Zen order processing abysmal

So we have a business line which we need to move from Plusnet and keep as an analogue line for a few months (has an alarm system which is being upgraded as part of a building refurbishment early next year).

We're an existing Zen customer ,so laced an order with them on the 25th August to move the line over, paying via the direct debit already in place. Didn't receive any emails about it...
Logged into their portal on the 28th to see it was expecting payment by card, so paid it. Zen still hadn't sent any payment requests..

Order updated to in progress status and hadn't heard anything. Logged into order tracking a few times an it shows 'Receive order accept/rejection notice from Openreach - IN PROGRESS FOR x DAYS'.

Called them today to find that Openreach had rejected the order 20 minutes after I'd made payment and Zen had done absolutely nothing about fixing the rejection. They've corrected the address error, but now aren't sure if Openreach will accept the line move request or not.


So it seems Zen have completely screwed this simple order up and may mean we lose the primary phone number for the company..Not impressed at all with them.

Not surprised. Many of their "systems" seem to be held together with wet string.

You're not going to lose the number: at worst the migration will fail, and you'll end up paying out-of-contract rates to Plusnet for a few months until you're able to move off the analogue line.

When you're ready, you can migrate the phone number to a VOIP provider, which will automatically cease the analogue line (and any broadband still on it).

Where things might go wrong is if Zen proceed with the order, but they move you onto digital voice. From what you've said, it sounds like your existing alarm service is not compatible with this.

In reply to a post by rscott:

So we have a business line which we need to move from Plusnet and keep as an analogue line for a few months (has an alarm system which is being upgraded as part of a building refurbishment early next year).

We're an existing Zen customer ,so laced an order with them on the 25th August to move the line over, paying via the direct debit already in place. Didn't receive any emails about it...
Logged into their portal on the 28th to see it was expecting payment by card, so paid it. Zen still hadn't sent any payment requests..

Order updated to in progress status and hadn't heard anything. Logged into order tracking a few times an it shows 'Receive order accept/rejection notice from Openreach - IN PROGRESS FOR x DAYS'.

Called them today to find that Openreach had rejected the order 20 minutes after I'd made payment and Zen had done absolutely nothing about fixing the rejection. They've corrected the address error, but now aren't sure if Openreach will accept the line move request or not.


So it seems Zen have completely screwed this simple order up and may mean we lose the primary phone number for the company..Not impressed at all with them.

Well as of yesterday you won't be keeping that analogue line by transferring it to Zen anyhow. You cannot transfer an analogue line - that number will have to be moved to some sort of VOIP service or via a 'digital voice' product.

You'd probably be best frankly to just order an entirely new line, which won't have a phone line, then once that's in and working, just port your old phone number to someone offering a voip service and that'll tidy it all up without so much hassle.

(Edited to add - and if you have an alarm system, you'll be doing something about that sooner - unless you can leave the analogue line with Plusnet). Plenty of ways to address the alarm issue without major expense though, not that most people want people to know as the phone switch off is a cash cow to extract lots of money from people.

Edited by therioman (Wed 06-Sep-23 17:43:58)

Zen have successfully placed an order yesterday to move this, using Openreach's exception form. Have had the commit date for the move.

So appears there is a way to get round the hard stop sell after all.

In reply to a post by rscott:

Zen have successfully placed an order yesterday to move this, using Openreach's exception form. Have had the commit date for the move.

So appears there is a way to get round the hard stop sell after all.

I'll be interesting to see if that works, and which exemption they used. Do let us know how you get on.