After moving house, our broadband contract was renewed. Except it wasn’t renewed, they opened a new account for the new address and left the old account running.

Since opening the original account and moving house, the broadband provider had updated their account system. The old account was deemed a legacy account and the two accounts (old & new) weren’t connected.

The old account wasn’t viewable from the providers website and so I had to piece together what was happening when I spotted unexpected payments being taken from my bank account.

When I contacted them about what had happened they quickly closed the old account and refunded the incorrect payments.

What are the lessons?

  • Never assume a problem is a one off.
  • Ask: How did this happen?
  • Ask: Could other people be affected?
  • Ask: How do we identify anyone else affected and proactively address the issue?
  • Ask: How to avoid the same thing (or something similar) happening again?
  • Don’t just wait for customers to spot a problem and report it.