Incorrect usage

I have had a problem which started on the 6th December and has still not been resolved, hence I am trying to post here to see if that will help. The question ID is 23582060. I recently changed to Broadband Your way Option 1 as my usage has been mostly below 1GB, only occasionally going over. Suddenly the usage shot up to 800MB in one day and my speed was reduced as I had supposedly exceeded my allowance.

Since then I have posted many times and yesterday had 602MB of alleged usage when I deliberately powered off my router. The message is still not getting through so if there is an agent monitoring this board, please help. Thank you

Just to say I have been a loyal PlusNet user for many years through good times and bad but this problem is stretching my patience.

I'm going to reply to your ticket now, although you have told us the router was off yesterday we are still seeing connections throughout the day. I'll put some more info on the ticket reply.

Hi there,

I've had a look into the breakdown of usage that we're able to retrieve from BT (CBC). Looking into this, I'm able to see that on the 6th, there was a total of 561.27MB of usage between 12-2pm. As you also refer to yesterdays usage, between 7-9pm, 543.99MB usage was consumed.

I appreciate that you have stated that you turned off your router yesterday, but please bear in mind that the usage will probably run about 2 hours behind. I'm able to get an hourly breakdown of your usage, hence why I'm able to supply the figures above.

Unfortunately, I'm not able to see exactly what caused the additional usage, but I would suggest that it would be someone connecting to your router wirelessly, although I do appreciate that you have stated in your ticket that you have tried securing it. I understand that you say that this is stretching your patience and I do appreciate that it is frustrating, but I don't really think there's anything we can do in this instance.

I have tried to reply in the support centre but that appears to have stopped working now!

Please believe me, the router was powered off, therefore no one can connect wirelessly to a powered off router, if they could I would make a lot of money! The lag is also totally irrelevant. Yesterday I powered off the router at 07:30 and had not used the internet since before midnight the previous day. Usage was being recorded all day long so it cannot be due to the lag.

The router is currently powered off so please run some tests, any usage being seen cannot be due to anything at my end of the line.

Thank you

As per my ticket reply there were a number of connections during the day yesterday, as the portal is currently experiencing problems I've pasted the times and durations of the connections below for you.

Start Time       |    End Time       | Duration

21:12 17/Dec/2007 | 07:18 18/Dec/2007 | 10:6:30

18:02 17/Dec/2007 | 00:30 18/Dec/2007 | 6:28:18

10:36 17/Dec/2007 | 15:46 17/Dec/2007 | 5:10:5

10:14 17/Dec/2007 | 10:26 17/Dec/2007 | 0:12:1

10:03 17/Dec/2007 | 10:11 17/Dec/2007 | 0:7:50

OK thank you for that.

The top entry (21:12 17/Dec/2007 | 07:18 18/Dec/2007 | 10:6:30) is exactly correct. I left the router off all day yesterday and eventually switched it on at 21:12 and then left it on all night before switching it off this morning at 07:18.

The other entries could not possibly have been made by any equipment at my house. Also there is no possibility of any old kit connecting. I have only previously used a USB modem and that is in my garage!

Is the answer simply to change my password? If so I will try it this evening. If this works I would require my usage to be reset but we can discuss that later.

Have you seen any connections this morning? As I said before the router is currently powered off.

Changing your password would be a good way to try to pin this down, the only connection today is the one that started at 9.12 last night and ended at 7.18 this am.

It is interesting that the first and second connections shown below overlap between 21:12 17/Dec/2007 and 00:30 18/Dec/2007. Assuming that one modem / router cannot maintain 2 connections it suggests that someone else is connecting using the same log-in details but from a different modem / router. This would only be possible with a dynamic IP address but would explain the strange usage figures.

Yes, that's essentially the line of our thinking at this end.

Hopefully a password change would negate this issue.

I have now changed my password so hopefully there should be no further connections until I get home, power up my router and update the password (around 19:00). Have bogus connections like these never been seen before?

Hi there,

I've definitely seen them in the past, although they are quite rare.

