Wrong Account Name

[#1]

Apologies for the long-winded post, but I need someone to help me please ....
I manage my parents Plusnet Account as they are both octogenarians & unable to manage it themselves.

When I opened the account on the 5th June 2021 my first name & my mum’s surname somehow ended up as the Account name, presumably because I entered my email address & it auto populated the account name, or it was a genuine mistake?

This was only realised when my mum started receiving her monthly bills in the post & noticed they had the wrong name on. I then went onto a Plusnet chat & explained the situation, but was told the Account name could not be changed.

This didn’t seem to be too big a problem until I rang yesterday morning to negotiate a new deal for them, as the contract ends on the 27/12/2022. I explained all this to the person I spoke to & that my mother was the account holder. We then had a ridiculous scenario where I had to get my mum on the landline phone (from her home), so that he could hear her voice. He then asked ‘is this *****’ (the wrong name), despite me already explaining that this was a mistake when opening the account & that that wasn't my mother’s name. My mum’s hearing isn’t good & neither of them could hear each other, so I had to end the call with her. He continued to tell me that I could not renew her contract because neither of us was the named Account holder & the only option left was for us to leave Plusnet, which is incredible given it was either a genuine mistake on my part when opening the account, or the way the on-line process is set up, that it lends itself to a mistake, if the contact person’s name is assumed account holder’s name. My mum pays the bill, lives at the address on the account & has the land line number, but Plusnet have left us in an impossible situation.

I wanted to simply negotiate a new unlimited fibre deal, which is going to be very hard to find elsewhere now that everyone is going Full Fibre. They don’t want anyone coming to their home & digging up their garden. They have one mobile phone which uses the internet, my mum facetimes my sister in Canada & my dad has a Firestick & that is the extent of their usage. They do not want the hassle of finding a new provider, as up to now, they have been very happy with the service.

I absolutely understand where the operative is coming from, from a Data Protection point of view, but there really must be a way to resolve this without anymore hassle for my parents. So, I would very much appreciate it if this could be resolved without them having to move to another provider.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

[#2]

Moderators Note

This topic has been moved from Broadband to My Account/Billing

[#3]

@Kim777  This sounds a bit of a mess but Plusnet saying your mum cannot renew the contract and has to leave seems ridiculously harsh.

Here's an idea, apply as a new customer taking over the service and setting up the account with a different name such as your dad's name. Should get new customer price, the only problem is any existing email addresses will be lost, also I'm not certain but I believe new customers no longer get a Plusnet email service.

[#4]

I've had a similar issue with my sister's gas and electricity account - I look after the account for her, and somewhow the name on the account ended up not being either of our names. Trying to correct the account name just ended with a maze of questions - "so when did xxx move out", "what is xxx's new address so we can send a final bill?", "when did yyy move in?", "what was yyy's previous address?" (rejected because it is the same), and "we'll have to do a credit check...".

It isn't often I need to talk to them, but now when they ask "is that xxx?" I just say yes. I'm not impersonating anyone, and nobody is going to object to any changes I make.

BTW the GDPR laws are there to protect the privacy of "natural persons" - an imaginary account holder isn't covered by GDPR.

(I had entered a similar reply, but the message was moved while I was writing the reply so was rejected and lost - that's annoying too!)

[#5]

This is very difficult space as it is all to do with legal entities under contract and I suspect Ofcom regulations associated with phone line owner identities ... and BT Openreach back-end systems.

@JonoH - this seems like a business rules hurdle - I know that there are very specific circumstances where the name on an account can be changed and those circumstances do not apply here.  However, is there any means of changing a name where there has been an administrative foul-up by the user or the business?

Browser auto-form filling can be very helpful ... and rather dangerous ... I have been caught out with the wrong information being populated.

If this is forced into creating a new account, is there any way of avoiding an enforced change of number on the line?

@Kim777 if you are forced in to taking a new account with the risk of losing the existing number, migrating the service to a new provider might be a way of avoiding losing the number ... but be sure to ask carefully.

[#6]

Thanks for all your replies. I have tried to open a new account, but would need to cancel the existing contract first, which I don't want to do. If I try to open a new account with the same Post Code & Landline number it says an account already exists.

I sent an enquiry to the support team yesterday & am receiving a call back this morning, so hopefully the issue will be resolved.

I will let you know the outcome.

[#7 · Accepted solution]

I have spoken to someone from Plusnet this morning & after talking to their Data Protection Officer they agreed 'on this occasion' to amend the account name to my mum's, as the direct debit, address & landline all referred to her, which begs questions in why that wasn't taken into account yesterday. However, to negotiate a new deal I still have to have her present to give her consent, which is still a pain as she lives 30 miles away, but it's better than the option I was previously given. So I will take that as a result & learn from it. Thank you

[#8]

Kim,

Really good news that you have obtained a pragmatic result.  In some areas there are firm rules which staff may not break ... which become translated in to "cannot be done".  Obtaining flexibility invariably requires getting past the line supervisors to someone who does have the authority to flex the rule.

Not easy spaces to manage ... if the authority to flex many rules were delegated ... one might end up with mayhem!

As for having your mum present when making chargeable changes to the account, that is a fundamental requirement as only the account holder can make changes which give rise to charges.  Plusnet does have comprehensive arrangements to support vulnerable people - see the additional support form here Accessibility | Help | Plusnet for the details.  (You will need to login to the portal).  Note the Power of Attorney option - do not know if you would need to have a LPA in place for that option.