Slamming - someone's trying to switch me from NOW

[GSS]

Three times this week, someone had tried to cancel my NOW broadband and phone by transferring services to another provider without my knowledge or permission. Each time I phone up to have the switch cancelled. Each time I have to explain again to someone new. Apparently they can't tell which provider it's switching to, so I can't contact them to stop it. Sometimes the switch is cancelled straight away. Other times the call handler says it'll take up to 3 days. They also say they can't put anything on my account to say to speak to me before switching. I've been unable to contact openreach. The ombudsman doesn't deal with individual cases. Anyone else had this issue?

[RoyB]

@GSS 

I think you might have upset somebody, and this is malicious 😢

So how does it work?

Somebody pretending to be you asks to switch to a new provider, and nobody there carries out any identity checks?

But somehow, Now are notified, but not by the new provider, and Now then contact you to check if it’s real/confirm the switch/whatever?

It sounds like a flawed process, as we found once when our gas and electricity were in danger of getting slammed, though that was a genuine mistake by the new provider who misread the address they had been given, and used ours instead.

But I don’t understand why Now don’t know who the supposed gaining provider is; even if the details come from Openreach, Now should be able to ask Openreach who it is, so you can talk to them directly.

You may need to get the police involved to resolve this though; but as it’s a clear case of harassment, they should be able to act. But an intermediate step may be to go to Ofcom, who regulate this industry, and ask them for advice.

The Ombudsman certainly does deal with individual cases, but this would only be when you knew who you were at loggerheads with, and all other avenues had been exhausted. You may find Ofcom can sort this out more informally.

[chilli2 · Accepted solution]

Its not always malicious, and can often be a mistake, but you wil need to be on the lookout for any emails from Now or Sky in order to halt the process.

 Should the worse happen, and you get slammed then make sure you make a note of how much you are paying for your broadband and calls, how much you would expect to pay going forward and if you end up in a worse place financially due to slamming - ie your current Now deal is unavailable, or unavailable at the price you were paying then you may need to take action against the company that slammed you if you can find out who that is