Often, it's a case of where someone has tried using their username and password on a friends connection as part of a troubleshooting process.

Unfortunately, we have no way of identifying where the actual connection request is coming from geographically, making these issues hard to identify.

Is there a connection for unspelt's account now? His router is off but the other connection may be active and the change in password will have no effect until that connection is broken and a further attempt is made to connect.

You can probably not answer the question to me but it might be worth checking.

As far as I can see, there are currently no active connections, so the password change should do the job.

I think a usage reset would be a good gesture James.

Oh absolutely.

We're going to do that once we have confirmed that the problem has been resolved.

Any update on this?

Thanks for your interest lodge. It now looks fine, normal usage for this evening and nothing before that until I got the router on line again. Only problem is my speed is 130K, so please could PlusNet adjust my usage and give me my normal speed back ~2250K. It will obviously take a few days to be certain that it has been fixed but getting my normal speed back in the meantime would be good.

It is a bit disconcerting to think that someone got hold of my username and password though. My previous password was weak and began with a 'b' so perhaps someone just set up an automatic system that went through likely words until they found the right one. The new one is much stronger and it has certainly made me think about where else I have used weak passwords, a warning I think! Luckily it didn't cost me any money, just 12 days of inconvenience and frustration.

Hi James

I think all is well now, but it will take a few days to be sure. Meanwhile I have received the most ridiculous response to my request in question 23582060 for my usage to be reset and the normal speed restored. Sorry I but I am finding it a bit frustrating having to deal on two tiers. You and Chris have been very helpful and understanding but the people answering the question have been exactly the opposite. Apologies for having this rant here but I can't see how else to get things done.

It's a pity you are unhappy at the 1st line responses to your ticket, but at least there are reps on here willing to sort out the trouble.

Thanks Unspelt.

I've passed the request through to the team who are responsible for performing such tasks. Sadly, I'm not able to do any usage resets myself as this requires access to our accounting servers, which only a few people in the compnay have.

Thank you James, hopefully the usage reset will happen soon.

Hi James

The speed is now back to normal, thanks, although the usage shown has not changed.

Since I changed the password the usage has returned to normal and I have been logging into the portal using the new password. However this morning I tried to log into the portal with the new password and it was rejected. The old one worked again. This is most disconcerting, is it a problem at your end? or has my account been compromised in some way? Please advise what I should do.

Hi there,

Initially I would suggest changing your password again. I haven't seen any other similar complaints regarding the password issue.

There's a bit of a problem with doing manual usage resets currently, which our Network team is looking into.

Hi James

After logging into the Portal with my old password, I tried to use the change password facility only to be told that the Current Password (i.e. the old password that I entered) is not correct. But I had just used it to log in!, so there is something strange going on. Hopefully my broadband link is secured by my new password and this quirk only affects the portal. It would be good to get it sorted though as it could become very confusing.

Thanks for that.

If you try the password change request again and give it the new password, does it then allow you to change your password?

I'm asking one of our Developers about this to see if he can see a problem.

I put in the new password as the current password and then put in the new password as the one to change to as well. That worked successfully so I logged out and logged in again. This time I had to use the new password and the old one would not work. All seems OK again but is it going to go wrong again after a few days??

Thanks

Edited by unspelt (Fri 21-Dec-07 12:46:57)

It should be fine now.

It's actually a known problem that's ben worked on currently and we'd had to roll back to yesterdays passwords.

So, gladly nothing more sinister.

Well it wasn't actually yesterday's password, but never mind, at least it can be explained. It had me worried for a minute after the other problem. Thanks very much for your help.

unspelt,

When did you first change your password?

Rgds,

I first changed my password last Tuesday (18-12-07) mid morning and it was effective straight away. I then used it successfully for logging into the portal and for my router. However this morning about 11:00, I tried to log into the portal and found that I had to use my old password. You can see the rest of the sequence in this post. I trust this helps.

Thanks. I suspect James is barking up the right tree but I'll double check to be sure!

Rgds,