Wrong Address with BT but they wont change it

Basically moved into a house where i got the line reconnected by BT 10 months ago

Problem is the address openreach have for my line is in another village miles away with a totally different postcode. Problem is i have spoken to BT who put me through to openreach where i spoke to a guy who told me they cant change the address? So i left it a few weeks and rang up again. Spoke to openreach again and was told the same! It cant be changed even though its the totally wrong address?

I have online billing and bt have my address as a correspondence address or something!

Well now Talk Talk have unbundled my exchange (Standeford) it is worth changing from my £28 month broadband/ line rental to talktalks £13 with offer. I dont download much. Problem is whenever i check my line it comess up sayoing postcode does not match telephone number and when it does it comes up with really slow speeds.
When i go to order talktalk it states there is no telephone line at my address (but there is)?

I want to go through quidco so cannot ring them to order and tell them to send the router to the correct address?

Now i wanted to know if there are any problems with doing the following:-

Getting talktalk to install a new telephone line (2nd line) then cancelling my old line with BT.

I had read somewhere that a 2nd line is chargeable is that true? or are there any other problems or charges i might recieve?

Edited by KINGMUZZAUK (Tue 04-Sep-12 08:59:49)

I suggest you email the Openreach CEO's office. [email protected]

Don't mention the stuff about TT, just the first three paragraphs of your post, and the inconvenience of having the wrong address.

Heh! Did you ask them where they would send the engineer if your line/number developed a fault?

As another point, this could have serious implications for your ability to get a fibre connection.

Both of those questions you could ask in the email. (I suggest also giving the number and your correct address. How did you find out that they have it wrong anyway?)

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 04-Sep-12 09:41:48)

And how did they get it wrong in the first place?

Clerical error probably. Maybe it's a new postcode and wasn't on their database, so someone assumed the OP had filled it in wrong, and went for the nearest similar.

It could even be that the postcode was there, but next to another on an address database. We have that situation. There is number/road, Hazel Grove, Stockport, postcode, and the same without the "Hazel Grove" and with a different postcode. We still get address lookup people selecting the wrong one . Postcode lookups of course get it right.

Thanks to you all for your advice. It started when i rang to get the line connected. They said there was no line at my address and i said there was a dial tone and they told me to do the 17070 or something bt line test.

That way i didnt have to pay for a new line install they just reconnected it.

After connection never thought nothing of it as online billing etc....

untill i wanted broadband ...i rang up bt as websites would say number doesnt match postcode. The address was correct that i gave them to order the reconnection but bt had put my real address down as a correspondence address so when they asked security questions like " What is your address" I didnt have a clue what address they had! I Had to speak to about 3 or 4 people before getting nowhere. Ordered broadband from plusnet where i got all the same problems but EVENTUALLY got a router delivered!! again online billing!!

Think it will be a long winded way to send emails to openreach and probably take months to sort so really want to start from scratch with the 2nd line install if possible. That way it will be correct from the start. And i can cancel the bt line in a few weeks!

In reply to a post by KINGMUZZAUK:

And i can cancel the bt line in a few weeks!

Aren't you on 18 months contract for 1 of them?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

We have that situation. There is number/road, Hazel Grove, Stockport, postcode, and the same without the "Hazel Grove" and with a different postcode. We still get address lookup people selecting the wrong one . Postcode lookups of course get it right.

I have exactly the same situation at my address! The other address, in the nearby town, which unfortunately is the post town for the village (I tend to leave it out on anything not too official) is a corner shop, above which various tenants of dubious repute come and go. It seems that many of them look up their own postcode and end up choosing mine, so I get their bills, final demands, court papers, bailiffs letters, etc. Such fun.

I have the exact same problem only its sky i'm trying to switch to. Currently the Post Office and BT have my correct correspondance address but openreach is wrong. I havent been able as yet to contact them directly and i'm going to try the e-mail address provided above. However, I'm also looking into canceling my existing line and installing a new one also. Would appreciate any updates on how you get on and I'll do likewise cause currently stuck in an expensive broadband deal and I'm fed up running round in circles and contacting customer support teams to resolve the issue.
Thanks

Who are you replying to? It certainly isn't me. (There is a reply button against each post ).

By asking me, you won't trigger the person you intended to ask to post anything useful.

MY PARENTS HAVE HAD THEIR LINE STOLEN BY OPENREACH BECAUSE SOME HOW OPENREACH CHANGED THE ADDRESS ON THE TELEPHONE LINE THEY HAVE USED FOR 12 YEARS. NOW THEY ARE HAVE TROUBLE GETTING ANOTHER PHONE LINE THROUGH SKY WHO HELPED OPENREACH TAKE IT TO START WITH CAN ANY ONE HELP I HAVE EMAIL OLIVIA GARFIELD CEO AT OPENREACH TO ASK FOR HER HELP

I'm surprised you needed to email her, you shout so loud .

Anyway - a moment's thought inside that skull of yours should make it perfectly obvious nobody here can help you more than she can.

Nor can Openreach steal the line. It belongs to them.

Changing an address on the post code section of the royal mail website should work - but it never has for me.I was waiting for an operation once in hospital, they checked my address with me. I said it was wrong. Not to worry, they said., we can change it. 15 minutes later they returned and said they couldn't. It accepted the changed then promptly reverted.
I've just given up. we get mail for all sorts of similar address and just re-address it. Fortunately, we get other peoples mail usually rather than the other way round.
Aren't computers wonderful??

Remember some people that find TBB aren't as 'puter literate as you

Just sayin'

You can usually have two adressses set up and I suspect thats what the problem is. You can have one address for where the service is provided but you can have a different billing address. Most compaies allow you to change these things online but with BT you have to phone them.

It may be whover had the house previously had a seperate billing address so what may have happened is that the address where the service is provided may have been changed to your name but they may still have a seperate billing address linked to it. Have you checked the actual pdf bills online to see what address they have on them?

Another check is to look up your Postcode on the Royal Mail WEb site to checkthat it comes up with the right address

How did you get the line put in your name? If the line still had dial tone it sounds as if the previous tenant never formlly gave notice he was moving.

If you are getting bills BT must have the line in your name assuming the bills are actually addressed to you.

Why BT refered you to Openreach I don't know. You point of contact would be BT Retail who do the billing and accounts

They all know that caps is shouting. The rest of my reply to him was the meat of it anyway.

I realise that I'm replying to the old bit of this thread, but it might help still...

Isn't there an obligation on Openreach (and/or BT Wholesale) to have the correct address that the phone line is physically provisioned for?

Certainly they are required to use location information for emergency calls - to both supply that information to the emergency service, and to choose which service will take the call (eg, which county police force).

If they have this address information wrong, surely they are failing to honour that commitment, *and* potentially putting your family at risk! Well - it's an angle to pursue the change with anyway

BT Wholesale's 999 product description