Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think £50 compensation is a joke?

30 replies

BreatheInn · 07/08/2023 17:21

TalkTalk, I really would avoid them and they are the most complained about provider.

Router failed. I need internet for work. They kept promising next day delivery, it took 4 days in total - even longer than they originally said:

Lied that they sent it out and weren’t able to track it. Found out from Yodel tehy hadn’t sent it for 2 days. I lost 50% of my data, used petrol to get into an office every single day, missed a job interview.

They said they would send £50 compensation. I just think it’s a joke.

OP posts:
Gizlotsmum · 07/08/2023 17:23

Do you have business internet or normal household internet? If the latter £50 would seem adequate as would be compensation for normal household loss of use. If you have business then it is different in my opinion

CatsOnTheChair · 07/08/2023 17:27

How much is your monthly broadband payment?
That would be 2 months broadband payment for us, which sounds like pretty good compensation to me.
If you have a business line, I think you should have got better service.

Overthebow · 07/08/2023 17:28

You missed a job interview?

Devastatedyetagain · 07/08/2023 17:31

What do you think would be reasonable?

Blueskysunflower · 07/08/2023 17:33

What amount of compensation do you expect, and how does it compare to how much you pay for your service?

Assuming this is ordinary domestic broadband I’d say what sounds like a month free, for a four day outage, really isn’t that bad. Expecting consequential losses is ridiculously unreasonable, especially given it’s four days. That’s inconvenient but hardly extraordinary - I’d say four days from reporting problem to receiving new router is actually about what I’d expect, albeit the “next day” promise being broken is annoying.

alwaysmovingforwards · 07/08/2023 17:38

Sounds like you've got maybe 6wks compensation for being without the service for 4 days.. so it's brilliant compensation.

Any provider will have a statutory limited liability. If my train is delayed and I miss closing a £1m deal, can I put in a claim for £1m? No, that would be ridiculous.
I'd get a (sliding scale) refund / compensation in relation to the cost of the service I purchased with limited or no liability for consequential losses.

If there's the potential of you suffering consequential losses due to your internet router not performing perfectly, you could try and insure yourself against that separately. And then claim on that.
Let us know how that goes and what the premium costs. 😉

DannyLaRuesBestFrock · 07/08/2023 17:41

Why did you miss a job interview?

takealettermsjones · 07/08/2023 17:41

You've probably agreed to their Ts & Cs when you signed up - what do they say about outages?

Curtains70 · 07/08/2023 17:43

Oh I dunno I got sweet FA off BT when my Internet was down and they took an age to fix it. £50 is like 2 months worth of broadband bill for me so seems quite good!

amylou8 · 07/08/2023 17:45

I think on a personal connection 4 days is an acceptable fix time, and £50 is generous compensation. This would easily allow you you to purchase some extra data on your mobile phone and tether.

Pencilstencil · 07/08/2023 17:46

£50 for 4 days seems reasonable, if you have regular household broadband then it makes no odds to them what you miss or the additional costs you incur contractually.

uncomfortablydumb53 · 07/08/2023 17:55

I'm with Talk Talk
Do you use a Usual household broadband assuming WFH?
If so I actually think it's reasonable of them
It makes no difference to them that you've been unable to work from home sorry

Aaron95 · 07/08/2023 18:05

If the internet is that important to you then you need to have a provider with a far quicker response time than TalkTalk. There are services that will get you back up and running far quicker but they are not as cheap. Unfortunately you get what you pay for.

cinnamonfrenchtoast · 07/08/2023 18:09

£50 is more than generous.

It's not their fault you WFH and missed a job interview.

cryinglaughing · 07/08/2023 18:14

You should have bought a data pack for a month on your phone and hot spotted you PC/laptop to that.

£50 is generous when you know we got £70 for being without electricity for 5 days after one of the storms.

BiscuitsandPuffin · 07/08/2023 18:18

You sound out for what you can get tbh. Our internet failed in our whole town last week. People either went into their offices (which you should factor into your work costs, that's not TalkTalk's issue) or they used their mobiles to hotspot from.
I'm amazed if the internet is that important to you that you sat around hand wringing and complaining instead of just connecting your computer to your mobile data and carrying on.
£50 was generous. Expecting more is major CF territory.

BiscuitsandPuffin · 07/08/2023 18:20

Also re: the job interview you should have contacted them and arranged for an in-person interview.
Just be an adult FGS. It's not other people's job to support you living like a recluse because you don't want to "waste petrol" driving into an office that pays you to exist.

PandaPouch · 07/08/2023 18:26

BiscuitsandPuffin · 07/08/2023 18:20

Also re: the job interview you should have contacted them and arranged for an in-person interview.
Just be an adult FGS. It's not other people's job to support you living like a recluse because you don't want to "waste petrol" driving into an office that pays you to exist.

👏

Zodfa · 07/08/2023 18:30

How much did the data and petrol cost? Less than £50 I would guess?

I'm not sure the job interview is their problem.

Silvers11 · 07/08/2023 18:31

I'm sorry that happened to you - but how did you lose 50% of your data? I don't understand that bit at all. Plus how did you miss a job interview. Could you not have contacted them and rearranged - or gone in and had a face to face interview instead

As others said, you could have used a hotspot using your mobile? Maybe? Much slower bit at least it allows you to connect to the internet. It's what nearly 2000 families and businesses had to do when there was an underground fire in a power cable in our town, which turned BT's copper and fibre cable to Mush and repairs took around 4 days to fix?

MattDamon · 07/08/2023 18:42

Complain to the CEO's office. We got £130 for an outage including money to cover having to use mobile internet on our phones.

HappyCatty · 07/08/2023 19:19

How did you lose 50% of your data? Which 50%? And how did your router going off do that (I'm not very techie so genuinely curious so I can maybe avoid it myself!).

If you are WFH do you have a business account? I can't see that you'd be covered for anything special if you are just using normal household internet, although I'm sure most people do, but they probably have a get-out clause for that!

How did you miss your interview? Surely you could have used your mobile? Could you not have rung them and explained?

TheWayoftheLeaf · 07/08/2023 19:37

You still managed to work so all you're really out is your data costs and travel - so £50 seems reasonable though I get it's annoying.

TeaKitten · 07/08/2023 19:41

I get that you’d rather have just had better customer service, but £50 seems decent to me.

Meeting · 07/08/2023 19:45

How much were you expecting?