Broadband Compensation

[#1]

BB went down for 3 days last week. How/when does compensation get paid?

[#2]

Hi @Eyebrow 

Thank you for your recent message.

I am sorry to hear you had issues with your service. Automatic compensation is paid out for a total loss of service after the first 2 working days of being disconnected. Please find below the criteria for the automatic compensation

Automatic compensation: What you need to know - Ofcom

Should you have any further queries then please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Thanks

Lee

[#3]

Thanks Lee,

When can I expect to see the compensation amount hit my account - it has been 3 weeks?

[#4]

I wouldn't get too excited, the compensation may not be much if any at all - the day you report the fault doesn't count, then 2 full days don't count, and only full days after that count. So for example if you reported a failure on Monday morning and it was fixed anytime Thursday there would be £9.76 credit to your account 30 days after the fix.

[#5]

---

@corringham wrote:

... So for example if you reported a failure on Monday morning and it was fixed anytime Thursday there would be £9.76 credit to your account 30 days after the fix.

---

Errr, may be not, see here - Automatic Compensation | Help | Plusnet

Here's an example:

If you report a fault on a Monday, you'll get compensation if the fault hasn't been fixed by 11.59pm on Wednesday.

You won't get compensation:

• For the day the fault was fixed

I read the "get compensation" as "become eligible for compensation" AND no compensation is payable for the day of the fix.  I therefore suspect that in the scenario of a fault reported on Monday, not fixed by 23:59 on the Wednesday will only receive compensation is not fixed until after 23:59 on Thursday.

Also on checking the Ofcom detail in the Code of Practice (updated 4th June 2025) there is a requirement that the level of compensation be increased each 1st April.  Ofcom's guide states that is now £9.98 per day.

[#6]

The full Plusnet wording is slightly different than the Ofcom wording that I checked against - see industry-code-of-practice-for-automatic-compensation-2024-v1.pdf (updated 7 March 2025)

That states

"For example, if a fault is reported on a Monday, compensation will become payable if the fault has not been fixed by the Payment Trigger Time of 11.59pm on Wednesday."

and

"the amount of automatic compensation payable shall be a minimum of:
     a. £8 for the Payment Trigger Time; and
     b. £8 for each full calendar day the Total Loss of Service continues for after the Payment Trigger Time."

so I think "get compensation" really does mean that a payment will be made rather than just gating subsequent days payments. 

The compensation amounts did apparently increase in line with inflation from 1 April, so £9.98 should be payable in the example scenario.

[#7]

Moderators Note

This topic has been moved from Broadband to My Account / Billing

[#8]

Still waiting for a response on this directly from Plusnet.

[#9]

Thanks Lee, so when will a payment be made?

[#10]

---

@Eyebrow wrote:
BB went down for 3 days last week. How/when does compensation get paid?

---

Can you detail "for three days"?

• What day did it go down
• What day did you report it
• What day was it restored

The day you reported the fault and the day it was restored do not count in the compensation consideration.  Compensation is only a consideration if the service was TOTALLY non-functional; performance deterioration (so as for a user to consider it unusable) does not count.

[#11]

Mon - BB stopped working & reported

Wed - Openreach investigated, identified issue with Router

Sat - New Router activated, BB active

...actually 4 days.

So as originally requested, when will the compensation, or even an acknowledgement, appear in my account? 

[#12]

Oh!!  That is a whole different ball game.

Ofcom automatic compensation scheme does not cover situations where the issue is related to equipment beyond the ONT or NTE.  See Ofcom code of practice...

Exceptions to obligation to pay compensation
39. A Communications Provider is not required to pay compensation to a customer if:

g. the fault is not in respect of the service provided or it is caused by equipment or activity within the customer’s home;

The automatic compensation scheme is not predicated on the effects (the service is down) but rather the cause of the fault.  It is a mechanism to drive proficiency into BT Openreach.  If BTOR do not accept applicability of automatic compensation, then there is no reimbursement to the ISP.

This all pivots what what is the "service provided"; in the Ofcom context it is probably the connection to the BTOR demarcation point: NTE5 for ADSL / FTTC / SoGEA or ONT for FTTP.  Some consideration might be offered, but in this case I doubt it will be under the terms of the Ofcom scheme.

[#13]

So in other words, they do not have to payout if their equipment breaks down?

Time to change to supplier. 

[#14]

I have raised an escalation.

Changing supplier (ISP) would not change the OBLIGATION as defined under Ofcom's AUTOMATIC compensation scheme.  The scheme's code of practice was not written by ISPs or BT Openreach but by a government quango, who typically do not know what they are dealing with.  If the cause of your fault was entirely related to the BTOR part of the service, then the scheme would certainly apply, the amount being related to the number of applicable days.

However in your case, given the AUTOMATIC scheme is related to an ill defined "service" which is not defined within the code, the applicability is not a black and white matter.  There are inferred boundaries which as here are not helpful.

Whatever, it has only been three weeks; if the automatic scheme does apply here, it will be another week before you receive notification (30 days after restoration).  An ineligibility under the automatic compensation scheme does not preclude other considerations which might be considered by an ISP.

I hope the escalation will deliver clarity for this case which has a deal of twilight zone around it in the context of the AUTOMATIC Ofcom scheme.

You might obtain a clearer position by calling the support centre.

[#15]

Will wait to hear the result of your escalation.

Would expect any 'customer focused' provider to not relay standard OFCOM verbage but instead to acknowledge the serious effect no BB has on someone who works from home - and the financial consequences of such.

Thanks for your help