Nightmare Migration from Wanadoo

I don't quite know where to start with all this as I am so angry and completely stressed out over events of the last few days, although to be honest I'm not entirely sure who exactly is at fault over all this, although I suspect the buck lies with Wanadoo.

Maybe it's best I start at the beginning and try to relay events as they happened and hope someone knowledgeable in this sort of thing can help me figure out who I should be going after for recompense as I certainly feel further action needs to be taken, whether it be legal or otherwise, but I certainly intend to contact Watchdog at the very least. Please bear with me as this is likely to be rather lengthy


Last week, on 16th Feb, I finally received the MAC code I'd requested from Wanadoo so I could start the process of migrating to another ISP.

[Anyone who has read previous comments of mine on the board will know what a complete fiasco I experienced in getting Wanadoo to even give me the code, resulting in numerous expensive phone calls to them on their 0870 number as they refused to answer any other phone number.]

On the same day, 16th, I made an online application to EFH Broadband to migrate to their service, giving them the MAC code I'd got from Wanadoo, and later received confirmation of my order along with notification that the migration would take place on 23rd Feb (today).

All seemed fine at this point and I heard nothing more from either EFH or Wanadoo. Now from what I understand of the migration process, there is often a 7-10 day wait for the switchover but there should be no disruption to the broadband connection, apart from maybe a couple of hours of downtime on the actual day of migration while BT transfer the ADSL route from one ISP to the other. That I can understand and fully accept, and I was pleased that I only had to wait 7 days for the switch. But no, it didn't work out like this at all, and I have actually been without an internet connection since Sunday lunch-time until about 6pm this evening. It would have been even longer were I not using a network router!

The first time I was alerted to any problem with my connection was following a reboot of my router, as my other PC was having problems holding a connection, but once it had rebooted I couldn't access the internet at all. I tried various things, thinking it might be a hardware problem, as well as phoning Wanadoo to check there wasn't a problem with either my account or their service, as it's been a bit flaky lately to say the least, but no, they assured me the problem must be at my end and maybe my router settings were wrong (but I hadn't changed anything!). I even disabled my network and router and installed the old USB Alcatel modem that I originally used when I first got BB, but still no joy.

Later that evening I called Wanadoo again to double check that everything was ok at their end as everything I had tried had failed to get a connection. I'm no expert but I'm sufficiently knowledgeable to work out most problems and I was confident that the problem wasn't at my end. To try and keep this brief, I ended up making 3 phone calls to them in total that evening, at considerable length and expense on 0870, as I was passed around from person to person at their Indian call centre, and ended up having a "technical expert" having me uninstalling and re-installing drivers, installing the crappy Freeserve CD I originally received with my account (which I was damned annoyed at having to do, as well as realising this was a futile process) until I refused to continue with this ridiculous charade at my expense any further and told him to forget it, I'd figure it out myself. To which he added "run this command: netsh int it reset C:\resetlog.txt then re-boot your PC and it will all be working fine"

I was highly suspicious at this point but felt I had nothing to lose and was desperate to get back online so did as he said. I have no idea what that command does but it certainly didn't get me back online. On the third and final call I made to them that evening I was told that my account had actually been closed on 17th Feb!!!!!!! (apparently the only reason I'd actually stayed online after this point is something to do with the way routers work and it had held onto my connection until the point I had rebooted it)

I was absolutely livid, as you can imagine, having been given a complete run around by everyone I had spoken to previously, despite asking several times if there was a problem with my account. I was then told to call back yet again after 8am the following morning when the accounts dept would be open.

Sorry, this is starting to get long and I'm nowhere near finished yet, but I'll try to keep it as brief as possible ...

Dead on the dot at 8am Monday morning I made my first call of many to Wanadoo, only to find the computer system was down at their end and could I call back later. When I did I was told that Wanadoo had received notification from BT on the 17th (just one day after my application to EFH) that I had successfully migrated to another ISP therefore my account could be closed, which they had done with immediate effect and had refunded the remainder of this month's fee back to my bank.

Obviously at this point I was unable to access my online bank account to verify this, but bearing in mind I had internet connection until the 20th, and had accessed my bank account shortly before going offline, I knew I certainly hadn't received the refund by Sunday (also checked this evening and it's still not been paid) and neither had I received any notification from Wanadoo that they were actually closing my account.

I was absolutely distraught as with no internet access I couldn't do anything at all (I'm disabled/housebound and do absolutely everything online) and was also still waiting for an email from EFH with my new account details! I called Wanadoo again, pleading with them to turn my account back on as they must have made some mistake because my new ISP wasn't due to go live until the 23rd and without internet access I wouldn't be able to get the details with which to set up my new account, nor access their website to get a phone number to call them. I was told it wasn't their problem and they had only followed orders and my issue should be taken up with either BT or my new ISP. They said that once an account is closed it can't be re-instated and suggested I re-applied for a new BB account with them??? Fools!!!! :mad:

I then called BT to see if they could shed any light on what was going on but all they suggested was that they run a fault check on my line to see if there was a problem with the ADSL, despite me trying to explain that I had no account to connect to anyway!!! Out of sheer desperation I made another begging call to Wanadoo but still no joy. They just repeated the same !!!!!! that I'd already heard, but did suggest that I could use the PAYG service to access my emails!

DUH!!! ... now why hadn't I thought of that already instead of putting myself through all this stress and racking up a fortune in telephone calls!!! Unfortunately my newfound hope was short-lived as I realised that neither of my working PC's had dial-up facilities as I'd built them after moving over to BB so had never bothered installing new modems, and the one I had sitting in one of the old PC's had the wrong type of connection for the new type motherboards. The only option left to me was to try and get one of the old PC's up and running, neither of which had been used for at least 18mths and both had various components missing.

I'd always intended re-building a useable one out of the two to add to my network anyway, but had never got a round tuit (I must get one of those) so now seemed as good a time as any and also gave me something positive to focus on, so the next 2-3 hours were spent sorting all that out and eventually managed to get online for sufficient time to check emails and get contact info for EFH, before the system crashed due to previous problems that I hadn't yet fixed.

My next job was to call EFH now I had a phone number for them, and I have to say that Paul, the guy I spoke to, was absolutely fantastic and extremely helpful. He even called me back to save me paying for the call and listened patiently while I told him everything that had happened. Apparently I wasn't the first person they had spoken to that day with exactly the same problem with Wanadoo! He also confirmed that the connection date was still set for the 23rd and gave me all the details I'd need to get connected. He also suggested I called Wanadoo again (yeah I know!) as they were definitely in the wrong for closing my account. His biggest worry was that they might have fully terminated my ADSL meaning I wouldn't be able to complete the migration and would have to pay the full connection price. He said he would check it out and call me back, which he did within 10 minutes and thankfully all was ok with the ADSL route so Wanadoo had only closed my actual BB account ... but this meant they could also re-instate it without a problem and were just being awkward by refusing.

Continued below due to exceeding permittable post length ........