topic Re: Line taken over in Broadband & Landline

Line taken over

Jez90 — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 21:40:25 GMT

I've had 5 emails and letters from EE saying someone wants to take over my line since January. After every email I've phoned to tell them I'm not moving house and have no intentions of leaving my contract. Well... late on Thursday night at bang on midnight the internet went out, went to bed and woke up on Friday morning and still no internet just a solid orange light.

I phoned up EE at 8:30am who said they had no record of broadband on my account and that the service had been terminated despite my numerous phone calls to not cancel it. I had to sign up to a new contract and according to their system i also have no fibre installed at my address (I've had fibre installed for 6 years and was on a 500mbps package) and was advised they may have to send an engineer out to install the fibre line and ONT. They sent me a 4G router out to tide me over in the meantime.

This is where the weird thing comes in, Friday night the internet came back on, but it's now at 74mbps not at 500 which i am paying for. This change in speed leads me to think I'm on someone else's plan and they're paying the bill.

I'm not sure how this 'slamming' scam works, surely someone's footing the bill, what do they get out of it? One request could indicate someone has entered the wrong address, but 5 requests?

According to one advisor i spoke to they could see there was a transfer request for moving the line over from EE to BT. Because BT and EE are the same company i asked if he could get a name for me, he then looked into it and told me it was very strange because the transfer didn't have a name on it.

If they take the cancellation fee this will be the icing on the cake, i'll be changing to sky.

Re: Line taken over

XRaySpeX — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 21:50:51 GMT

@Jez90 wrote:
they had no record of broadband on my account and that the service had been terminated
That's contradictory! How can they terminate something that there is no record of?
What does BT Wholesale Broadband Availability Checker estimate for your phone number? Post just the whole table and the line above it, blanking out your phone number. If it doesn't recognise your phone number or you don't have one, use the Address Checker, not the Postcode Checker.

Re: Line taken over

Jez90 — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 23:32:28 GMT

Ok maybe i could have phrased it better. He basically said there's currently no active service on my line and looking at my account he could see there was previously a service which had been transferred out.

Re: Line taken over

XRaySpeX — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 06:28:16 GMT

You can only get Full Fibre there. However there is no record of it ever being at that addy. If it had, where it says "FTTP Available" would say "ONT exists". Do you still have an ONT on the inside of an exterior wall? Once installed it should never be removed.

Re: Line taken over

Jez90 — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 10:40:48 GMT

It's an absolute joke at this point. According to them i have no active service and i need to installed despite me telling them i already have it. My internet is back up and running but only at 75mbps not the 500mbps that i am paying for. Due to the text i received this morning and the different package speed, i believe my internet is now linked to someone elses account. So i assume there will be another customer out there who BT have told their internet is now up and running and they don't have any because i have it. How can they screw up this badly? I might wait until the engineer comes out to explain to him as trying to deal with somebody over the phone who keeps saying 'hmm computer says no' is impossible. There won't be a great deal for them to do though as i have everything installed.

Re: Line taken over

Weebles2025 — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 12:19:15 GMT

@Jez90 The only time I've seen this happen is when someone lives in a multi-dwelling such as a flat and their address has been put down wrong as the building address in the database so that every time someone in the building orders broadband it produces these annoyances.

Re: Line taken over

Jez90 — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 01:51:32 GMT

I live in a bungalow...

Re: Line taken over

Chris_S — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 07:32:53 GMT

Hi Jez,

I can imagine it's concerning when you receive communication that your broadband is changing and you notice a change of speed.

We don't have access to customer accounts here in the EE Community so I'd recommend giving us another call so that we can get a guide to get this investigated for you.

If you'd like to make a complaint about your experience, just head to our complaints web page.

Chris S

Re: Line taken over

Jez90 — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 21:47:35 GMT

I phoned them back on Wednesday and apparently there's a problem with my address and they need to send an engineer to verify i live at the address i told them i live at. I don't know why i'd be lying? According to the order tracker he should have came on Wednesday, no sign of anyone by close of play. This then changed to Thursday, then to Friday, same thing. It's now showing Monday for the first engineer to arrive. I don't know what he'll do other than look it and go 'Hmm yes. That's a CSP that's already installed' then leave. Then i have to wait for the second engineer to come and swap out the Huawei ONT because we're no longer dealing with China. (If they sent the ONT i could plug it in myself)

The 75mbps fibre connection i had from the 17th went down at midnight on Thursday and i'm now using the 4G hybrid thing which didn't work when i first tried it. Swapped the sim card out with the one from my phone and it then worked. I had to phone EE up again on the Thursday to tell them about this and was told there was a problem with the sim card activation, the agent on the phone was eventually able to activate it with some help from his colleague. (It's just one problem after another)

The 4G backup sim card is limited to 30mbps down and 6mbps up.

I have a 3.5 GB file i need to upload to a server for work on Monday morning. This is going from taking just a few minutes to taking close to 1.5 hours at 6mbps.

I'll definitely be making a complaint and applying for compensation when this is eventually sorted.

Re: Line taken over

Jez90 — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 00:04:51 GMT

Still no sign of an engineer. Whenever i phone up and ask for an ORDI and re-provision the EE agent seems to think i'm speaking a foreign language and has no idea of what any of that is.

Re: Line taken over

Alex_H — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 09:08:43 GMT

@Jez90 Sorry to hear you are still having issues getting sorted. I know you mentioned raising a complaint when sorted, but if you have not already we would recommend using that link Chris posted above to fill out the complaints form. That complaint will go directly to our executive team to help get a resolution to your issue.

Alex

Re: Line taken over

Jez90 — Tue, 05 May 2026 11:45:38 GMT

Somebody is supposed to be coming on Thursday. Which will mark 3 weeks to the day since i lost connection. Absolutely ridiculous when all of this could have been fixed with an ORDI within 24 hours (or by not cancelling my service to start with). ONT serial numbers are bound to a specific address, the one i have installed doesn't match my billing address. I sent my ONT serial number off as well as my address all they had to do was re-match the ONT to the correct address and then they could re-start the service. No need to send anyone out at all.

Computer says no, i don't even have it installed. They have to send multiple people out to 'install' it.

Engineer on Thursday will probably just replace the ONT with one that's bound to the correct address.

All they could offer me from the complaint was one month credit when ofcom states a loss of service is £10.34 per day. If i leave my contract early i have to pay a 'cancellation fee' but if they decide to terminate my contract early, "oh best we can do is one month credit".

Incompetence at its finest.

Re: Line taken over

Jez90 — Thu, 07 May 2026 17:36:52 GMT

An Openreach engineer showed up this morning at 8am. Literally just unplugged ONT and plugged in a new Zyxel one and the router then changed from orange to blue. Didn't have to get any tools out of his van. It took him longer to drink his coffee than it did to fix the issue.

Nothing wrong with the previous Huawei one, it could've be re-provisioned remotely using an ORDI in which case it wouldn't have taken 21 days to sort out. 😒

Re: Line taken over

JimM11 — Thu, 07 May 2026 17:41:00 GMT

@Jez90 At least you are connected now.👍👍

Re: Line taken over

XRaySpeX — Thu, 07 May 2026 17:43:20 GMT

Glad it's sorted! What does BT Wholesale Broadband Availability Checker say now about FTTP & the ONT at your premises?

Re: Line taken over

Jez90 — Thu, 07 May 2026 18:09:59 GMT

Re: Line taken over

XRaySpeX — Thu, 07 May 2026 18:36:00 GMT

Ah, there! It now says "ONT exists" as it should do.