Contract cancellation

Scotia55

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82125215#Comment_82125215

Not sure what you mean by this.TT are my provider and their obligation is to their customer and that would be me.

iniltous

slamming is when an unscrupulous company takes over service without consent , a typical scenario, customer gets a call from a provider , outlines their ‘offer’ , customer says ‘No’ , or ‘let me think about it’ , but the provider progresses an order as if the customer had said ‘Yes’ , in part that’s what the ‘sorry to see you go’ communication is meant to stop , if it’s not something you agreed to , then you can (supposedly) cancel this unwanted migration .

OP , What do you mean about shared lines ? , you were asked about SMPF (shared metallic path facility) and you said that wasn’t the case with you , if you mean an address with more than one line , then clearly the new provider needs to take care to select the correct line to takeover , FWIW , OTS , not only checks the address to make sure the correct line at the address is being taken over it’s supposed to match the name on the account as well

There is another scenario , not a migration (so not a customer simply changing provider while remaining at their address) , but (for example) if someone new was moving into an address , where a working line the previous occupant had , and the new occupant wanted to take over this ‘line’ from the previous occupant, this isn’t a migration, OTS should not deal with it , as clearly the names won’t match , but it’s a home mover type situation, it’s not really what OTS was designed for , there is a another process for this.

Scotia55

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82125729#Comment_82125729

What I mean is one pole has multiple lines/phones as appears to the norm. I'm not an expert by any means. It seems to be to do with postcode selection and the system searches for that particular street/area. On this occasion I'm not suggesting anyone has done this maliciously. I spoke to someone at talktalk this morning and she was the first to tell me this is quite a significant problem.

I don't know how any name and address would match because i never requested it in the first place. Safeguards are apparently not very robust. I have no idea how it was done, I just know that my line has been hijacked and switched without my authorisation and that is not right.

iniltous

The matching requirements is much more detailed than just identifying the pole (or any distribution point) and picking a line on it , it’s primarily address based , so (with a ‘proper’ migration) , the customer themselves on the new ISP website or via that new company’s service representatives, enter the postcode , and then the individual address on that postcode ( this is where if an error is going to be made it’s likely to be here , basically selecting the wrong address from a drop down list of all the addresses on that postcode ) and the rest if the customers information is then entered ( the surname etc ) …when you agree to buy and get a date for the new service to start , the new company via OTS search for whatever company is currently recorded as providing service at the address they should also check the name matches , and an OTS message tells that company you are leaving (that’s why you don’t need to contact them yourself) the old company send out the impact statement ( ETC costs if applicable, what to do if it’s an error or you have changed your mind ) , the migration work is scheduled and when it’s done and the new company service is in and working (it doesn’t matter if it’s on the same network or a different network) the new provider messages via OTS the old provider to close the account and cease services to the address .

As stated , this isn’t an error by you , it’s if another person incorrectly picked your address when trying to arrange service for an different address ,or it could simply be Talk Talk being incompetent, perhaps someone rang to completely cease their service , and TT misidentified the account number and started to cease you instead of them .

Scotia55

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82126045#Comment_82126045

Whoever is at fault I have sent an email to them telling them that they must block this unauthorised switch by contacting Openreach. There is a 10 day cooling off period anyway so there is still plenty of time. I also want a paper trail because if this switch goes through, I need to have proof that I did contact them. I'm aware none of this is my fault because I didn't instigate it in the first place. Openreach are also legally obliged to stop unauthorised switching. And if it is a significant issue as I was told today, then Ofcom must surely be aware of it. You can't surely have a system that allows hijacking if some random person's line willy nilly with no way of blocking it when an error is made. That's just crazy. This is a week of my life that I'll never get back dealing with this issue.

Scotia55

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82126045#Comment_82126045

https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Broadband/Slamming-Victim-Broadband-changed-without-consent/td-p/4992690

This is not an isolated incident. It had never crossed my mind before this happened.

iniltous

Although you may be on Openreach with TT , your assertion that Openreach are legally obliged to stop switching is slightly overstated , apart from not every switch involves OR , a switch to City Fibre from Virgin is handled by OTS in the same way as BT to Sky (if in that case Sky were using Openreach) clearly OR are not involved in that switch , if anything Openreach are obligated to not second guess what ISP’s want but to act upon the instructions the ISP gives , in your case it’s TT responsibility , unfortunately should it go wrong TT will blame others , as this system allows then to allocate blame even if it’s not the case , but you don’t pay Openreach a penny , your contract is with TT that’s why it’s their job , no one else’s .

You are correct in that , as you have notified TT that this is an error , they should stop this from going any further, and hopefully it does .

As far as that other post about an error leaving someone without service even though they supposedly stopped the cancellation, you need to bare in mind that Sky have a vested interest and are not really an honest broker in that respect any provider when these things happen tend to make stuff up to defend themselves, if the cancellation was supposedly rejected why didn’t they try again ?, what’s more in cases like that it’s much more likely that a customer misidentification if the address starts a false migration, the third party notices and tells their ISP to cancel it , they do , the customer that made the mistake (but hasn’t realised it’s the wrong address) gets told to contact their ISP as a problem has arisen, they do and that ISP raises a new identical order , still for the wrong address , this second order doesn’t get acted upon because the customer assumes they have already cancelled , but that was only the original order , they then lose service.

The real culprit here is Ofcom , in their determination to get customers to switch between providers, they have removed nearly every failsafe or ‘check’ , with mobiles you get a code from the old provider (obviously only the account holder can get this code ) you give that code to the new provider…that was the way switching was done with ‘landlines’ , mobile use a PAC , landlines were a MAC ( migration authorisation code ) but Ofcom got rid of that , to come up with this system where you only need one company to switch , not two .

Sorry for the epic length , well done to anyone that read it all .

Scotia55

I understand what you are saying. I do. However, my cooling off time is swiftly running out and I intend to document it all. If TT do not halt this, I will go to the Ombudsman or any other avenue open to me. I will not pay a contract default fee for something i did not instigate. I am the wronged party in all this regardless of who is to blame and I'm aware my contract is with TT and it is their obligation to fix it.

As an aside, their complaints page on their website was not working yesterday. Complaints however, can take up to 8 weeks.

My email yesterday was to a different address. Not expecting anything to happen until Monday.