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Openreach Address Nightmare...

HoisonOwl

Member
We've recently moved into a new flat and, on the advice of the previous tenants, opted to set up a contract with Sky Broadband because of reliable speeds (circa 65-75mb). We placed an order and were given an engineer install date of Friday 5 Feb. The equipment was due to arrive a couple of days before but was returned to sender by Royal Mail because of an incorrect address.
Sky were vague about the error they had made on the original address entered 'for data protection reasons' and told us an engineer visit was never necessary because the kit arriving would simply need plugging into the socket.

We were told the only way to resolve this was to book a 'home move' (to a home we had just moved into!). My partner spent a very long time on the phone explaining that there were two versions of our address, one recognised by Royal Mail and a different wording by Openreach. Assuming we had resolved the issue, we were due to receive our box today (15 Feb) for the line to be activated on 18th February.

Fast forward to today, lo and behold - the same problem, the equipment returned to sender. I called Royal Mail who explained that it was returned because the package had no house number on the address. When I later spoke to Sky, I learned that the address was incorrectly registered with Openreach (after having initially to explain to Sky customer services who insisted Sky (or Openreach!) couldn't provide internet at our property - despite me staring at an Openreach socket with an (old) Sky box connected to it!).

The resolution we now have is that we have instructed Sky to activate our line on the 'wrong' (postal) address, which is the one we actually believe to be our flat. Sky informed us that they could send the box to a completely different address - once the line is live.

I'm hoping beyond hope that the line will go active without a hitch and the box will work when plugged in when it arrives on Friday/Monday. But has anyone else encountered this issue? Can Openreach be contacted to correct an address when it conflicts with Royal Mail's recorded address?

Is there a SINGLE utility service in the UK with an operator who still understands what customer service is?????
 
Openreach get their address details from the post office IIRC, get the records updated and corrected there and ORs will update accordingly
 
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Fast forward to today, lo and behold - the same problem, the equipment returned to sender. I called Royal Mail who explained that it was returned because the package had no house number on the address. When I later spoke to Sky, I learned that the address was incorrectly registered with Openreach (after having initially to explain to Sky customer services who insisted Sky (or Openreach!) couldn't provide internet at our property - despite me staring at an Openreach socket with an (old) Sky box connected to it!).

The resolution we now have is that we have instructed Sky to activate our line on the 'wrong' (postal) address, which is the one we actually believe to be our flat. Sky informed us that they could send the box to a completely different address - once the line is live.

I'm hoping beyond hope that the line will go active without a hitch and the box will work when plugged in when it arrives on Friday/Monday. But has anyone else encountered this issue? Can Openreach be contacted to correct an address when it conflicts with Royal Mail's recorded address?

Is there a SINGLE utility service in the UK with an operator who still understands what customer service is?????

Sky don't set the address - they can only pick from addresses the Openreach system has - if it's wrong, you generally need to get Royal Mail to update records, that will update Openreach, and then voila..

Edit: Also, if it was wrong to begin with, then the developer of the property is likely to blame - very often they don't register addresses and get addressing sorted and problems go on for ages.
 
Openreach get their address details from the post office IIRC, get the records updated and corrected there and ORs will update accordingly
The Post Office get THEIR address details from your district council.

Make sure everything is recorded correctly there and updates pushed
 
The Post Office get THEIR address details from your district council.

Make sure everything is recorded correctly there and updates pushed

Royal Mail maintains the address/postcode data - if it's missing entirely or wrong, you submit the request to Royal Mail to update the database, not any council.

You can get it added/updated via this form:


Trust me, once it shows in Royal Mail, Openreach will see it too, and services will be possible to order. This happens frequently and something we have to deal with to get customers sorted.
 
Royal Mail maintains the address/postcode data - if it's missing entirely or wrong, you submit the request to Royal Mail to update the database, not any council.
I wish that was entirely true, It's not.

I just went through this because the local council had duplicated street numbers causing misdeliveries (street numbers 199, 202, "201-205" 203, 205 where "201-205" was an industrial estate at the rear of the houses and certain industrial estate tenants were advertsiing themselves as 203, 203A, 205, 205A, whilst council allocated 203A and 205A were flats above shops at 203 & 205) - and it's not JUST a royalmail issue because these kind of issues cause couriers to go to wrong doors too

Until we got the district council to agree to renumber houses, Royal Mail refused point blank to deal with the issue. (201-205 became Units 1-10, 201A) and ONLY THEN did the royalmail database get updated

You'll get far more traction getting your council to sort out street numbering and then PUSH this to Royal Mail than you will complaining to Royal Mail

I have a 30-year long paper trail of complaints from various residents about the problem to emphasise the point and the council refused to renumber the street "as it would cause too many issues" for 25 years. It took years of denial of there being an issue until complaints signed off by the affected residents were atached to a couple of court filings naming individual staff before they finally "fixed it" - the Royalmail database was updated within days whereas they'd previously refused to deal with it.

Having the renumbering sorted out allowed action to be taken against National Grid too - they'd recorded all the meters in the industrial estate as "203" or "205", which resulted in bailiffs turning off the wrong meters on more than one occasion (ditto bailiffs showing up for a persistent driving offender who'd registered her address as 205A (a residence) instead of the correct unit number in 201-205 (an office))
 
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I wish that was entirely true, It's not.

I just went through this because the local council had duplicated street numbers causing misdeliveries (street numbers 199, 202, "201-205" 203, 205 where "201-205" was an industrial estate at the rear of the houses and certain industrial estate tenants were advertsiing themselves as 203, 203A, 205, 205A)

Until we got the district council to agree to renumber houses, Royal Mail refused point blank to deal with the issue. (201-205 became Units 1-10, 201A) and ONLY THEN did the royalmail database get updated

You'll get far more traction getting your council to sort out street numbering and then PUSH this to Royal Mail than you will complaining to Royal Mail (I have a 30-year long paper trail of complaints from various residents about the problem to emphasise the point), although it did take threats of legal action to the council to finally get them to "fix it"

That sounds like you're talking about a different issue - similar, but different. Typically if you send Royal Mail updated info via the link I included, it takes 2-3 days to be corrected and show.

If the problem is as you seem to imply in your case that the houses are simply incorrectly numbered, then that isn't Royal Mails issue. Each property has a UPRN and if that isn't registered properly Royal Mail won't be able to sort it, so my point stands, you've got a completely different scenario there.
 
The Post Office get THEIR address details from your district council.

Make sure everything is recorded correctly there and updates pushed
Phone your local council (district or borough, not county) and ask for land charges to confirm your address. The council feed addresses from planning applications for new developments to the NLIS Hub used as the single source of addresses for UK. The post office hold their own address database and may differ for whatever reason, changes as per previous posts
 
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