Broadband "slamming" - twice in two years!

[Grouse1]

This could get a bit long winded so bear with me.

I'm not a BT customer, however I've had two attempts in two years by a previous occupant to "slam" my broadband to BT. 

We've lived at our current address since 2016. We get mail from time to time for the previous occupant - usually debt collection letters etc that get returned to sender. 

December 2024 - I was with Vodafone at the time. I received an e-mail saying "sorry you're thinking of leaving us". I phoned Vodafone up to ask what was going on and was informed someone had requested a transfer to a different provider. Two days later I received a parcel from BT addressed to the previous occupant, containing a brand new BT hub. Unfortunately, despite Vodafone's attempts to cancel the unauthorized transfer, my internet went off about a week later. This took nearly two months to resolve and I received compensation, before my original contract with Vodafone was re-instated and the connection restored. 

No problems since, until this morning:

Two letters from BT arrived addressed to the previous occupant, outlining contract details etc. I phoned BT, who were less than helpful and even suggested I shouldn't be opening mail not addressed to me - however given the circumstances I opened them. I then phoned Sky - my current provider - who confirmed that a transfer had indeed been requested. They have cancelled the transfer on their end, however I'm not hopeful this will go through and I'll end up disconnected. 

What I can't understand is why the previous occupant has done this, as they won't be able to use the internet because they don't live there. Is there not some sort of mechanism to stop this happening in the first place? 

[iniltous]

My reply is even more long winded so also bear with me .
I’m not sure the purpose of your post is to be honest, is it to sympathise with BT as also a victim of a malicious order , in the same way as you are a victim of this malicious order  ( or a mistaken order  if it’s not a malicious one   ) or are you claiming  BT are not  a victim like you , but are the architects of this ?

Presumably you know the way OTS works , an  order for service is made with a CP by someone for your address ,  possibly a mistakenly identified address , possibly something malicious , although not in this  case but in most cases , it will be a genuine  request for a new provider to take over for that address , this is Ofcom’s  dream of motivated customers finding a better deal and having a barrier less journey to their new provider, the old provider can’t unnecessarily get in the way .

This switching process requires the current provider not to cancel this takeover order without express instructions from the customer, they need to assume it’s a genuine request , they have to send an impact statement , with any potential implication such as early termination charges that switching providers may have , but  can also point out the action to take if this is not something the customer asked for or perhaps ordered and have had a change of heart,  this has apparently worked in that Sky have sent out the appropriate communication to you , and you have responded saying this order was nothing to do with you and for them to use the procedure to cancel this unwanted order , this  is the only safeguard Ofcom require.

Hopefully this won’t go the same way as your previous  situation when Vodafone were your provider and the malicious order or mistaken order wasn’t successfully cancelled, and you ended up without any service, but if it is the same outcome , unfortunately that’s the way the Ofcom  and OTS want it , the occasional customer messed about a price worth paying for little or no barrier  to switching , these processes and procedures are not BT’s they are the industry processes and procedures.

I dare say there will be BT customers in the same situation where they receive the same sort of communication from BT where Sky or Vodafone are the ‘new’ provider, the problem being the BT customer didn’t ask to change to them and they would have the same concerns about either being slammed or losing service completely.

TBF , you don’t actually accuse BT of anything untoward, so it seems a little odd to ask on a BT customer forum the motivation of this person ( you assume a previous occupant of your address) but  why would anyone here have any insight into that here  , you also ask what is done to stop it happening in the first place , that’s a question for Ofcom and their agent One Touch Switching who designed the switching system, but knowing their motivation may help , they want to remove all and every barrier to switching to encourage consumers to do it , if removing all but the most basic safeguards is helpful to get switching done that’s what they do, they accept some collateral damage is unavoidable.

The original switching process was the customer had to call their old provider and ask for a migration code (a MAC ) which they gave to the new ISP as proof the customer wanted to switch and the old provider knew it so couldn’t interfere with it when the migration order can along , clearly if that old system hadn’t been discarded by Ofcom , then whoever did this couldn’t have got a MAC from Sky (because they are not you ) and whoever has raised this malicious or mistaken order could never have proceeded without a MAC , so you would not be in the position you are .

[chrisjp]

Although the OTS switching is not the responsibility of BT - or any other ISP - I do this think the discussion on the flaws in the OTS is worth discussing on the forum, if only to alert readers about it.

I suspect that OFCOM didn't decide that the "slamming" flaw was acceptable collateral, and that actually they just didn't think it through, a "feature" of a lot of regulator decisions in seems.

[iniltous]

I disagree with you that the risk of slamming was something overlooked rather than considered to be a lower priority than it was previously…so the only real conclusion can be  Ofcom simply adjudicated  that it wasn’t a serious enough problem to be  built into the OTS system , certainly not at the expense of quick switching .

In this respect OTS didn’t improve on the NOTs (Notice of transfer) system that existed on the Openreach network before OTS  .

The MAC system before OTS (with regard to slamming)  , was much more secure, but admittedly slower and a potential barrier to switching if the old provider had the option to dissuade the customer, but it’s clearly the case , no MAC , no switching , so no bad actors slamming , or errors that end up misidentifying account holders , OTS actually watered down the safeguards that MAC had .

Both NOTs and OTS by design was that a customer only needed to contact the new provider to switch and have  no dialogue with the old provider at all , I’m not disputing this has no value BTW , if you have to first call the old provider to start the leaving process , they may (will) try to dissuade you  from doing so  , possibly by offering a better price  ( although why would that be bad ?) .

In that regard I don’t see how you can disagree that both things must have been considered , and the potential slamming problem was simply deemed less important and wasn’t completely designed out of the switching service , not totally unimportant just less important than the pursuit of easy switching , it’s not like slamming didn’t exist when OTS was being designed, yet the slamming issue remains.

OTS didn’t introduce that tilt towards ease of switching at the expense of potential slamming problems , it was there with NOTs , however I’d argue there was (after MAC was replaced with NOTs ) a the rise of this sort of bad behaviour, fuelled no doubt the massive increase of operators in the industry , the employment of staff on a ‘no sales no pay’  basis , and the precarious financial state of many of these companies, literally no sales , no business , given  that increase in bad behaviour that was almost impossible with MAC but much easier with NOTs you’d have thought that anti slamming measures would have been improved with OTS , but instead they were actually watered down , it’s possible with OTS to have same day switching ….imagine that , a knock on the door , salesman ‘we are from your ISP’  (they aren’t) we  can give you a great deal today if you give me you details to confirm your identity ‘ , naive consumer hands over their details including payment method, at this point it doesn’t matter if the consumer says actually says Yes or No to the switch , there is no way the unscrupulous can be stopped , OTS even removes the need for the 10 day wait when the current ‘sorry you are leaving’ communication is sent , that was used with the OP to hopefully stop their unwanted migration, same day switching doesn’t happen yet , but was  a design criteria of OTS , I don’t see how anyone could argue that slamming isn’t a lower priority than quick switching .

[garybs29]

Why all the mention of OTS which has nothing to do with this? For OTS to work you need to match details & provider so is a completely different process from what has happened here