A warning about taking a complaint about your ISP to the CISAS!

MarkWatson

The CISAS is the Arbitration service that deals with complaints between individuals and their Internet Services Providers. They are intended to be a reliable, independent way of fairly resolving disputes - but a warning to all, this is far from the case in practice!

I brought my dispute with Orange to the CISAS and it was passed to the IDRS (Independent Dispute Resolution Service, http://www.idrs.ltd.uk/). However, from the moment I sent that first email, the IDRS proved to be quite simply the most inept organisation I have ever had the misfortune to deal with - and I say that as someone who has been a longtime customer of BT.

I frst got an inkling there was going to be a problem when, a few weeks after I handed over my case, I got an unexpected email from the IDRS telling me that they had closed it. When I asked why, they said they had been told by Orange that it had all been resolved and there was no case to answer. When I wrote to tell them that from my point of view it certainly had not, they emailed again to say that I was wrong, it was over, and when I disputed this again they told me that I could not question that decision and that was the end of it!

This wasn't quite what I was expecting from an arbitrartion service so I was then forced to make a formal complaint to them to get my complaint against Orange opened again, which they eventually did, admitting they were wrong to close it.

At this point they then appointed an Adjudicator and set a date for the case to be addressed. By now however I was unsure what evidence was going to be put before her as, apart from saying my case was solved, Orange had not put forward a defence to my case. So I wrote to the IDRS to check. No reply. I wrote again - what evidence was being put before the Adjudicator? No reply again. And no reply when I asked again.

And then I was sent the Arbitrator's decision. When I looked at it however I saw that she had not apparently not been sent any of the details of my original complaint against Orange, but instead had been sent just one of the emails I'd sent to complain that my case had been closed - and then based her decision on that!

I complained again - what was going on? I then received an email from the manager who was dealing with my case which she sent to the IDRS Managing Director, and which she appeared to have copied to me in error. It said "we have a problem with this. Mair has referred to an email I sent her as a Defence when it was not. I will come and explain it to you when you are in"

A problem indeed. However it then got worse. The Managing Director of IDRS took on my complaint. After due consideration he (Alan Connarty) decided that, although the wrong evidence was sent to the Adjudicator and although I hadn't been told what evidence she was actually using in her decision, he was happy that everything was fair and above board and had been done according to the procedures.

It had now been around six months since I had brought this case to them. I decided to go to the last port of call - the Independent Reviewer who had recently been appointed to make judgements on IDRS's conduct. Two months later she decided; the Managing Director had been entirely wrong, my complaint was justified and he was told to apologise and send me a cheque in compensation.

And while this was very welcome, the rules of the arbitration scheme dictate that once a decision has been made in my case, it could not be re-addressed, leaving me nowhere to go in my case against Orange.

So a warning - if you have a dispute with your ISP and you are thinking of taking it to the CISAS/IDRS for arbitration, beware - they can be more than a little shambolic!

del1001

Full credit to you Mark, many a person would have given up a long time before it got to that stage, it's good to see someone getting fair justice.

MarkWatson

Many thanks del101 - some justice I suppose but unfortunately the incompetence of the IDRS has meant that I am now unable to pursue Orange for their rubbish service. I shall probably send the details to someone at Ofcom, at least to make sure that someone there knows how crap the IDRS is, however I doubt very much they will do anything!

PatD_2

You may want to let the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators know about this. The CISAS should be utterly reliable in matters such as these as they are the final court of appeal in terms of disputes between customers and their ISPs.

If they are being as careless and generally crap as this I am sure the official body would want to know:

http://www.arbitrators.org/
[EMAIL="info@arbitrators.org"]info@arbitrators.org[/EMAIL]

MarkWatson

Many thanks Pat, I'll do just that. Probably won't make a blind bit of difference but it will be good to let as many people know as possible in case other people have problems with this bunch!

funkyparott

Why not take them to court? (although it may be too late if you have started down another route.)

I'm having my own problem with AOL.

I'll be using the County Coury to get an order for them to provide me a MAC code (hopefully). Fed up with these ISP's thinking they are above the law.

To be honest, I don't have much confidence with ajudicators.

FP

MarkWatson

In terms of Orange, I wasn't after any compensation, more an admission that they were holding me to a contract which was invalid because they weren't fulfilling their end of it so a court case isn't really an option.

In terms of the IDRS, I'm just keen to let people know how badly they do the job they are being paid to do - the fact that this page appears prominently under various relevant Google Searches is more than enough satisfaction for me!

PatD_2

Yes, the fact that offenders pop up in Google Searches via this site is a very effective tool!