Is this slamming?

[FirebarUK]

Hi folks, I appreciate there might be some knowledgeable people here so just wanted to run something by you for feedback. Any thoughts/comments welcome, I'm curious because my research so far suggests what has occured is infact illegal and some focus for ofcom.

I have two phone lines going into my property. Both of these had broadband and line rental services with Zen Internet in place - I actually load balance across the lines on my router to give me more bandwidth because we're semi-rural. It's FTTC. On the 13th November I requested that we remove the line rental on one of the lines, I never used it anyway and with the digital switch I could just bin it quicker. Zen then sent me a nice email saying they were cancelling this line rental - great, I thought. But here is where some events coincide....

We recently moved our elderly in-laws into an annex on our property. I had phoned Zen Internet some time before to ask them whether we could get a third line installed into their annex. They told us no - Openreach (presumably) tells them there is no capacity to do this. My in-laws then went off and did some "research" by just phoning up a salesperson who sounded nice at EE (and they had talked to before about mobile/4G), on the 14th November. This salesperson then told them that they could get a line - they would get equipment shipped to them with service commencing on 28th November. They said just take the kit and plug it in and then expect a visit from an Openreach engineer which they booked in. In hearing this, I told them this sounded very suspicious because how could a service start when there is no physical connection? Regardless, I figured that hopefully this gets them that third line installed and maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. In the meantime, what EE proceeded to do was actually initiate an "unsolicited cease" on one of my main lines and switch that service to them without my consent and knowledge. It turns out that Zen Internet did email me on my account email address to say my service was going away but this was the day after they did the same for my line rental that I was already cancelling (see above) and since these email are template/boilerplate I just ignored the second one. But this second email was infact the notification that my service was being transferred away.

Now, after some digging it seems this practice is called "slamming". Am I right in saying that? It seems like Ofcom are (or were) coming down pretty heavily on this sorta stuff. What action do you think I should take? I have phoned up EE to tell them off and ask them to turn off the service but they are struggling to even do this (computer says no, some errors) and this also isn't allowing Zen to place a new order to replace my switched service. This all means that as a remote worker with a large household I'm currently suffering a sort of service degradation - I'm almost at the point of telling kids and family to stop streaming etc. at certain parts of the day.

Thoughts welcome? I'm currently considering (a) opening a formal complaint with EE and (b) opening a complaint with ofcom.

 

[Caged]

It’s not slamming because an order was placed for a service at your address (presumably this annexe doesn’t have an address of its own), that order process would have identified an active line, and the notification was sent to you informing you of the migration.

 

[FirebarUK]

Thanks for the feedback - even if the service was switched to another provider without any written consent? I'm trying to find out whether EE even confirmed they were doing this with the in-laws.

 

[tom_e]

I'd imagine EE's argument will be that and adult at the address agreed to take their service and signed the contract, you as the contact on the existing service were then informed by your current provider it was happening and didn't raise any issue. So from their end it's all been done with permission.

From my understanding there was no "unsolicited cease" as you were informed by your provider it was happening with plenty of time to stop it.

 

[Jim99]

Thanks for the feedback - even if the service was switched to another provider without any written consent? I'm trying to find out whether EE even confirmed they were doing this with the in-laws.

Most things don't need to be done in writing. For something like this as well the terminology is so nuanced.

Arguably if you got a full recording of the sales call you could see if they were slightly misled about "new line" vs "new provider", but even if you did manage to demonstrate that I don't see that you're going to get much out of it.

Anyway, if you did want to... you can't make a complaint with Ofcom (at least not one they'll actually care about).

You can complain to EE and ask them to work with Zen to restore, refund charges and for compo if you want.

They'll probably dither, faff about and achieve very little. Or offer you £20 to go away.

You can then ask for what was usually called a "deadlock letter".

Then you can take that to the communications ombudsman to evaluate.

And they might offer some more compo. I can't see you getting more than £50-60, but you never know.

 

[FirebarUK]

I looked through the EE communications to the in-laws and what's quite curious is that there is *nothing* in any of their emails to them about a switch or transfer. It only talks about a service going live. I suppose this speaks to what you say about terminology being nuanced, they can obfuscate what they are actually doing.

 

[Vestas]

I looked through the EE communications to the in-laws and what's quite curious is that there is *nothing* in any of their emails to them about a switch or transfer. It only talks about a service going live. I suppose this speaks to what you say about terminology being nuanced, they can obfuscate what they are actually doing.

You should raise complaints.

EE shouldn't have been able to use TOTSCo to switch the service as (presumably) your in-laws name is different from you and hence the order shouldn't have been possible to place. Nor should Zen have accepted it.

You should be entitled to loss of service compensation at £9.98/day commencing two working days after reporting the issue. Do NOT activate the EE service.

 

[Caged]

Thanks for the feedback - even if the service was switched to another provider without any written consent? I'm trying to find out whether EE even confirmed they were doing this with the in-laws.

In the name of competition, moving ISP is led by the gaining provider. The losing provider is required to email you to inform you of any charges that will apply, but they cannot stop the migration from happening. The issue here seems to be that EE were happy to believe a line was physically in place based on what the computer said (because the annexe doesn't have its own address, this is technically correct even if the line isn't in the right place), and that you missed that notification from Zen.

EE shouldn't have been able to use TOTSCo to switch the service as (presumably) your in-laws name is different from you and hence the order shouldn't have been possible to place. Nor should Zen have accepted it.

I'm not sure switching on the same physical network goes near the One Touch Switch. All the words written about it refer to how it's there to solve service transfers between different infrastructure, but that may have only been during the pilot phase.

 

[Vestas]

I'm not sure switching on the same physical network goes near the One Touch Switch. All the words written about it refer to how it's there to solve service transfers between different infrastructure.

All ISPs HAVE to use TOTSCo. Its not optional and hasn't been for two years. The physical infrastructure they use is irrelevant.

Several small ISPs have had "discussions" with Ofcom over non-compliance since then and were told to use it or their code powers/teleco would be suspended until they did. They use it now

 

[FirebarUK]

Thanks for the feedback here, much appreciated. Ofcom have actually emailed me back directly about this (?!) and have said that this sounds very much like the OTS process. As you noted, indeed I don't have the same name and surname as my in-laws. It kinda suggested to me that anyone or their dog could phone up and switch me away from my provider as they don't verify the person they are talking to, and unless I check an email I'm toast....