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?