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Can someone help me out, please.

My son returned home Thursday evening to find a note from BT/PlusNet that his phone, new phone number and internet connection had been moved to PlusNet by someone who previosly lived there and now resides in North Wales.

He has contacted his ISP who are now having trouble with PlusNet, trying to get everything put back the way it was.

Is this a case of Slamming? What other options does he have.

A prime example to steer well clear of an incompetent bunch of dipsticks.

Any help would be much appreciated.
 
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I must see this situation completely differently to other people.

The ISP (the one it's supposed to be) is the contracted party.

Therefore it's up to them to sort this out, restore access, put the customer back in the same position they were in before the error, and finally compensate the customer as it's likely to be down for days and even if a residential offering, this is not providing with "reasonable skill and care".

It doesn't matter whose fault it was, nor does it matter that the ISP may incur cost of their own in doing this - if they like, they can claim them from the other party later on themselves. So I'd be asking the ISP when it's going to be working again.
 
DTMark you have no understanding of the rules ISP have to follow if a landline is slammed by another company that uses their own equipment in the exchange, there is no hope you in hell your old ISP could restore the broadband.

Also if a customer cancels by accident a landline and the broadband ceases to work does that also fall in your views the ISP has to pay?

If the ADSL tag at BT openreach says Plusnet then no other ISP can arrange for this to be moved back to them. The ISP has a contract to supply you with broadband yes but if you talk to another supplier and they then slam this line as they gained enough info out of you this cannot be put on your old ISP. For the broadband to be taken also then this move had to be telephone line and broadband as for broadband alone you need a MAC code from the losing ISP.

Hence why slamming is only normally done when moving landline off BT network. Once you start a move off BT network then you have broken your contract with your ISP as you no longer have a BT landline.

So now where you going to go for costs!
 
Still don't get it.

I sign up with ISP A and have a contract with them.

ISP B tells Openreach they have authority to "take over" the line and the broadband and Openreach quite happily implement that.

I have not instructed ISP B.

ISP A is now in breach of contract from the moment that the services stop working and is duty bound to sort this out.

If necessary by instructing the installation of a brand new line and provisioning broadband on it (so, yes, they can restore service), though you'd have thought there would be quicker options - whatever is quickest to get their out of their breach of contract situation and to resume the supply of the services they'd already charged for.

If ISP A then wants to sue Openreach and/or ISP B to recover any costs they incur, they're quite welcome to but this has nothing to do with the customer.

The only relevant contract that exists is between the customer and ISP A.
 
What you are not getting is the ISP B that slams the line normally the person has been in contact with them over some deal or other and given enough information to allow the move. This is without filling any online forms etc the ISP B now starts the move ISP A has no control over that move normally the phone line is with another company not the ISP once that line is accepted to be moved to MPF network which is off BT's network then the customer has broken the contract.

It pays to not give too much info out when checking on these too good to be true deals like Broadband and telephone plus calls for less than you pay now.

As for sueing ISP B they can say they had taken the order over the phone case lost customers tend to forget when trying to get the cheapest deal that sometimes it goes wrong and they are stuck in long contracts.

I can see you have never had friends that have done this I tried to help one at the end of the day her hubby trying to penny pinch gave out too much info and the telephone line and broadband was slammed. In this case why should her losing ISP who didn't have her landline pay to get her a phone line and broadband back from talktalk?

She admitted her hubby had been shopping for the best deal on some website guess what happened?

If no information is given out to those selling below cost then lines and broadband wouldn't get slammed.

You method would end up leaving all small ISPs bankrupt so only the larger ripoff ISPs telcos left then see what happens to your too good to be true packages when no competition.
 
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Actually this happened to my partner's mother. No action was taken on her part, services did come back eventually after about two weeks. I don't recall what the compensation was there. She did not at any time instigate any move away from the current ISP.

In your example there is no way to prove whether this was "slammed" or not. Clearly the husband had provided address information and possibly billing information, too. Though allegedly he did not instruct cancellation of the existing arrangements. But you'd then have to go on to ask why he provided the rest of the information, especially billing, if that was supplied. But surely nobody would do that would they..

In the OP's case I read this as no authorisation was given whatsoever. So it's off to the original ISP to ask when services are going to be restored, this afternoon would be nice, and what level of compensation do they suggest. The OP does not need to contact PlusNet as they have no dealings or contract with them. Except for the mystery about the note - I assume it was a letter addressed to the previous occupant.

As, otherwise, the next obvious questions are "How do PlusNet know who he is?" and "Who divulged that information to them?"

But in any event, the OP did not instruct any kind of move of service, and the "losing ISP" was not notified of same by the customer (they might have been notified by proxy, but that's not the same unless there's some Power of Attorney type arrangement), so it's up to the losing ISP to sort this out at their cost unless they'd especially like to call the customer a liar as well.

Customer has paid, customer has contracted, contractor is not supplying.

Any other interpretation opens the door for the ISP to say "Yes, we signed the contract. Yes, we took the money. And yes, we had an agreement. Now for some ethereal reason not known to either of us that's all ended, we're keeping the money, and the customer can go jump".
 
