Broadband provider can't provide a proper service: advice on switching

GreatBritain

pmduk wrote: »

A word of warning before going down the chargeback route: If a company can prove that you have received the good you have charged back, the bank will reverse the chargeback, probably close your account and register a CIFAS marker. If you are in any doubt of the impact that will have, then make enquiries on the Budgeting and Bank accounts Board, because it's very serious indeed.

I've seen it happen to a customer when he did it with a £20 top-up at a mobile network I was working for.

Make sure you have exhausted all formal complaints options before doing anything drastic.

Then they would have to prove that my lagging problems and upload issues are non existent, and if the situation got this serious I would privately pay for an expert to confirm the problems, as the ISP said they can't be bothered to send an expert round themselves.

GreatBritain

DCFC79 wrote: »

Well not being pedantic you posted on the Broadband & internet access forum, if its consumer rights you were after then post over on the relevant forum where you should receive consumer rights advice.

I apologise if I'm wrong but I thought this was a consumer advice site and the forums are split into different categories based on product or service?

GreatBritain

mije1983 wrote: »

Ok, it seems you have already decided your next steps so I'll wish you luck. Keep us updated.

No I merely clarified what the problem was.

GreatBritain

Ok people still aren't understanding and are telling me to do troubleshooting steps and make complaints. I agree with you! I will be doing all these things!

I don't know how to make it clearer, I will repeat this again and try to clarify:

1. Give the company multiple opportunities to solve the issue including doing all the troubleshooting steps.
This includes all the troubleshooting steps you're telling me to do, and writing a letter to them.
2. Inform the company that if they fail to resolve the issue I will be terminating the contract because they've broken the terms by providing an inadequate service, and that they can't charge me a cancellation fee by law.
This includes writing a letter of complaint before I take anything further.
3. If they try to charge me I will get the credit card company to do a chargeback.
I will complain to them and try everything possible to prevent a charge before resorting to a chargeback.

So I'm agreeing with all of you. I think that you think I'm just going to cancel and do a chargeback without trying anything and everything first.

Carrot007

I think your main problem here is.


You think they will have to prove there was not a problem.
You are getting issues in a undefined area. There is no guarantee for latency from any consumer ISP.
So you will have to prove there was a problem and it contravines the terms of service.


You are going about it the entire wrong way.


This forum is more for techincal help. People want to know your ISP (it might be a dead givaway). While you are testing you need to be using only a wired conenction (homeplugs do not count).


You will also get the advice you seek here, but we want proof what you say is occuring first, you say you are not an expert, so why do you not want help.


You just want an easy solution. OK pay out the rest of your contract and move. Maybe you havbe a line problem and will get no better.


With all your expectations I hope you are paying for a top tier provider or you will be sadly unimpressed. Cheap broandband is cheap for a reason. And the only guarantee they are forced into is speed, whic has you see is sadly not that important after a point.


I can tell you this. you resort to a charge back you will have debt collectors and a bad credit history pretty quickly, if you want to leave you have to make the effort and get agreement from your ISP. charge back is not an option. You would be better going to court.

GreatBritain

Carrot007 wrote: »

I think your main problem here is.


You think they will have to prove there was not a problem.
You are getting issues in a undefined area. There is no guarantee for latency from any consumer ISP.
So you will have to prove there was a problem and it contravines the terms of service.


You are going about it the entire wrong way.


This forum is more for techincal help. People want to know your ISP (it might be a dead givaway). While you are testing you need to be using only a wired conenction (homeplugs do not count).


You will also get the advice you seek here, but we want proof what you say is occuring first, you say you are not an expert, so why do you not want help.


You just want an easy solution. OK pay out the rest of your contract and move. Maybe you havbe a line problem and will get no better.


With all your expectations I hope you are paying for a top tier provider or you will be sadly unimpressed. Cheap broandband is cheap for a reason. And the only guarantee they are forced into is speed, whic has you see is sadly not that important after a point.


I can tell you this. you resort to a charge back you will have debt collectors and a bad credit history pretty quickly, if you want to leave you have to make the effort and get agreement from your ISP. charge back is not an option. You would be better going to court.

Oh ok I thought this was simply consumer advice.

But why exactly do you need proof before giving advice? I don't get that. I can't prove anything, and even if I'm wrong or lying, it doesn't matter if you give me advice because I won't or can't use it if I'm wrong.

I am paying for the highest quality BT broadband. Sorry, no one asked what my ISP was. And what did you mean by 'it might be a dead giveaway'? I didn't understand this.

I've never heard of chargebacks escalating into serious issues like that. For example I see people saying they do chargebacks, and they get banned from trading with that company in the future. So a chargeback is a last resort option that burns bridges with the company.

