard to prevent this happening.

My husband talked with her. The plan is that she is going to investigate whether things can be put back to how they were before all this started. Then if all the 'moving parts' are taken out of the situation we can start from fresh. That is our only hope and I am not hopeful.

How can we have a situation in which a customer's service can be terminated apparently by a third party, whether deliberately by a third party or by a software glitch, and absolutely nothing can be done to stop it?

Re: Received a "Leaving BT" email though have never applied to leave

Jane2018 — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 19:17:59 GMT

It is appalling. You can even see how someone trying to spoil someone's life, stalk them or order them 100s of pizzas they never ordered etc could use this as a way to get back at someone. Surely it should be impossible for someone who isn't you to contact BT and say you have applied to leave the service and then that means you lose your phone number? It is one reason I prefer post as less likely fraudsters would be able to impersonate someone if the mail goes to your house.

Re: Received a "Leaving BT" email though have never applied to leave

iniltous — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 19:19:38 GMT

The relatively newly introduced OTS system (One Touch Switching) has less checks and opportunity to cancel unwanted migrations , in this case it’s was never going to be because you requested a migration but either a consumer misidentified your address as theirs (or possibly one they are soon to be moving to ) or the provider that consumer picked , identified your address in error instead of the address the consumer gave them , either way BT are a victim as much as you are of someone else’s error ( assuming this isn’t a malicious action from someone attempting to ‘mess’ with you deliberately)

The old system seemingly was easier to cancel these mistakes, if anyone is to blame it’s the regulator that introduced this switching process without any way for the losing ISP to cancel the other companies order , even if it’s a mistake.

Re: Received a "Leaving BT" email though have never applied to leave

Leanne_T — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 13:53:20 GMT

Hi @Jellicle

Thank you for keeping me updated on the community.

Hopefully the executive complaints guide your Husband spoke to can help get this resolved. Please let us know how everything goes.

Thanks.

Leanne.

Re: Received a "Leaving BT" email though have never applied to leave

Jellicle — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 16:25:46 GMT

@Leanne_T

Thank you for replying.

The person who is trying to help is both sympathetic and attentive. She still keeps checking whether I'm absolutely certain I haven't been in in touch with another provider. I have never even looked at one.

I imagine that the problems with OTS are common to all providers and it really needs looking at. We can't be the only household in this stressful situation.

Re: Received a "Leaving BT" email though have never applied to leave

Jellicle — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 18:29:13 GMT

Update.

The person managing our case has been in touch. Unfortunately there is nothing BT can do to stop this happening. I am still convinced that my rearrangement of the appointment got misdirected by a glitch - it would be an extremely unusual coincidence for a third party to apply to end our service on 24th September within moments of my rearranging the appointment to 24th September. I had confirmation of the rearranged appointment almost immediately.

However, this is the mess we are in. The person looking into our case is trying her best to get some sort of solution to impact us as little as possible. I am grateful to her for understanding that this is a very worrying situation to be in.

She has arranged that:

we will have full fibre fitted in advance of 24th September. She said she had booked it for 16th September.
when full fibre is in place, our broadband will then operate on the full fibre set up and she assured us that there will be no break in broadband service
we will keep our copper line with our current phone number until 24th September when our phone service will be stopped
as soon as the service is terminated they will port our existing phone number to the new DV service immediately
so our phone service will be transferred to the full fibre and Digital Voice service and have the original phone number
we will retain our existing BT account, BT account number, BT email addresses and web-stored emails after the change

I am very perplexed about the idea that our service will be terminated but we will still have the same service, same account, same emails etc. How can a service be terminated and still exist?

As she has arranged the engineer's visit to fit full fibre for 16th September, this morning I had an email from Openreach saying that they're doing it on 26th August. Unfortunately that doesn't instil confidence.

She is going to phone again next week and these are the sort of things I need to ask, though I don't have any understanding of the way the BT architecture works.

Re: Received a "Leaving BT" email though have never applied to leave

Jellicle — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 09:53:32 GMT

@Leanne_T

The complaints executive has been able to find a way round this problem. The short story is that we are keeping everything, our entire service, as it is. Nothing is changing.

I can't express what a relief this is. I am enormously grateful to the complaints executive for engaging with our problem and diligently applying her expertise to finding a resolution. I won't give her full name on a public forum, but Ann, if you're reading this, you are an absolute star.

Thank you, Leanne, for making the contact so the problem could be elevated and for your sympathetic response to my posts.

Thank you to the gurus and members who have offered advice and opinions. I am definitely going to write to my MP and Ofcom to say that the system, however well-intentioned, needs an additional stage to protect consumers.

Re: Received a "Leaving BT" email though have never applied to leave

Leanne_T — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 10:13:33 GMT

Morning @Jellicle

I am so pleased everything has been sorted for you and really glad we could help 🙂

Have a wonderful day and please come back to the community anytime.

Leanne.