Stuck in some sort of limbo!

MrChips

My wife and I moved into a new place on 20 December and applied for a phone line with Primus and broadband with Primus shortly afterwards.

Our phone line was connected about a week ago, but Plusnet say they can't connect our broadband as Sky already supply the property. The previous tenants had Sky for phone and broadband (and for TV I guess).

Plusnet say they can't connect me until Sky cut their supply or we give them a MAC key. I rang Sky but they will only talk to the account holder (the previous tenants) and won't discuss cutting it with me, not will they give me a MAC key.

I managed to email the previous tenants who say they rang Sky to cancel when they moved out and Sky won't give a MAC key because of this.

What can I do to resolve this, it's beginning to get a bit frustrating!

kwikbreaks

This guidance may help if only in giving you something to quote at your ISP

http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/tell-us/telecoms/service-problems/tag-on-line/

MrChips

Thanks for that. In fairness Plusnet have been really helpful and did a TAG query yesterday. I'm just off the phone to them now and they said that the query has shown that Sky are still supplying the property and that therefore they can't do anything.

I'll try ringing Sky again and see what is going on.

MrChips

Ringing Sky is just making me feel even more frustrated!!

I was passed around three different people all of whom say that without an account number they can't cancel it. I tell them I am not a customer so I don't have an account number. They tell me again they need an account number. I ask them if, hypothetically, the previous tenants never cancel what I am supposed to do. They say, errrr, not sure, let me put you through to someone else....aaaaaaahhhhhh

kwikbreaks

You'll get nowhere with Sky and rightly so - how would you like it if somebody you'd given the hump phoned up and got your own broadband ceased.

The Ofcom advice clearly puts the ball in the new provider's court and says they should be able to get it sorted in 10 days and if not to try somebody else.

There is something else that is puzzling though - when you took out your new phone line contract it should have automatically ceased any ADSL that was present on it because just changing a name on a contract has been known to do that - usually to the annoyance of whoever took it over.

MrChips

I can see that point of view - it's just that this sort of thing must happen all the time. There should be some sort of system that enables me to establish I am the new owner/occupier and that the line now belongs to me!

Re final paragraph, I'll admit I don't fully understand how the system works, but that is puzzling me too. I managed to set up a phone line account with Primus on the same phone number as the previous occupants. But I can't set up a new broadband account on the same line.

Sky provided both services previously...

One other suggestion from Plusnet was to ask Primus to do a "stop/start" on the line. Is this a good idea? Do I just ring up Primus customer services and request this?

kwikbreaks

Well if the ISP can't get anywhere and Sky won't talk to you then Primus is the only other port of call. They are a budget provider though so I'm not at all sure how good their CS will be.

A few years back Ofcom themselves had a "Tag Team" who handled precisely this problem but I guess it was costing them too musch to run and they passed the buck to the ISPs.

Next thing to look forward to will be a visit from Sky's bailiffs for non payment of phone and broadband charges...