Connected to the wrong Openreach exchange

[Callum98]

Apologies I was just repeating what the engineer told me last Monday. 

I should also mention that there is a strange problem with my postcode sending people to a totally different address in a different town. Not just with BT but with packages getting delivered/directions on Google maps etc. The engineer said this could have some relevance as the exchange I'm connected to is in the same place as all my packages are getting sent to. 

I have another engineer coming tomorrow morning I'll see what happens then.

[iniltous]

This new information makes a massive difference, it’s a bit of a bugbear of mine , in that the main issue is rarely offered up to start with making the first diagnosis miles off …

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL

Put your address in here and check the same address on the Royal Mail website, do they match exactly, not similar , but an exact match ?, do the same for the other flats in your ‘development’ , and pick a regular house  that is very close by and likely to be on the same local PON , any  glaring errors , like completely different postcodes ? 
As you have an ONT you obviously have optical network nearby , but if your address data is in effect wrong , the ‘data’ for your address can be entered on a different headend to the headend you are physically connected to , and in my example of a simple error , using splitter2 instead of splitter 1 is an easy to correct data issue  , if your address is so wrong it’s not even the same OLT headend , then it’s pretty much unsolvable as it is …you would likely need you account removing , the incorrect address issues correcting (this may need your address correctly recording ) and then reordering, hoping that the new address info allocates the appropriate CBT/SASA /OLT etc.

The addressing for flats is notoriously bad as there is no common format for addresses , what sort of flat is it you have , a converted house or a part of purpose built MDU  ? , some  ‘dodgy’ flat conversions of houses can cause these sorts of issues as the addresses are not allocated and recorded by the correct authorities, and it’s that official data that forms the basis of OR allocation

[Callum98]

The name of the address is slightly different yeah, apartment 8 instead of flat 8 and the building name is a little different too. 

Yes it's a church that was converted into flats so could be 'dodgy'

So if I need to change the address and re order, how do I make sure the address is correct?

[iniltous]

How long have theses flats been around, a recent conversion or years old and the developer has long since disappeared…obviously if it’s a new conversion it’s the developer that needs to sort this out .
If it was an old conversion, if you are the owner this sort of thing should’ve been pointed out by your solicitor, getting a mortgage on something like this would scream ‘dodgy’ ….if renting , your landlord should be sorting it out , not you , but ultimately what you need is the official address ( the official one the council use for council tax etc  ) being recorded exactly on the Royal Mail website, once the RM matches , OR periodically matches their own address data against the RM dataset ….if this OR match doesn’t happen , once the council and RM information matches , you need an ORDI (Openreach data integrity) check to update Openreach records.

Do you know the actual official address of your flat ( it may not be what you think or what you were led to believe) , that’s the starting point

[Callum98]

I don't know a lot about the building to be honest. I'm renting so I could ask the landlord about this.

I have a letter from the local council, would this be the official address? this is again slightly different to what I gave BT/openreach as my address, but is also different to the royal mail address. 

[iniltous]

What the local council ‘knows’ or refers to the address as is likely to be the ‘correct’ version of the flats address …there should be a council department that disseminates that information to various ‘bodies’ like the RM , and then RM ‘sell’ their address services to companies like Openreach , and parcel delivery firms (this will be why you have issues with that type of thing as well as your broadband problem )
Unfortunately I can’t give you much more help than that , you would probably start by contacting you local council , presumably they have the responsibility for providing the official address for that property , or flat within it , and making sure that official version of the address is used by ‘public’ bodies, but as stated flats , especially those converted by ‘one man band’ type developers probably don’t know the rules let alone follow them …., part of the problem is people can use a bit of common sense , so if a letter used the wrong version of the address , the postman or woman would probably be savvy enough to put the letter through the correct letterbox , and the recipient wouldn’t wonder why some stuff says flat , some says apartment etc , but computer systems don’t work that way , GIGO , garbage in garbage out 

[Callum98]

Okay thank you.

I just noticed that when using the royal mail postcode checker and finding my address, its not only written differently to the council's address but when I click "see this postcode on a map" it shows the other town where many of my deliveries are ending up and not where I actually live.

So I basically need to try to get the official address to match the Royal Mail one? And then if openreach did a data integrity check it should fix itself? 

[iniltous]

Kind of , you need the RM to match the council official one , once all the data is ‘matched’ , I suspect you would need a brand new order , rather than trying to ‘fix’ the one you have

[Callum98]

Okay, I'll talk to the council and my landlord and see what we can do. Thanks for your help, I think I finally know what the root of all these problems is.

[iniltous]

Best of luck with it