THIS IS URGENT! Broadband and phone cancelled by someone else!
Hi @phj Happy to answer these next points for you.
1) Please can @HarryB link my account back to my son's in terms of the discount you apply to his invoice for me signing up through him? This is how my account was set up before this situation arose. I'll put his PlusNet username in the open member centre question, but I'd imagine you have this on record anyway?
Absolutely, @HarryB has already checked these 
2) As a point for discussion/improvement, whilst I appreciate PlusNet terms state communication regarding my account will be by email, in cases such as switching supplier, should a letter not always be sent? If not always, then perhaps if there is a certain percentage of the contract still to run? In my case, having 14 months left on a recently set up 18 month contact should really have set alarm bells ringing and a letter sent to my home address and not just the standard email being sent. Perhaps if there is more than 20% of time left to run on the contract a letter to the account holder's address should always be sent.
I agree entirely, as a matter of fact yesterday I started trying to find out why we only send it to a little over 90% of people and not everyone. It turns out that our aim is to send it to everyone but at the moment because of data matching we're unable to get a higher percentage than we currently have. Work continues to improve that percentage. I can also confirm after checking the raw data sent to our printers that you were not sent a letter.
3) In terms of PlusNet gaining this line back and the broadband attached to it, how is the new supplier who has incorrectly taken over this line prevented from stopping the line being reverted back? My thought here is that the new supplier will contact who they believe to be the account holder and ask if they want to allow this switchover. This, they will believe, is the new occupants of the neighbouring property who will naturally not allow this. How do PlusNet force this through and guarantee gaining the line back?
I'm going to try to answer these points at the same time, it's going to be tricky as I need to do this without providing account specific information. Please provide us with your mobile number, I'd love to contact you and update you fully.
Our suppliers records are incorrect, they have your line down under a different address to where it actually is, the addresses have similar names and I'm sure you can guess where their records think your line is located. We cant raise a request to update our suppliers records because we no longer own the line.
How do PlusNet force this through and guarantee gaining the line back?
Honestly, we can't guarantee it. we are not able to stop the new supplier cancelling the order, that has not happened yet. We're monitoring it and will let you know of any developments.
maranello wrote:
The situation will require Plusnet to do more than simply treat this as a standard takeover.
We've contacted our suppliers and asked them to do this as quickly as possible, we've explained the circumstances but we are still awaiting a reply. It may be that they will be able to do this quicker, we don't know yet but whilst we wait its better to have the standard process going through in the background as that starts the ball rolling.
@maranello wrote:
This situation is one which I would expect the Superusers to take an active interest in.
Not sure that there is anything the SUs can do here (beyond the action already taken by @MauriceC) as this an industry bad process issue. What would be your expectations here?
@JonoH has already outlined some of the key issues here - when the process goes wrong it goes wrong big time - however BTw / BTOR do not appear to have the processes to quickly fix "its gone wrong by mistake" problems ... all too often of THEIR making due to the poor quality of THEIR data.
There are fundamental flaws in the industry's processes; it relies on...
- BT data being accurate - we see all too many provide issues / cancelled orders / bridge cases around here which tells us that the data quality is rather poor
- The "new" (or in this case the other) supplier correctly identifying the line to be taken over
- The losing supplier informing their customer of the attempt to take over the line
- The customer receiving the communication
- The customer understanding the communication
- The customer taking mitigating timely action if they do not want the move to happen
Once the move has happened (rightly or wrongly) the losing provider no longer has any control over that line - this is where BTw/BTOR need to have an unscrew a screwed-up service migration - which unpicks the cockerel-up irrespective of blame ... especially when the root cause was their poor data.
Personally I prefer the authority to take over token (MAC) approach - user has to ask existing supplier for the "key" - existing supplier becomes aware of an intent - new supplier cannot proceed without the "key" - all equals zero surprises. Whilst in the past the "key" (MAC code) only applied to broadband, it would have been beneficial if it also applied to the "phone" service.
The present gaining supplier led migration is too dependent upon a just 10 day cooling off period within which the losing supplier has to communicate with their user that a take over has been requested. This is now peak holiday season - 10 days is simply not long enough to ENSURE that the user receives the communication and can act upon it - they might be on two weeks vacation somewhere and 10 days just does not hack it. On the other hand, making the cooling off period something more reasonable (like 21 days) would result in longer waits for service migration.
An affirmative migration "authorisation key" approach is in my mind much more safe and ought to completely inhibit the risk of slamming ... or mistakes such as this arising from new supplier error or BT poor quality data.
However, such is way beyond any ability to influence the SUs might be believed to have. I think given the disclosed circumstances and industry constraints, PlusNet are doing all that can be done.
There is a lesson to be learnt here for all users though - please ensure that you know where your postmaster@ emails go to and ensure that you read all emails from PlusNet. Ensure that the PlusNet email address is whitelisted in any anti-spam tools you use. Not ensuring that you do see and read PlusNet sent emails could mean that another party's mistake could result in your line being lost. 
@berryp1 I decided it was not worth the effort a long time ago, especially as German and French work contacts had a better knowledge of English structure than many of my younger colleagues - and proof reading was done by Scottish/Welsh schooled members of the team. Literacy is no longer a requirement to pass English exams 
Phil
@Townman wrote:
Interesting points noted - thank you.
Yes there are opportunities around stopping incorrect charges, however I suspect that once the direct debit charge has been initiated through BACS it is out side any control of the initiating party. All that can be done is to wait for it to complete (or fail) and then to respond accordingly.
This is correct, I've just double checked this and once it's submitted we are unable to edit it in any way. The account holder can cancel the instruction with the bank, however if not done promptly the payment will be taken and the refund will be delayed.
It's understandable that such awareness might only come about after things have gone wrong.
If we'd have known prior to this that there was an error in the records we would have rectified it, all it takes is a quick email to our suppliers a short delay and then the records are updated. The problem is it's very difficult for us or our suppliers to know if the records are incorrect before there is a problem. As always I'd be interested in hearing any suggestions people have to improve this process.