Openreach have an incorrect postcode for my phone number

[#1]

Hi there

As PlusNet do not offer phones with their fibre broadband package, I am switched to another supplier.

My new supplier is saying they cannot port my telephone number across because the postcode I have given them doesn't match the one held against the phone number.

Initially they told me to contact my old supplier, PlusNet and PlusNet said it wasn't for them to sort out as I had left. The postcode they held against my billing address matches the one I have given my new supplier.

When I went back to my new supplier, they said they cannot tell me what the postcode OpenReach hold, due to data protection rules and I should contact BT/Open Reach. Now a postcode covers multiple properties on my road and even if it's a different property, it's unlikely they have a unique postcode against the phone number, since most postcodes cover multiple properties. I work in addressing so know about these things. Besides surely the rest of the address should be the same, as they haven't said the address I have supplied doesn't match, just the postcode. How is it possible to have the wrong postcode against an address as surely it shouldn't be possible to manually update the postcode. That isn't good practice.

My understanding is that customers cannot contact Open Reach directly. I have gone back to the new supplier and asked for their contact details. I've not named them yet as I am undecided if I want to give them free publicity at this stage, given my on going issue.

Has anyone else had this problem and how did you resolve it?

I had no issues with PlusNet whilst I was on them but the lack of a landline with their Fibre packages and the upload speed not matching the download speed, caused me to decide to go elsewhere.

[#2]

Moderator's note:
Thread moved from Home Phone to My Account/Billing

[#3 · Accepted solution]

I spoke to OfCom about this and they said it was up to the new supplier, YouFibre, to resolve this and YouFibre shouldn't be telling me to go and tell Plusnet do YouFibre's job for them.

It is likely someone in OpenReach made a mistake but this could be overridden by doing a manual entry. As it turns out the phone number was now in quarantine sand so the postcode issue had gone away.

I would have thought OpenReach would be using AddressBase, a product by the Ordnance Survey and it wouldn't be possible to get the postcode wrong, as they would hold the right address for me and that comes with the right postcode. Unless the postcode and complete address were incorrect of course but I couldn't possibly know this as due to GDPR I wasn't allowed to know the full address.

Even that seems incorrect to me, as an address is not covered under GDPR if no other personal details are included, which in this case they wouldn't have been.

I relayed all of this back to YouFibre, including OfCom saying they shouldn't be telling Plusnet to do their job. Hopefully it will be resolved in January as by the time they got to the stage of hopefully resolving it, it was the Christmas shutdown at OpenReach.

This doesn't reflect well on YouFibre. The broadband service itself has been OK but this bit of their customer services not so.

[#4]

As the clock is ticking on the 30 day quarantine period, before your old phone number becomes irretrievable,

and your interactions with YouFibre don't inspire any confidence that they can resolve this in time,

if it were me, I'd be talking to A&A to attempt to port your phone number to their VoIP service, as A&A have excellent technical support with a reputation for resolving issues like this - where other ISPs have failed,  and they have extensive experience porting ex-Plusnet customers from PSTN to VoIP.

[#5]

Thanka for your reply.

OfCom said nothing about the number being irretrievable and 30 days has already passed anyway.

I do not wish to lay a other person when I'm already paying for the service.

If the number is not in use then no reason why I shouldn't be able to get it.

If I find I can't have it but it is not in use then I will be contacting OfCom as clearly there is something wrong with the system.