Broadband automatic compensation scheme – can I claim?

Sinbad

I have been without broadband for 8 days due to the cable being cut by workmen digging up the pavement outside my house. Bizarrely, this work was for ducting for a new fibre broadband company!

My broadband contract is with Vodafone and they have been my first point of contact but it was Openreach who have done the fault finding and eventual fix today (the dug up the pavement and reconnected the damage cable).

Ofcom’s broadband automatic compensation scheme page states “Our automatic compensation scheme means broadband and landline customers will get money back from their provider when things go wrong, without having to ask for it.”

My question is: will Vodafone compensate me for being out of service for this time, even though the problem was due to a third party?

Or do I have to pursue the company engaging the groundworkers who damaged my broadband line?

Thanks

flaneurs_lobster

The compensation is from Vodafone and should be paid by them directly to you (probably as a bill credit) as long as you reported the loss of service when it happened.

You should be informed about this by SMS/email.

https://www.vodafone.co.uk/broadband/auto-compensation-hbb

iniltous

Yes VF should automatically compensate you if they are part of the Ofcom compensation scheme, provided you reported it and they acknowledged your service as being completely dead , it’s irrelevant that VF didn’t cause the problem , your contract is with VF , so only they could compensate you anyway , don’t feel too bad for them though , they have service level agreements (SLA) with Openreach so they can get compensation from Openreach to offset any compo you get from them, ( if it’s OR network at issue ) , and finally if the damage to OR network were done by a third party , Openreach can sue the company that damaged Openreach property and get compensation from that third party , so ultimately it’s the party that damages the network that pays up just not directly to you .

Not every ISP has signed up to the Ofcom scheme, you’d need to check if VF are a signatory to the scheme.

If VF do ‘pay up’ your claim, it’s a bill credit and the first 2 or 3 working days (this varies between providers depending on the SLA they have with Openreach ) of your outage are not compensated for , and the weekend is not classed as working days for the compo calculation for the start of the claim.

So , if for example the fault were noticed on a Friday and you report it , Friday doesn’t count , Saturday and Sunday don’t count because it’s the weekend , Monday is day 1 , Tuesday is day 2 so if the service came back Wednesday, no compo anyway , obviously if it were later when the service is restored, the next days are compensated for , there can be limits imposed on the total compo amount, but that’s a different discussion,

Not every ISP takes the best repair plan from Openreach , that’s the 2 day repair, if VF have taken the cheap SLA (3 day repair ) , a fault on Friday , can be fixed on Thursday and VF may not be due compensation from Openreach , and VF may play hard ball with its customer , if it’s going to cost them more to compensate you than they will get back from Openreach so it’s not a guarantee that you will get what you expect.

Sinbad

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82030391#Comment_82030391

Great, thanks for the confirmation which was how I read the rules. And yes, Voda are part of the compensation scheme.

flaneurs_lobster

If VF do ‘pay up’ it’s a bill credit and the first 2 or 3 working days ( so not including the weekend ) are not counted in the compo calculation, so if for example the faulty were on a Friday , that day doesn’t count , Saturday and Sunday don’t count , Monday is day 1 , Tuesday is day 2 so if the service came back Wednesday, no compo anyway , obviously if it were later the next days are compensated for until restoration, there can be limits imposed though .

Not quite how I read it, the ISP have two working days to get it fixed before compo is payable. The amount of compo is for the number of days without service > two, regardless of weekends etc.

So in your example, if the service were restored on the Wednesday then nada as you say, if Thursday then 3 days-worth would be payable.

iniltous

That’s why I mentioned the difference between the Ofcom scheme for consumers and what the compo the ISP can get from their supplier (Openreach) ,

When it comes to the ISP getting compo from Openreach , the day of the report doesn’t count , the first weekend doesn’t count depending on the SLA (2 or 3 days) , and how close to the weekend the report was (so usually that’s Thursday or Friday ) should a repair take more than a week and cover another weekend that further weekend is covered same as other days.

It shouldn’t matter to the customer if their ISP went cheap and took a 3 day repair SLA with Openreach when it comes to Ofcom compo rates , but I suspect in reality the ISP will try to minimise their cost and exclude as many days as they can if the cheap SLA leaves them on the hook for that extra day .