Before it even got to a chargeback, if it got to a chargeback, I would have already been through multiple complaints, letters and warnings. They would need to legally prove their case before being able to stop the chargeback right? I've read which? consumer advice about chargebacks, though I couldn't find info relating to broadband.

I will try and prove there is an issue that contravines the terms of service first, but how do I go about doing this? The speed tests all come up normal. Is it possible for speed tests to come up normal, but for the internet to still not be strong enough to upload stuff or play games lag free?

onomatopoeia99

Have you raised a formal complaint yet? I don't mean complaining at the support line, I mean following the provider's official complaints procedure. This has already been touched on by another poster but you seemed to skip past it and talk about chargebacks instead.


Once you raise a formal complaint that starts a clock and the ISP has eight weeks to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, after which they should provide a "deadlock letter" if the complaint is unresolved. At that point you can take the complaint to an alternative dispute resolution scheme ("ADR" - there are two, CISAS and Ombudsman services, every ISP is signed up with one or the other) or to court. You can also do this if the ISP does not respond to your complaint in eight weeks and you do not have a deadlock letter after this time.



Here is a list of ADR schemes used by ISPs: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/problems/adr-schemes


If you go to the ADR route and are still not happy, you can take the ISP to court. That is the correct way to do it. The steps you are outlining are not correct, you have invented a process and are ignoring the one set out by OFCOM that ISPs are obliged to follow. If the ISP takes you to court for non-payment after your chargeback, it will be able to demonstrate that you did not follow the industry wide complaints procedure laid down by the government appointed regulator, OFCOM, which will put you in a very bad position.





A piece of advice, you need to keep accurate, detailed records to support your case if it goes to ADR or court, e.g. the fault and time, the action the ISP suggested to resolve it, the effect of that action and so on, and not introduce random irrelevant stuff. For example, a failure to connect to wifi is not the ISP's problem, though you have mentioned it multiple times. From now on you should only use an ethernet connection with a single piece of cat5e or cat6 ethernet cable, not involving "homeplugs" and certainly not wifi. If you're going to complain, you need to take all the possible failure points that are your fault out of the situation.

pmduk

GreatBritain wrote: »

Then they would have to prove that my lagging problems and upload issues are non existent, and if the situation got this serious I would privately pay for an expert to confirm the problems, as the ISP said they can't be bothered to send an expert round themselves.

No, you are looking to break a contract, the onus is entirely on you. The ISPs have had a long time to ensure their Ts&Cs are pretty water-tight

GreatBritain

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

Have you raised a formal complaint yet? I don't mean complaining at the support line, I mean following the provider's official complaints procedure. This has already been touched on by another poster but you seemed to skip past it and talk about chargebacks instead.


Once you raise a formal complaint that starts a clock and the ISP has eight weeks to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, after which they should provide a "deadlock letter" if the complaint is unresolved. At that point you can take the complaint to an alternative dispute resolution scheme ("ADR" - there are two, CISAS and Ombudsman services, every ISP is signed up with one or the other) or to court. You can also do this if the ISP does not respond to your complaint in eight weeks and you do not have a deadlock letter after this time.



Here is a list of ADR schemes used by ISPs: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/problems/adr-schemes


If you go to the ADR route and are still not happy, you can take the ISP to court. That is the correct way to do it. The steps you are outlining are not correct, you have invented a process and are ignoring the one set out by OFCOM that ISPs are obliged to follow. If the ISP takes you to court for non-payment after your chargeback, it will be able to demonstrate that you did not follow the industry wide complaints procedure laid down by the government appointed regulator, OFCOM, which will put you in a very bad position.





A piece of advice, you need to keep accurate, detailed records to support your case if it goes to ADR or court, e.g. the fault and time, the action the ISP suggested to resolve it, the effect of that action and so on, and not introduce random irrelevant stuff. For example, a failure to connect to wifi is not the ISP's problem, though you have mentioned it multiple times. From now on you should only use an ethernet connection with a single piece of cat5e or cat6 ethernet cable, not involving "homeplugs" and certainly not wifi. If you're going to complain, you need to take all the possible failure points that are your fault out of the situation.

I apologise, there were multiple people asking it, so I made one reply to reply to everyone.

Thank you, this post is really helpful, but I have a question; why is it not the fault of the ISP if I can't connect to wifi? Not every device can use ethernet, nor is it always practical to do so. If there is something wrong with the service, how can the ISP get away by saying 'oh well the tests show up as normal so it's not our fault if everything is laggy and the internet is not strong enough to do certain things'

GreatBritain

pmduk wrote: »

No, you are looking to break a contract, the onus is entirely on you. The ISPs have had a long time to ensure their Ts&Cs are pretty water-tight

Then if BT can't be bothered to send round an engineer, would paying for an engineer to confirm the issue, then using this as proof seeing as the onus is on me, and then asking BT to reimburse the fee of the engineer, be a more acceptable way to leave the contract?