Unlawful billing!

[petefoster]

I have just been advised that despite, receiving 30 days notice and sending me an email to confirm the date of my account closure, that they intend to continue to charge my account, because the line was not taken over by Plusnet, who initially advised them of the account transfer!!! This seems wrong on so many levels, as they are no longer providing the services, have no legal right to charge and seem to be acting for Plusnet. Has anyone else had this issue before I make a complaint to OFCOM.

[iniltous]

Perhaps you can clarify, who served 30 days notice , if you served 30 days notice to quit BT because you no longer wanted any service over the Openreach network, what have Plusnet  got to do with this ?.

If your intention was to move from BT to Plusnet ( at the same address ) you don’t serve notice at all , migration is a gaining provider led process, you advise Plusnet , they effectively serve notice on your behalf, and it’s not 30 days , but 10-14 days , the internal process terminates the BT service as a consequence of connection with PN .

If you didn’t use the correct process and served 30 days notice to quit BT yourself ( even though this is not the way to migrate) then Plusnet cannot ‘migrate’ your service at all , they wait until the cease order has completed, ( so you also  wait )  the lead time to get your service reinstated via Plusnet can be a week or more  ) , so did you have any days without any service at all ? , if you didn’t migrate and separately ceased BT and then Plusnet reprovided .

If you did use the correct process ( so your 30 day notice comments are wrong ) and your  migration to Plusnet  ‘failed’ , ( and unless you called BT then it cannot really be a BT issue if the migration failed ) then presumably although you would prefer to be left with no service at all , so you don’t pay anything further to your old company, so BT still ceasing your service but Openreach not immediately reconnecting you with PN )  the migration process isn’t designed that way , with a migration, if the PN order doesn’t complete for whatever reason , you remain connected to the ‘old’ provider, and of course if the old provider is still supplying service it’s not unreasonable to expect you to continue to pay for that service .

So what was it ? , a migration, you contacted Plusnet only and not BT , or you contacted BT first to cease your service, and the secondly Plusnet to order service , two separate acts with a break in service between them ? if that’s the case presumably you were ‘happy’  to have no ‘connection ‘ for a period of time between BT stopping service and Plusnet starting service  .

You need to provide much more information to make a judgment,  FYI , the regulator won’t even look at this 

[petefoster]

PlusNet advised they would cancel my BT account, gave 30 days notice, which BT confirmed to me by email. PlusNet were then unable to provide the service they had sold me and so the order was cancelled. In the meantime I arranged a service with another provider, which by chance went live on the same date as the services from BT were scheduled to cease, but yes I was happy to have a break in service if that had been the case.

Whilst you seem to have more in depth knowledge of the internal workings of the BT / PlusNet relationship none of this was explained by the PlusNet representatives, when setting up the contract and cancelling it (which you would expect given I am now advised they are effectively the same company!) nor can I find any explanation on either PlusNet or BT's websites regarding this situation.

So as far as a 'consumer' was concerned I had followed the 'correct' procedure, to cancel BT (as indeed they confirmed the termination date), the BT router was disconnected on the date of termination with BT and has not been used since, so under what right do BT assume they can continue to provide and charge for a service they are not providing after being told to stop?

[rbz5416]

Possibly pedantic but Plusnet would be unlikely to give 30 days notice. A takeover normally occurs 14 days from order, unless you specifically requested 30 days?

You haven't said who is providing the new service, is it an Openreach based ISP or an AltNet?

[iniltous]

So if you have a valid complaint, its with  Plusnet or whoever you ultimately used to provide service, not BT , this is a BT customer forum , not Plusnet or whoever you are now with .

If you contacted Plusnet it’s not 30 days notice ( so if PN said that , that’s hardly BT fault ) , if PN set up a migration a ‘sorry to see you leave’ communication from BT is part of the process, it doesn’t mention notice periods , it gives the method to cancel the migration if it’s not wanted , (because the customer may have  changed their mind , or in some cases it’s to stop migrations that were never actually agreed to) presumably you didn’t respond to this ‘sorry to see you go ‘ communication ( letter/ email etc ) .

If you arranged service migration with another provider ( Plusnet )    and Plusnet then cancels the migration order , your BT service continues, if you were unaware of that , that’s not BT error , that’s your misunderstanding or PN not confirming that is the situation, this is the industry standard, and applies to every ISP using Openreach 

Although you may have followed the correct migration process initially, by contacting Plusnet to migrate you from BT , once PN cancel your migration ( for whatever reason ) you were naive to think that although PN were saying we have cancelled your migration, that BT would still cease your service , the process just doesn’t work that way, PN cancelled the migration, BT are not involved in that , any ISP in this situation continues to supply service until another migration is raised by an ISP or an independent cease order raised by the consumer.

If , since a particular date , you have not used your BT service ( even though it’s available ) and have used whatever alternative ISP you arranged, that doesn’t absolve you from paying BT , if you hired a car but didn’t drive it , you still pay the hire charge , FWIW ,  if you had not arranged an alternative after the PN migration was cancelled and BT did cease your service no doubt your complaint would be ‘ BT left me with no service’ .

It seems to me , BT haven’t done anything wrong , If PN cancelled your migration, they potentially should have told you ( if you didn’t realise ) that your BT service continues, if you joined someone else , not using Openreach, and that new provider didn’t say ‘ don’t forget to cancel your previous supplier’ , again where is the BT error ?, that’s down to you and your current provider.

[petefoster]

BT have confirmed that PlusNet advised them of the Account closure on the 29th March, for their new connection on the 29th April, so yes it was 30 days. Additionally, as the connection would have been a new connection from FTTC to FTTH, there is no logic to the continuity argument as it would have been a new connection.

No, I am not now using the Openreach network as it doesn't support the service PlusNet originally sold, hence the cancellation.

The matter has now been satisfactorily resolved by James in their customer guide team, who was excellent, he understood the issue of a lack of clarity between the information provided by both PlusNet and BT.

Thumbs up to James, great customer service.

[iniltous · Accepted solution]

BT didn’t do anything wrong , if they have waived some payment it’s simply a gesture of goodwill, seems to me you have been quite fortunate as the errors were between you and Plusnet and you and your non Openreach provider, but as the saying goes , the squeaky wheel gets the grease .

[petefoster]

Its clear you are a big, big fan of BT, but before you run away with your sense of superiority and start insulting people, you may perhaps wish to review the BT guide to leaving, which clearly states "It’s our responsibility to ensure we provide accurate information." 

Anyway, thank you for you valuable input, but I have had the matter resolved by someone who accepted it was very definitely a BT issue, in that they provided no clear information, with regards to what would happen if the switch failed to occur!