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Giganet didn't cancel my contract after I switched ISP

chrsphr

Regular Member
Had a surprisingly poor experience with Giganet recently - I'd been using their 500mbit service on Openreach for the last year. At the end of the contract I switched to Vodafone (also openreach, on the same line).
It's been my experience, and expectation of the last few years that when you switch between two openreach ISPs, your old provider is notified and service cancelled. In fact, ofcom will tell you:

"If your current broadband service runs on the Openreach phone network, and you’re switching to another provider that also uses this network, you can follow a ‘one-stop’ switching process. (Companies that use the Openreach network include BT, EE, Sky, TalkTalk and Vodafone.)"

"Under this process, you don’t need to contact your current provider at all. Instead, your new provider can arrange the transfer for you."


So, I didn't notify Giganet.
A month later, I realise my service wasn't cancelled, so opened a ticket. They ignored the ticket for a few weeks (great customer service). Finally when I phoned them, they took my cancellation request, but refused to backdate to when I switched ISP and basically told me I should have read the Terms and Conditions.

It's a shame really - there's a lot of work done by other ISPs and by Ofcom to protect consumers from situations like. "you should have read the Ts & Cs" is not a reply that is generally accetable these days.
At the end of the day, I just have one line - they were charging me for a service that it was physically impossible for me to use!

I'm annoyed, I feel a little foolish, but at the end of the day I was just going by my expectations - and Giganet let me down. Was I expecting too much?
 
Not everyone ISP's lets your old ISP know that your switching over, some do and some dont, its stupid tbh, not your fault. no one should have to read 80 pages of terms and services
 
Not everyone ISP's lets your old ISP know that your switching over, some do and some dont
OR to OR it should always happen AFAIK, and is mandated "as is" - the one touch transfer stuff being delayed doesn't matter because its OR to OR.

Was I expecting too much?
No. the bare minimum.

If it was me, I'd raise a complaint and see if they address it, If they don't - to the ombudsmen.

Costs them time and money to resolve things via the Ombudsmen and its pretty easy (fill a form in, <10 mins)

There's a few complaints about billing going on at the moment looking around online. Wonder if it's some pain of them trying to mush all of their brands together under Cuckoo. Either way I'd be re-raising to support and being like "?? No. Refund because you weren't providing the service"

Their T&Cs suggest you should have had a letter/confirmation of the cease (so they can confirm, and give any leaving charges)
 
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You are not alone. We have been supporting about 3 dozen (at least) examples from customers who have moved to us (Openreach to Openreach based), where Giganet have continued to bill them. I'm highly confident Giganet are not being charged by their suppliers from that point.

In all cases, but one, we can see that a perfect transfer took place. The 1 example that didn't, Giganet put a cease through during the transfer and created a Bridge Case.

During the GPL (Gaining Provider Led) process, the old provider is most certainly informed, the customer should not need to inform the losing provider during GPL, as it can create examples services being ceased, mis-way through transfers.

You get the odd adhoc transfer failures happening, but we have seen enough examples during the past 6-8 weeks to see what is happening is a company process.
 
If the incorrect payments were taken by Direct Debit, this should surely be an easy fix by first approaching the negligent service provider, and approaching the bank to resolve as a fallback plan.
Good call, so with HSBC's app you can go to your DD, select it and click "refund previous DD" (paraphrased) - and let the bank deal with it.

Not a great idea before they close off the account their side though.
 
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As Matt and Martin say above, this is Giganet's mistake, and you should keep a complaint open with them, ideally with a view to proceeding through the ombudsman process if they refuse to refund any unfair bills:


In fact, as this isn't the first time I've heard about the issue, I'm going to chase them up on it.
 
This is very reassuring to hear. At the end of the day, sure, they can say I should have read the Ts&Cs... but that's just not a very good defence.
And I am quite a technical, informed user - what if it had been my grandmother? How long would they have billed her for !
 
It's been my experience, and expectation of the last few years that when you switch between two openreach ISPs, your old provider is notified and service cancelled. In fact, ofcom will tell you:
Yeah yeah, but in the real world, notification and switching isn't always smooth - I'd *always* advise verifying/checking with the old ISP that once you've moved they've cancelled you as it does go wrong, or people don't get told, quite often.
 
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You are not alone. We have been supporting about 3 dozen (at least) examples from customers who have moved to us (Openreach to Openreach based), where Giganet have continued to bill them. I'm highly confident Giganet are not being charged by their suppliers from that point.
Yeah, and not withstanding my comment that sometimes notification and such doesn't work, it's hardly amazing to learn that Giganet are poor at this. They're part of the same bunches of clowns as Jurassic and Swish, and all of these brands are being shuffled around and have even less of a clue than they usually do, so I can't say I'm even vaguely shocked to learn this is a repeat issue...
 
Yeah yeah, but in the real world, notification and switching isn't always smooth - I'd *always* advise verifying/checking with the old ISP that once you've moved they've cancelled you as it does go wrong, or people don't get told, quite often.
Being a gaining provider led process it should be smooth.
The gaining provider should use the same ONT as the current provider and initiate a transfer of service.
 
There's no way Giganet wouldn't have been alerted that their service was ceasing, so this is their own systems failing to work. To try and get away with charging in this situation is setting themselves up for a larger financial penalty when Ofcom get involved.

Everybody is bound by Ofcom regulation, the only differences are where the relationship is B2B rather than B2C. B2C stuff is very heavily skewed towards the consumer - providers can't do things like refuse ports even if the customer hasn't paid bills, that sort of thing.
 
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Good to hear. I'm still awaiting a comment from them, although Ofcom have indirectly confirmed that Giganet didn't handle it correctly. I think my bigger concern is with how Martin highlighted this wasn't an isolated incident and whether all those others will get the same outcome.
 
I'm in the same boat having jumped ship from Giganet to Aquiss. Giganet didn't cancel when I migrated so I've overpaid for at least a few weeks. Guess I should be complaining to them!

Also, their cancellation process seems woeful. They opened an support ticket containing no text whatsoever. I received a returns bag in a envelope with no letter or anything. I only worked out it was to send their router back since I remembered the name "M3 Solutions" but how's the average joe supposed to know what to do? They then closed my support ticket, again without writing any text on it. They've not sent me a letter, final bill or, obviously, a refund...
 
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