The OP was not living at the premises at the time the move took place and if the person living there set the move in motion why should the ISP pay?
 
That's not how I read the original post.

Perhaps an analogy will help. This is a rough transcript of an actual conversation with the bank manager at Halifax who I insisted on speaking to after being called a liar by the staff.

Me: "The issue you've been called to resolve, is that your bank has made a number of fundamental serious errors and breached its own terms and conditions. Specifically, on m/d/y your bank enabled a third party to set up a direct debit mandate on my account with you and to attempt to debit funds from the account. The funds were not available.

You then compounded this serious error by charging me 37.50 for your mistake, and then just now, called me a liar, by saying that the only way in which the mandate could have been set up was with my authorisation. I gave no such authorisation and moreover, I have no idea who the payee is".

Bank Manager:

"I can see we set up the mandate. We were authorised to do so by payee name. That could only have come in response to a request from you to them to do so".

Me: "So, no mistakes are possible, and I am lying to you now when I say that I did not authorise it? This is very simple. Please provide a signature, email, or transcript of the call where I authorised it."

BM: "Those will be with the payee".

Me: "So you don't have a copy?"

BM: "No, they stay with the payee."

Me: "So a moment ago you asserted I was lying to you. However, it's apparent that you cannot know this for certain, since you have simply accepted authorisation by proxy. You cannot be sure I authorised this, and so, calling me a liar is ill judged at best. Moreover your own terms and conditions point (whatever it was) say that you will not hand out my money in such a fashion without my authorisation so you're in breach of your own terms and conditions."

... and so on. I had a feeling this was the first time the Bank manager learned how insecure direct debit was. Although I did not get the compensation I demanded, the charge was refunded and I did get an apology and an assurance that no Direct Debit Mandates would ever be accepted on my account again (I don't allow them) and it hasn't happened since.

Therein lies the example of the folly of "authorisation by proxy". If such a thing is allowed, then the customer can never really be wrong unless the supplier wants to call them a liar.

It is not my intention to argue with you on this, but I do think the process by which "slamming" can happen needs to be ended completely. If an ISP is providing a business grade service with SLAs they could easily find themselves in breach of that through no fault of their own and paying compensation.

However fault is irrelevant. All that matters is the contract.
 
What you forget is when an account is slammed this is classed as a new contract between the householder and the gaining ISP the old ISP has no say or right to contact them.

Lets say all conpanies were forced to comply to OFCOM MAC code then perhaps the losing ISP could do something as it is such as sky, talktalk do not need MAC codes apparently since they move the line of BT network. Oh yes this would void the contract with the ISP as the home no longer has a working BT line.

Also as I say the person living in the property at the time must have made some contact with plusnet to give out the information required to slam the line. Once you do this then you are left open to misinterpretation of a new contract with the gaining ISP. A little suprised about the lack of MAC code then again he might have also given one of them.

Since the OP isn't the person who was living in the premises at the time he doesn't know how much information was given out.

There is so much myth in this the real world is not as kind. Contracts need to be read sadly 90% do not even read them but to give out enough info to allow slamming doesn't leave the blame with the losing ISP you really should try this in court if you feel so sure.

My son returned home Thursday evening to find a note from BT/PlusNet that his phone, new phone number and internet connection had been moved to PlusNet by someone who previosly lived there and now resides in North Wales.

This can imply more than one thing returned home from work, holiday, working overseas, the OP didn't give enough information to to enlighten us.

the losing ISP will have problems talking to plusnet since the contract between plusnet and the customer does not include them. I am sure they do not want to pay for a new line plus new activation for something that might have been done by a person who moved out. Before you say anything this is often a way to get even if you fall out with someone you were sharing accommodation with so worth also asking had they had problems sharing the home or was this other person renting and had to leave as the OP's son was returning.

If the ISP didn't instigate any move from them and a customer moves this tends to imply the customer has broken the contract with the ISP. The ISP didn't break any contract the home now has a new number, so the active line wasn't migrated over therefore a cease was placed perhaps for unpaid bills the other person doesn't want to admit to.

I can come up with lots of ways this wouldn't be the losing ISP fault mainly because I see both sides of this problem. Since neither the OP or his son were the person who dealt with plusnet they do not know what was said or agreed to only the person in Wales knows.

Theories as much as you want each scenario is different but once the phone changed number the contract was broken by someone in the property.

1. Why the new number?
Answers possibly the phone was with BT but broadband with an LLU, phone ceased for some reason normally none payment and openreach messed up and didn't cease the broadband.

2. So why the new number?
Only new numbers are given on restarts or new lines.

So we can see there was a problem somewhere but this wasn't with the ISP since you cannot get a new number unless the old number was ceased.
All contracts for broadband say you have to have a working BT line new number means there was at the time no working BT line so contract broken by customer since the premises had no working BT line.


So the main question here is why the premises needed a new number perhaps the OP could say if it was due to cancellation from the pstn supplier?
 
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