>Although PN did give a month's refund to affected BB+ customers recently after the problems earlier in the year.

That isn't correct.
They gave a refund to some affected customers.

We do operate a retentions scheme (as do many companies), and in some cases a free period of service may be offered. However this is not offered to everyone who calls us up asking for a MAC code.
-----
How do you choose which customers to offer this to?

Simon

Your arrangement with BTw isn't relevant to your customers or their rights. If it should transpire that a customer is entitled to a refund because of a BT fault, it is your prerogative to pursue BTw for compensation, having already paid out to the customer. The notion that BB isn't a guaranteed service is a non-starter. If someone pays you money for a service, they are entitled to get it back if you can't provide the service - whether due to an internal fault/policy or to a problem with one of your suppliers.
-----
For most people the amount would be very small anyway, if you had no service for a week on a

In reply to:

---

The reason behind this is the fact that BT Wholesale do not offer us refunds for periods of downtime, broadband is not a guaranteed service and we still pay for the circuit throughout the fault process.

---

The above statement isn't quite accurate though:
http://www.bt.com/terms/pdfs/bt321c.pdf

In all honesty, I wouldn't expect PN to refund for a day or even three for problems, it is the nature of the technology, but I would expect an ISP to refund for 7 continuous days of problems (because of the SLA above), as well as for prolonged but intermittent technical problems.

In reply to:

---

Does the refund offer to BB+ customer not count?

---

According to Ian, PN refunded 1019 customers on BB+, that is from a total of 76,000 approx that were affected (some would have noticed but not others). The only people to be aware of the refund were extremely limited: those that visit the forum, have signed up for service status email updates and/or those that PN contacted.

Edited by rsharma (Fri 04-May-07 10:46:56)

Can you name any provider who gives a refund for a short period of loss of service where no SLA is force ?

In reply to:

---

The notion that BB isn't a guaranteed service is a non-starter. If someone pays you money for a service, they are entitled to get it back if you can't provide the service - whether due to an internal fault/policy or to a problem with one of your suppliers.

---

They are only entitled to get their money back if the level of service received is less than the level of service paid for. Most UK broadband service providers back-off the details of the service they buy from BTW in their contracts with their end-users - ie you're paying for a service that should work, but is not guaranteed to. That's the main reason that the Leased Line market is still limping along ...

As long as PlusNet are taking reasonable endeavours to resolve a fault then a customer isn't entitled to receive anything back. You seem to be confusing legal obligations with good customer service ...

In reply to:

---

For most people the amount would be very small anyway, if you had no service for a week on a

>I don't think a

Hi,

It is entirely dependent on the problem the customer has experienced. In many cases we can resolve the issues that the customer has had and no refund is necessary, and in a few cases no amount of free service is going to make a customer stay.

We look at each cancellation ticket seperately, and decide what we can and can't offer the customer accordingly.

>As long as PlusNet are taking reasonable endeavours to resolve a fault then a customer isn't entitled to receive anything back.

What period could be considered reasonable in which the fault should be resolved?

What are considered reasonable endeavours?

Could it be as long as 30 days because the ISP and BT claim to have taken reasonable endeavours to fix the problem and can it be even longer and still be acceptable? How much time is too much before the ISP becomes liable to pay for a faulty or non-existent service? For instance, could an ISP claim after 14 days of no service that the customer wasn't entitled to a refund?

I believe that 2-5 days without service is acceptable, as long as the ISP handles the fault diligently, and doesn't delay it due to poor customer service or a lack of staff, any longer and the SLA issue won't even come into play as the customer would rightly demand and be entitled to a refund IMO.

However, we are discussing an issue which applies across the industry and not just PN (although some ISPs are better than others in that regard). We are also discussing an issue in the wider context because no one in this thread is claiming such a refund and being denied one, therefore I see little point in debating it further for now.

Edited by rsharma (Fri 04-May-07 11:25:30)