[WXC/VFX] Responsibility for reporting faults

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › [WXC/VFX] Responsibility for reporting faults

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macuser

2120 posts

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#1097353 28-Jul-2014 18:52

If OP had leased a private car park in town, and had being paying for the car park for the last 6 months while he/she was away overseas, but it turned out when OP went away the company had accidentally leased it to someone else...

Who's fault would it be?

sico77

37 posts

Geek

#1097360 28-Jul-2014 18:59

gchiu:

Nope, no such agreement there.
I've only agreed to tell them about faults when I know about them.

Not just you. Check 11. again "...you and those you are responsible for..."
So you, and those you are responsible for, either did not know, or care, to let anyone know about this fault for 6months.

When the ISP was informed they fixed it, within reasonable timeframe, AND offered a credit for it.

If you had reported this fault the day of, or even the week of the outage there would be no issue here.
I think its unreasonable to ask them to re-reimburse you for time where the fault was ignored by the user.

gchiu:
One would expect any reputable ISP to monitor for service outages and repair them without each paying subscriber to inform them.

This is one connection down, out of thousands.
Not only that but some modems are hybrid PPP dialers or have Dial-on-demand settings.
Point is, not every connection is permanently up, therefore no reason to monitor every single dsl connections uptime.

sbiddle

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#1097362 28-Jul-2014 19:04

macuser: If OP had leased a private car park in town, and had being paying for the car park for the last 6 months while he/she was away overseas, but it turned out when OP went away the company had accidentally leased it to someone else...

Who's fault would it be?

This is an unfair comparison. An ISAM contains multiple ports and the same port was not used by two customers. Chorus didn't charge twice for the same product.

sbiddle

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#1097364 28-Jul-2014 19:07

gchiu:
sbiddle:
gchiu:
sbiddle:
Fraud is "deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain". Human errors happen all the time and misjumpering is a reality of life. Claiming fraud is really pushing the boundaries of any logic.

Charging for services you couldn't possibly deliver even after being told about it seems to meet the definition of a fraudulent practice.

Based on your comments above the issue was resolved in a reasonable timeframe after your ISP (and then Chorus) were informed of the issue. I'm totally lost here where fraud comes into it.

How do you reasonably expect Chorus or your ISP to have known about the fault?

So, now they know. They've been charging two customers for the same pair.
Refusing to refund is clearly a fraudulent practice.

What does a pair have to do with this? A MPF in itself is not an individualy chargeable product. Two individual ISAM ports were still active this whole time and this is what the ISP is charged for.

If Chorus had reassigned the ISAM port and charged twice I'd agree you on the "fraud" but. But while you're still claiming fraud with absolutely no grounds for such a claim you've totally lost me.

gchiu

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#1097366 28-Jul-2014 19:13

sico77: [

This is one connection down, out of thousands.
Not only that but some modems are hybrid PPP dialers or have Dial-on-demand settings.
Point is, not every connection is permanently up, therefore no reason to monitor every single dsl connections uptime.

So, 1/1000s means that it's okay?

The ISP knows what service they're supposed to be supplying. Their billing dept certainly know.
Are there certified VFX solutions on dial-on-demand?

macuser

2120 posts

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#1097378 28-Jul-2014 19:15

sbiddle:
macuser: If OP had leased a private car park in town, and had being paying for the car park for the last 6 months while he/she was away overseas, but it turned out when OP went away the company had accidentally leased it to someone else...

Who's fault would it be?

This is an unfair comparison. An ISAM contains multiple ports and the same port was not used by two customers. Chorus didn't charge twice for the same product.

But OP was charged..

Everyone here is too technical to see the forest through the trees.

I could make the example more specific, say...

If OP had leased a private car park in town from a parking company (WXC) that has agreements with the city council (Chorus) to lease car parks, OP had being paying for the car park for the last 6 months while he/she was away overseas, but it turned out when OP went away the council (Chorus) had accidentally given the rights to another parking company (ISP X). OP had not realised until he/she returned home to find his/her car park had another car in it. Both the council and the parking company won't refund any of the money that OP has paid for the car park over the time, even though the parking company knows exactly when they lost the rights to it.

sico77

37 posts

Geek

#1097382 28-Jul-2014 19:33

Thats a bad simile.
It would be better to say.

OP had a carpark that he paid the council for.
This was rented out to OP users bundled with an apartment

At some point some work was done (accidentally) that moved the drive way leading to this car park to another carpark for someone else, meaning the car park was un-usable.

For 6 months none of OP users, Checked the carpark, used the carpark, or complained about the carpark being unavailable.

When OP found out he informed the council, they fixed the driveway, and offered compensation for the error.

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InstallerUFB

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#1097388 28-Jul-2014 19:36

macuser:
sbiddle:
macuser: If OP had leased a private car park in town, and had being paying for the car park for the last 6 months while he/she was away overseas, but it turned out when OP went away the company had accidentally leased it to someone else...

Who's fault would it be?

This is an unfair comparison. An ISAM contains multiple ports and the same port was not used by two customers. Chorus didn't charge twice for the same product.

But OP was charged..

Everyone here is too technical to see the forest through the trees.

I could make the example more specific, say...

If OP had leased a private car park in town from a parking company (WXC) that has agreements with the city council (Chorus) to lease car parks, OP had being paying for the car park for the last 6 months while he/she was away overseas, but it turned out when OP went away the council (Chorus) had accidentally given the rights to another parking company (ISP X). OP had not realised until he/she returned home to find his/her car park had another car in it. Both the council and the parking company won't refund any of the money that OP has paid for the car park over the time, even though the parking company knows exactly when they lost the rights to it.

