What are some examples of an invitation to treat?
Some examples of an invitation to treat include advertisements, the display of goods for sale in shops, and auctions. Goods on display in a shop mean the retailer is willing to enter into a ‘bi-lateral’ contract with the consumer.

In other words, there’s no obligation for the advertiser or retailer to sell the goods. Likewise, just because an auction advertises a ‘lot’ as available for sale, the bidder makes an offer that may or may not be accepted by the auctioneer.

I want an OpenReach supplier to connect me to full fibre. Can I sue OR as there is no such service to my property?

… will you be suing all the Altnets who haven’t provided you service either ?

So TTB has informed me early termination of contract is £300 so I think I will wait til next October. Cant find the EE offer for the contract buyout online might have expired now.

According to DF I should be complaining to all, and probably the FBI as well!!!!

Buyout was advertised by Kevin Bacon only yesterday evening on ITV.

Unfortunately with a little research the EE offer doesn't apply to Business Broadband which I guess TTB would be classed as.

In reply to a post by DFScale:

In reply to a post by broadband66:

I want an OpenReach supplier to connect me to full fibre. Can I sue OR as there is no such service to my property?

One can only complain about what is supplied.

Of course you can sue them for that. But we are not talking about suing.

We still don't know whether this is can't or won't, but in terms of what is supplied, not supplying the best which is available is a valid complaint.

Given your liking for quoting fallacies at people I'm starting to wonder if you genuinely believe what you're writing or having been mistaken regarding TTB being able to supply the area via BT Wholesale and being unaware of how provisioning new OLTs works alongside being challenged over blatant misuse of the ombudsman to blackmail the operator are engaging in a sunk cost fallacy trying to find a legitimate avenue for such a complaint.

I genuinely can't understand your stubborn insistence on thinking TTB are intentionally being awkward rather than the obvious Occam's razor explanation given multiple times that to provide service to OP they need fibre to a new OLT and are likely waiting on that fibre being provisioned exactly as it has been for thousands of other OLTs nationwide. Openreach are making ports on new OLTs live faster than before and on a number of occasions some providers are available on them after others where before they were all on them before any of the ports went live so we didn't see the discrepancy. I'm pretty sure there was a story about it on this site.

If it worked how you seem to think it should contracts would be worthless: even on FTTP as soon as an altnet rocked up offering 'the best' someone on Openreach would be able to leave their contract. The ombudsman can't oblige ISPs to sell products else you could legitimately complain any time an ISP doesn't offer the maximum speed their wholesaler could provide. On AAISP, Zen, whomever on CityFibre? Go complain to the ombudsman that they don't offer 5G over CityFibre as they're obliged to offer 'the best'.

Edited by XGS_Is_On (Wed 06-Aug-25 21:15:59)

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

Given your liking for quoting fallacies at people

That is misleading to the point that it is a bit rich. What fallacies have I quoted other than to identify them as fallacies? You need to identify more than 1 as you have claimed fallacies plural.

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

I genuinely can't understand your stubborn insistence on thinking TTB are intentionally being awkward rather than the obvious Occam's razor explanation given multiple times that to provide service to OP they need fibre to a new OLT and are likely waiting on that fibre being provisioned exactly as it has been for thousands of other OLTs nationwide. Openreach are making ports on new OLTs live faster than before and on a number of occasions some providers are available on them after others where before they were all on them before any of the ports went live so we didn't see the discrepancy. I'm pretty sure there was a story about it on this site.

Your failure to understand is your shortcoming, which I can't answer to. It might have been explained on here 100 times, but what we are looking for is the explanation from the ISP who still have not clarified if they can't or if they won't. Your explanation is only why they MIGHT not be able to. There is no argument you can bring to make up for the lack of fact on whether the ISP can't or won't

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

If it worked how you seem to think it should contracts would be worthless: even on FTTP as soon as an altnet rocked up offering 'the best' someone on Openreach would be able to leave their contract. The ombudsman can't oblige ISPs to sell products else you could legitimately complain any time an ISP doesn't offer the maximum speed their wholesaler could provide. On AAISP, Zen, whomever on CityFibre? Go complain to the ombudsman that they don't offer 5G over CityFibre as they're obliged to offer 'the best'.

I don't think that about contracts at all. I do think an ISP should offer to renegotiate a contract to the best they are able to offer and that they should be transparent about what they can offer.

In reply to a post by DFScale:

what we are looking for is the explanation from the ISP who still have not clarified if they can't or if they won't

But what difference does it make? A contract is a contract. Once signed, it can only be varied by mutual agreement.

They may be technically unable to offer what you want, or they may be unwilling to vary the contract, or the people you are talking to may not have authority to vary contracts, and/or they may not have the deep technical knowledge to be able to explain why "system says no". But for all of these cases, the outcome is the same: you are not *entitled* to a variation in the contract, and the other party is not obliged to tell you *why* they are unwilling to vary it.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

But what difference does it make? A contract is a contract. Once signed, it can only be varied by mutual agreement.

They may be technically unable to offer what you want, or they may be unwilling to vary the contract, or the people you are talking to may not have authority to vary contracts, and/or they may not have the deep technical knowledge to be able to explain why "system says no". But for all of these cases, the outcome is the same: you are not *entitled* to a variation in the contract, and the other party is not obliged to tell you *why* they are unwilling to vary it.

Absolutely correct. But why not prod them a bit to find out if they will be open with you about what their problem is? They could potentially negotiate themselves a contract extension. Or the customer could decide that if getting info out of them is harder than getting blood from a stone, it would be better to move at the earliest. Making a complaint adds to the information available, even if they tell you nothing.