Complaints, complaints....

The task for this week: Judith and David are signing us up with the internet industry's disputes arbitration service. On pain of a £50,000 fine we need to provide this. It will handle any complaint we can't resolve up to a value of £5000. Of course if one of us chose to pursue a complaint of that value against our own company then Lingen Community Broadband would go out of business immediately - and I'm sure neighbours would have something to say about that. It's also worth pointing out that if the arbitrators get involved - something a user can insists on if they aren't satisfied with the way we've handled a complaint - that will immediately involve Lingen Community Broadband in what are, for us, hefty costs. A single complaint will cost us £417.13 in case fees alone - and then on top of that we'd have to pay whatever the adjudicator awarded. And we haven't room in our budget for £417.13. We might run to a £5 Boots voucher - but even that's a bit iffy. You may wonder if all of this red tape is appropriate to a small community owned and run service with a handful of users. We certainly do. Perhaps write to Ofcom if it all seems a bit heavy-handed....