Plusnet replacement routers and £45 fee

Neil_Dorward

My Plusnet router failed and I was told I would have to pay £45 for a new router

After a quick internet search I realised the Consumer Rights Act of 2015 specifies that if you router is part of your contract and is faulty your broadband supplier cannot charge you for this, they are contractually obliged to replace it at no cost

I had to write a formal letter of complaint to Plusnet to get resolve and Plusnet agreed that they should not have asked me for £45 and have agreed to refund my costs to getting a new router

My question is, how many people out there have paid £45 when they did not need to and are Plusnet aware of the Consumer Rights Act of 2015

teddysmum

I am just post settling in with them and after reporting constant poor service,a call centre person said her tests suggested that my modem was at fault and that they would send a replacement.


However, on checking the T&Cs over another matter, I noticed that they say a customer will be charged if they return equipment as faulty and ,after testing it proves not to be so. Because of this I contacted them to clarify(as I didn't tell them the modem was faulty-replacement only having slightly helped the problem) and was told I would not be charged and that they were referring to an engineer callout where your own equipment was the cause of a problem.


I am already very dissatisfied by the broadband service (and the fact that they tried charging for an inclusive call, which was only a few minutes long), so will being contacting the CEO if they try charging for the router.


Incidentally, my son, who is qualified in IT, says the router I have is very poor quality and suggests I buy my own.

Scrounger

teddysmum wrote: »

Incidentally, my son, who is qualified in IT, says the router I have is very poor quality and suggests I buy my own.

You could try a BT Home Hub 5 or 6 from a well known auction site.

These routers have dual-band wifi (ac) with good range and also support fibre if you ever upgrade your broadband connection from adsl. :rotfl:

Scrounger

onomatopoeia99

teddysmum wrote: »

Incidentally, my son, who is qualified in IT, says the router I have is very poor quality and suggests I buy my own.

It's probably a Thompson / Technicolor tg582 or similar as they were what a lot of "free" ADSL routers used to be.

They work, but very definitely built to a price and pretty much at the Poundland end of the market. It does actually have a very flexible and powerful configuration, if you're prepared to telnet in and use a shell. Which almost no-one is.

teddysmum

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

It's probably a Thompson / Technicolor tg582 or similar as they were what a lot of "free" ADSL routers used to be.

They work, but very definitely built to a price and pretty much at the Poundland end of the market. It does actually have a very flexible and powerful configuration, if you're prepared to telnet in and use a shell. Which almost no-one is.

It's a Sagem.

macman

eBay is your friend. Dozens of ex-PN routers on there from about a fiver upwards...
The router is not part of your contract, it's considered a freebie, and once out of warranty, any repair or replacement will be at your expense. The only exception is with Virgin Media, when the equipment is leased and must be returned at the end of your contract.

Scrounger

Some people refuse to buy secondhand goods on principle? :eek:

Scrounger

teddysmum

macman wrote: »

eBay is your friend. Dozens of ex-PN routers on there from about a fiver upwards...
The router is not part of your contract, it's considered a freebie, and once out of warranty, any repair or replacement will be at your expense. The only exception is with Virgin Media, when the equipment is leased and must be returned at the end of your contract.

Mine should be replaced free as it was only two weeks old, but O2 used to provide a new router if the old one failed and didn't want them back either. I even knew people who managed to talk them into providing a new one when they started using a different model.