To follow your example it this case it is more like one of the access ways which the OP has to use to get access to his parking space has been been blocked accdentaly by some else haveing been given permission to parked their car over it - the parking company (WXC) still see a empty space, the city council (chorus) are still providing the empty space so each oncharges for the space - its not untill the OP returns 6mths later to find the people who he said could use his parking space couldnt but didnt till anyone and so he now tells someone and now they now know there is a problem and have sorted it. The empty space was there all the time - it hadnt gone to someone else

macuser

2120 posts

Uber Geek

#1097389 28-Jul-2014 19:42

sico77: Thats a bad simile.
It would be better to say.

OP had a carpark that he paid the council for.
This was rented out to OP users bundled with an apartment

At some point some work was done (accidentally) that moved the drive way leading to this car park to another carpark for someone else, meaning the car park was un-usable.

For 6 months none of OP users, Checked the carpark, used the carpark, or complained about the carpark being unavailable.

When OP found out he informed the council, they fixed the driveway, and offered compensation for the error.

Almost there, only change is OP is not in relationship with Chorus, he is in a relationship with the WXC (middleman).

OP should not have to worry about any relationships that the ISP is involved with to deliver the service that the WXC sells.

WXC is only willing to compensate 17% of fees incurred while car park was unavailable (1 month?)

6 months in fees is likely to be about $5-600 or so, a significant amount.

sico77

37 posts

Geek

#1098509 30-Jul-2014 11:53

macuser:
sico77: Thats a bad simile.
It would be better to say.

OP had a carpark that he paid the council for.
This was rented out to OP users bundled with an apartment

At some point some work was done (accidentally) that moved the drive way leading to this car park to another carpark for someone else, meaning the car park was un-usable.

For 6 months none of OP users, Checked the carpark, used the carpark, or complained about the carpark being unavailable.

When OP found out he informed the council, they fixed the driveway, and offered compensation for the error.

Almost there, only change is OP is not in relationship with Chorus, he is in a relationship with the WXC (middleman).

OP should not have to worry about any relationships that the ISP is involved with to deliver the service that the WXC sells.

WXC is only willing to compensate 17% of fees incurred while car park was unavailable (1 month?)

6 months in fees is likely to be about $5-600 or so, a significant amount.

This doesn't need to look at anyone else past the provider. OP has a legal agreement with ISP only.

The question of what caused the fault has been settled and compensation has been offered.

The real question here is "Why was the connection down for 6months?"

The answer, no one reported it to the service provider.

The t&cs Clearly state the responsible party(ies) for this in article 11,i.

chadwizard

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1098662 30-Jul-2014 15:40

Seems pretty clear cut that the user was responsible under the T&Cs. Possibly room for some compassion here, but not the whole duration. If you ask me, the rental owner was negligent in this case. If you operate a hospitality business, you should ensure the amenities are in order. If you need special notification when the towels go missing, or your router drops out, then get your cleaner to check. Just think of all the holiday homes out there who turn off their router when they are not there. There are probably thousands of them. How is an ISP supposed to discern which ones are legitimately switched off, or which ones have lost their physical connection to the ISAM.

You certainly don't have that arrangement with your ISP (WXC). If that service was in demand, ISP's would probably provide it, but lets face it... 99.9%+ of people with broadband don't need their ISP to tell them when their router gets switched off. If there is an outage, that's a different story, but you can't treat these as the same. What you require is not generally a service which people want or need.

I have to admit, I found the comparisons you all dreamed up to be very entertaining, good work, hahaa

gchiu

1211 posts

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#1098709 30-Jul-2014 16:49

chadwizard:If you ask me, the rental owner was negligent in this case.

Wow, Chorus pulls my line and I'm negligent. Glad our legal system has more sense than has been displayed here.

Niel

3267 posts

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#1098855 30-Jul-2014 22:04

This issue appears to be the OP already made up his mind and looking for supporters but not finding it. Watch "Hotel Inspector" on TV and you'll see you need to inspect everything (either by yourself or by the staff you trust). As someone said towels can get stolen, so does cutlery/modems/PSUs/ornaments. Learn from the experience and move on, it will take more energy to fight this than what it is worth. Lost business (if any) can't be argued since on-one complained to him so there is no evidence.

In principal I do agree with the OP that the connection was lost due to the line provider so he should not have to pay for it, but also keep in mind that he would have paid anyway if no one used it so he has not actually lost anything except for theoretically some customers noticed without complaining and might not come back again. He can contact all customers and ask them if there were issues, then he'll know if he has half a leg to stand on. But in my opinion it is not worth the trouble and you have better things to do with your time to build your business.

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gzt

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#1098903 30-Jul-2014 22:37

The comparisons are interesting and I sympathise with the ISP vs random things happening outside their control, but essentially the OP is a retail customer and paid a retailer for a retail service. The customer does not contract with any other party for the provision of the service. Comparison: paying a house company for a house. The (sub)trades are not the customers concern at all if they do not turn up the house company is responsible. Comparison: Power disconnected by a lines company to a holiday house and unknown by the retailer. The retailer would be obligated to refund any billing to the customer during that period. The service was not provided.

WxC's internal costs and processes and what they pay other parties are not the concern of the customer. No service was provided, and I think the Fair Trading Act (unless this is a b2b sale) would see it like that. Some evidence (I did not say proof) might be required for the date it went down (router logs) and that should be enough to refund the service fully.

Of course I have no idea if the FTA (and following to disputes tribunal) applies to telecomms services, but that's my best shot at it. Clearly I don't know the answer ; ).

*Obviously if the clause about an obligation to report issues stands outside the FTA (and the precise meaning of that clause with regard to billed charges is defined) then the offer of one month is very generous.

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