NOW TV disconnected my phone line and internet

[sunnyday86]

I was paying by direct debit and was still within my contract.


They claimed that they had to because someone moved into the shared house I'm in and took over my line. They said "Another provider told us they'll be taking over your phone line because their customer is moving to your address - so we'll cancel your services for [telephone number]". But two people from Openreach came down on Monday to fix this other line and told me that my line is separate from that one and there was no reason for me to be disconnected. They also said that it was ok to have the same building address without being registered as a different address. NOW TV had claimed that I needed to get the landlord to register the two households as different addresses with Openreach and the Post Office. They said I should have replied to an email they sent saying it was necessary for me to be disconnected, but I had no idea they would disconnect me within my contract (and apparently for bogus reasons anyway).

When I then a made a reorder they claimed that "your order with us has failed due to issues with Openreach's systems that manages our orders".

I was wondering what are my rights on this and can I get compensation. It seems like NOW TV may be at fault, though it could be Openreach if they gave the wrong information?

[R0b]

Your contract is with NOW TV and not Openreach so any claim for compensation would be against NOW TV. If you received an email from NOW TV about disconnecting your services and you ignored that, it might be difficult to prove how they can be liable for your disconnection since you failed to check in and confirm this with them.

I would agree with the engineer that you can have multiple lines in the same house without needing to register it as multiple addresses as I've had this happen before where there were two lines running under the same address and can be identified by different telephone numbers. It's possible that someone at NOW TV has made a mistake and requested a takeover of the wrong line.

Have you formally complained to NOW TV and if so, what is their response? Are you still without internet?

[sunnyday86]

Not on the internet still, I just had an email about cancelling charges just to add to the farce.

I have to walk an hour to and from a library to get on the internet right now. I'm trying to get a phone connected for a temporary connection. I have two tablets (google nexus 10 and Lenovo), but I don't think either has a sim card. Might be able to get 200mb free on Data Reward for 3, and maybe try Vodafone paygo for the £1 all you can get for a day. Maybe I can get a keyboard connected to phone somehow. All temporary of course until I get a proper home internet for my desktop.

I did put in a ticket to say what happened and that I am supposed to have my own line. So far no response, they probably want me to call.

Another thing. I did apply for a reconnection immediately, but they said they had to cancel it "due to issues with Openreach's systems that manages our orders".

Another thing I didn't mention before was that they sent a letter to 'The Legal Occupier' with NOWTV on the envelope. I opened it and saw that it was apparently about my attempt to reorder and reconnect on 08/02 and was telling the reader that if this connection happened they would be disconnected. So presumably this was meant for the other people in the house. Again, Openreach came down to fix their line and said my line was separate, so all this seems nonsense.

[R0b]

Might be an obvious thing to point out and you may have already done this but could you not ask the person who took over your line or someone else in the house with internet and ask to share their wifi whilst you resolve this issue?