The scheme, which is being set up by the UK’s biggest providers, would require providers to pay customers automatically for slow repairs, installation delays and missed appointments. Instead of customers being forced to contact providers such as BT, Sky or Virgin Media to log a complaint, their account would automatically be credited compensation.
The provider must repair landline and broadband faults within two working days, or be required to pay £8 a day to the customer until it is fixed. If an engineer fails to arrive at an arranged appointment or cancels with less than 24 hours’ notice, the customer will be paid £25, and a delayed installation will require £5 compensation per day.
Lindsey Funnel. Ofcom’s consumer group director, stated that the scheme would ensure “people will get the money they deserve, while providers will want to work harder to improve their service.” With frequent price rises by broadband providers, it is essential that customers get their money’s worth, but with 53% of households dissatisfied with their internet speeds and only 15% of compensation cases honoured, this is currently not the case.
The figures speak for themselves: 5.7 million consumers experience broadband or landline faults, engineers fail to attend 250,000 appointments and 1.3 million experience delayed installations. The automatic compensation scheme would benefit innumerable customers; currently, the pay-out figure for customer compensation sits at only £16m a year. This would mean a massive increase of almost nine times the amount currently being spent on landline and broadband compensation when the scheme is implemented.
Broadband providers BT, Virgin Media, Sky and TalkTalk have all signed up for the scheme, which will not come into effect until 2019. However, Vodafone, which has recently announced plans to provide five million homes with “full fibre” internet connections by 2025, has not yet announced any plans to join.
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