Phone slamming

I had never heard of phone slamming until I found this great site, so I wasn't totally surprised a couple of days ago to receive a letter from my ISP Pipex telling me that I had asked to change provider. It seems that only this year have phone companies had to advise such changes by letter, one from my provider, one from the new provider. Previously the line would have been changed without my knowledge. Pipex told me that they would cancel the change but they could not or would not tell me the provider who was trying to hijack my business.
There are so many complaints about slamming that Ofcom has a ready-made complaint form on its website. I see that Ofcom can fine a company up to 10% of its turnover, though whether they will do so is something else.
Meanwhile I have had no letter from my would-be provider; has anyone any idea who this hijacker could be ??

Phone service or BB as you don't exactly say.

Could be Talk Talk who own Pipex have decided to move you to their system and this has generated the letter.

Probably TalkTalk!

TT recently bought Tiscali, and Tiscali own Pipex. So if both your phone and broadband are Pipex it could be they are moving you onto their full LLU system.

It isn't totally clear (to me) from your post what was about to happen, as you start off by saying you had a letter from your ISP Pipex about changing provider, which I assume meant broadband, then you swap to talking about the phone line.

Are you sure you haven't had an email or anything possibly a couple of months ago to do with being changed to TalkTalk? All Tiscali users did. You might have ignored it? Or no longer be checking the email address that you used when signing up to Pipex originally?

In reply to a post by Rockh:

Phone service or BB as you don't exactly say.

Could be Talk Talk who own Pipex have decided to move you to their system and this has generated the letter.

Took me so long to do my reply to the OP I didn't see this until I posted.

Sorry folks, I do have phone/linerental/BB package with Pipex since their takeover of Toucan. I do suspect TT at their work ...
I did have a phone call from TT some months ago after I made the mistake of checking my line on their speed checker, not noticing the small print. I certainly did not tell them to change, and I would not go to TT anyway. They seem to be the Ryanair of the BB world.

Edited by Malwaremike (Wed 23-Jun-10 16:49:03)

You are with TT ! Just perhaps not on their network so they intend, (or did), to swap you over.

Yes Roberto, I appreciate that I'm on TT LLU but my contract is with 'Pipex UK Ltd' and I have not agreed to change it.
Just phoned Pipex and was told that target date for changing my line is June 29 and they CANNOT cancel it. This is contrary to the Ofcom site which states there is a 10-day 'change your mind' period.
Oh well, time to call Ofcom again ...

Ouch!

Getting back is a pain as well if they go ahead.

Inform them by email and phone with a recorded/registered letter that you do not want to change and that if they change you without permission they will be liable for any costs in reverting you.

The fact that Talk Talk now own Pipex means that they probably can move you to their network as part of a rationalisation programme, it'll be hidden in the T&C's.
If you were swapping to another provider not wholy owned then you would have some chance based on the OFCOM info.

As MHC says, object in writing.

There have been a few posts about this over the months and most people seem to have had problems trying to revert to a non-full LLU service without incurring costs.