Starting to get fed up. 30772887

[#1]

I would take that to mean that Plusnet are not legally obligated to pass on charges levied by BT , but do so out of choice. So am I correct in assuming a post made earlier by Mand is in error where she said "We have a legal requirement to tell you about the possibility of AVC charges,...". But more to do with imposing a contractual obligation upon me?
Mark, I'm sure you are a very well respected person, but personal assurances are not as concrete as the written word in a contract. I also take into consideration that my own assurances don't seem to be good enough. I do not have £144.00 quid to burn in the event of an engineer matching the same level of competence that paid me a visit in my last house. Sorry, but I am standing firm. I believe its an unfair charge.

[#2]

What I meant was that legally we have an obligation to advise you of any charges, prior to billing you for them. If we didn't tell you, and you were subsequently charged I think you'd have a pretty good case against us (obviously I'm not a lawyer).
Sorry if my post clouded the issue further.

[#3]

I know somebody who was having a problem which he was pretty sure was nothing to do with his setup - but he did have his router connected to an upstairs telephone extension socket. When he rang in he was told to try the router in the test socket. He did no such thing and 10 minutes later rang in again and said he'd done it and it still didn't work. As it happens his diagnosis was right and the problem was external.
Plusnet have absolutely no way of knowing whether the user has actually done what he was asked to do. They can't see inside your house and see that you have the router sat on top of the PC and the PC's PSU is packing up. There are any number of things which which could be going on inside your house causing the problem over which they have absolutely no control. Do you think it's fair to expect Plusnet to carry the risk of your failings costing them £144?
If you are confident you have eliminated all possibility of the problem being internal what's the problem with accepting the condition? My suspicious mind thinks that there's a nagging doubt in your mind that the problem is internal.
You have a choice: live with the fault or accept the condition. No amount of arguing or threatening to contact your MP is going to make a scrap of difference.

[#4]

Quote

Do you think it's fair to expect Plusnet to carry the risk of your failings costing them £144?

Yes I do. Part of being in business is about taking risk.
Be as suspicious as you like, I have previous experiences of this type of contractual clause, not just with broadband either. Yes I do have a choice, btw, I was not making any threat to Plusnet about writing to my MP. Have a look at the context, I was referring to the law. If it was a legal requirement, I would be writing about that.
I think I have stated my case clearly enough, so I think I will vacate this thread.

[#5]

Part of being in business is taking reasonable risks. Shareholders don't like the other sort.
BT imposed the charge because they found they were called out too often when the problem was the customers own fault.
If Plusnet were to absorb the charge when the customer's equipment/wiring was at fault why would customers try to eliminate the possibility of the problem being on their side if they knew they could get BT to come and look at it for free?

[#6]

In a three month period, this year, I had a major adsl failure and phone line fault that meant that the pair, and spare pair, to the house failed.
On these three occasions I made all the checks and accepted that, were I to be wrong, I'd have to pay the Openreach costs.
The adsl fault was worrying as, at that point, I didn't have an NTE5a but was convinced that all 4 routers and 8 filters I'd tried couldn't be faulty. The phone faults were easy to check as I had two corded phones and two laptops with built in modems plus a newly fitted, for free, test socket.
I was prepared to back my own judgement financially, as that seemed fair, and I wanted the problems fixed - especially the phone line.
It took 3 adsl engineer visits ( 2 hours per go) and phone line had to be dug up and replaced.
There was no attempt to bill me for any of this work.
If the OP is so confident that the fault isn't his then he should do what I did and back his own judgement.

[#7]

Oleo, I've now caught up with all the recent posts in this thread since my last visit.
I gave you a thorough explanation of responsibilities and the regulations in reply #5 and orbrey even posted in reply #13 that if you'd done all that you were expected to, you would not be charged.
Several people have also given explanations and several staff from PN have been here to try and resolve your problem. PlusNet is not like the ISP's with which you've previously had bad experiences.
Providing that you have carried out the testing that you should, and the fault persists, then my suspicion is that it is a problem with your line or the linecard at the exchange.
I'm of the opinion now that it is you being unreasonable, and as nadger has said you should back your own judgement.

[#8]

Got to admit, as a newbie reading it - the OP is now just being completely unreasonable for reasons best known to himself.
Based on my experiences... PN have gone a long way towards helping you - if you are so sure it's not your problem, grow a pair and get an engineer out...