Generic message

[#1]

Has anyone received one of these lately?

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REDACTED - IE - Generic 3:45pm, Monday 10 Mar 2014 Dear Mr Boden, Unfortunately we have received a complaint regarding copyrighted material that appears to have been shared from your connection. If you're not sure why this might have been received or would like more information regarding this please raise a query at https://portal.plus.net/wizard/index.html (click on Customer Services & Billing / Contact the Abuse Team). We are legally required to advise you that you must take all reasonable precautions to ensure that no one (including you) uses the Service: (a) fraudulently or in connection with a criminal offence; (b) to send, knowingly receive, upload, download or use any material which is offensive, abusive, indecent, defamatory, obscene or menacing, or in breach of copyright, confidence, privacy or any other rights. If you're aware that this is happening on your connection, please ensure you stop the sharing of the offending material. Even if you're sure that nobody in your household has been sharing any copyrighted material the account holder is responsible for any and all use of the connection. Please ensure that if you use a wireless network that it is fully password protected and as secure as is possible. For more information on securing your networks and computers please see http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/wireless_broadband/secure_home_network.shtml Kind regards, REDACTED

Such a lot of detail regarding the alleged complaint regarding copyrighted material that appears to have been shared from your connection!!
What brilliant customer service - not. 
This "message" is just a copy and paste job - if it was email, I'd call it spam and just delete it.

[#2]

Good old P2P laws in this country - guilty until proven innocent.
So how would the OP get detail on who made the complaint, when and what 'evidence' they have on the basis for making it?

[#3]

Raise a ticket questioning it.
I got one of these last year(?) Raised the ticket asking if they could tell me what material it was and it was dismissed 'as shouldn't have been sent' because it was for an 'old report' they no longer had access to.

[#4]

They sent this mindless rubbish as a ticket.
I've already replied to it.
I expect it will end in tick ping-pong hell.
If you are going to accuse someone of "illegal" activities, it would be interesting to know what it is.
I will admit to downloading a couple of copies of mint - via BIT-TORRENT!

[#5]

Still waiting for Plusnet to provide detail on their allegations.

[#6]

Hi vilefoxdemonofdoom.
Can you send me your ticket number and I will pick this up with the relevant department tomorrow for you?
Emma

[#7]

Thanks - I find anonymous accusations very offensive.
But all I got was

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REDACTED - CSC Analyst 9:50pm, Saturday 15 Mar 2014 Dear Mr Boden, Thank you for getting in touch today. [sic] I am going to pass this information on to our networking team to provide more information on the complaint and which files were involved. Kind regards, REDACTED [Email notification sent to: ]

So only 4 days to not answer my complaint.

[#8]

Finally!!!!
detail provided.

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Hi Jeremy, Thanks for getting in touch, please see below for the details of the infringement reported to ourselves by the copyright holder: Infringement Info: Timestamp of report: 02-17-2014 Title details: [REDACTED] Username (if applicable): IP address: 31.185.249.74 Protocol used: BitTorrent Port ID: 56198 Timestamp: 2014-02-14 18:04:30.337 Last Seen Date: 2014-02-14 18:04:30.337 We're unable to disclose any further information than this, however please be assured your details have not been passed to the copyright holder. We are currently advising you, as per our legal requirement, a report has been logged with us from a copyright owner against your IP address. No further action will be taken by ourselves at this time in regards to the status of your connection. Kind regards,

So what did someone in your house access at 18:04:30 - only 33 days ago?
Apparently they only accessed a single packet lasting a single millisecond.
This is perfectly ridiculous.
I am not even allowed to challenge the veracity of any of this information.

[#9]

Latest response from me.

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Unfortunately your response is not correct. You specify that interest was shown in the "American Horror Story S03E12 HDTV x264-2HD[ettv]" about a month ago. This is apparently some teenage haunted house horror. a) All members of my household deny any interest in such a programme and certainly not in downloading it. b) All members of my household are adults and so would not be in the target market for such a programme. c) You claim that the download was at 18:04 - this coincides with the family evening meal time. d) My wireless is secure (unless you are suggesting WPA2 has been broken recently). Giving me my ip address of a month ago and port number is an exceptionally obtuse thing to do. Please check your logs of a month ago to see what information transfer took place - if you can't prove that this matches the alleged infringement, I insist that you apologise and withdraw your complaint report. It is quite insufficient to rely on the unsupported word of a third party, presumably located overseas.

[#10]

Why is the third party not named?
If a corporation made some allegation against me I'd want to know who was making the allegation.
I don't agree with piracy but I also don't agree with anonymous accusations of 'infringement'.
I presume that Plusnet are obliged to send 'warnings' under the rules referred to here: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/jun/26/ofcom-outlines-anti-piracy-rules

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"Ofcom will oversee a fair appeals process, and also ensure that rights holders' investigations under the code are rigorous and transparent."

[#11]

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Web users who get three warning letters in a year will face having anonymous information of their downloading and filesharing history provided to copyright owners, which could then be used to gain a court order to reveal the customer's identity and take legal action against piracy. Internet users will be able to appeal against a report on their alleged infringement, at a cost of £20, which will be refunded if they are successful.

I'm still waiting for a proper letter - I just get an anonymous allegation via ticket.
The first communication was just a generic ticket with my name pasted on it.
Since I can have only two false accusations before incurring court costs to defend myself, I consider that Plusnet should properly investigate these complaints against their customers instead of acting as a mere spam forwarding agency.
I shall have to revisit the saga of ACS-Law.

[#12]

Strangely enough, although Plusnet said I was engaging in illegal activity,
when I tried to pin them down on what law I was breaking they lacked the ability to specify.
After a very long phone call various suggestions were made:-
1) Check my network 
2) Change my wireless password
3) Wait a few days until the ticket expires 
4) I'll see if I can get the complaint withdrawn - but sadly told not.
All I got was a message to say:

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Customer called because he wants us to Preserve all information, all logs

I was asked to phone back on Monday for an update.
Think he'd missed his tea break.
I have the time to make further 90 minute (free) calls to their call centre.
A simple apology and retraction would have been sufficient.
I discovered call centre staff think logs of ip traffic are kept for 2 years. 

[#13]

I don't think Plusnet have anything to apologise for?
What would you say if you had received a pre-action letter or court claim from the copyright holder and found out that Plusnet received complaint/warnings that they did not pass on to you?

[#14]

Plusnet refuse to produce any evidence of this alleged breach of copyright.
They have made no detailed investigation.
They don't name the source of the complainant.
They don't even say under what law (although I can guess) they have made this accusation.
No appeals procedure appears to exist.
It seems that I shall be utilising more call centre time in the near future.

[#15]

Quote from: vilefoxdemonofdoom

Quote We're unable to disclose any further information than this, however please be assured your details have not been passed to the copyright holder. We are currently advising you, as per our legal requirement, a report has been logged with us from a copyright owner against your IP address. No further action will be taken by ourselves at this time in regards to the status of your connection.

I don't really like the bit in red, the bold, however is more encouraging, blue, I have to take as true, green explains why this has occurred.  All in all I'd say Plusnet have been fairly reasonable but they seem to be under obligation to do as they're told, even if the whole thing is absurd to most normal people.
If someone has clear EVIDENCE of copyright infringement then they should stand up, present their evidence and say who they are and what their interest is instead of getting ISPs to 'do their dirty work' in the event of a 'possible breach'.