The waiting game

I expected to get a reply fairly swiftly from Demon. I waited and waited and nothing came, so on February 1st I decided to get some legal advice before my final letter.

As I run my own business, I'm lucky to be part of the Federation of Small Businesses. With that membership comes legal insurance, so I thought I'd check that I was right. I phoned the number and left a short description of my complaint against Demon. I was told that a solicitor (lawyer in the US) would call back within the hour.

30 minutes later the solicitor phoned back. I described in detail what the problem was and how I saw it as being a breach of the contract I had with Demon. I was told in no uncertain terms that I was absolutely right and to proceed against them. The lady from the legal helpline thought it was unlikely that they would allow it to go to court as it was such an obvious open and shut case.

Armed with this pleasing news I wrote the following letter the same day.

Dear Sir,

Hostname:

Further to my letter dated January 22^nd, 2007 I am writing to inform you of the action I will now be taking.

In my previous correspondence I informed you of the action I was going to take as you have broken your contract terms under the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977.

Unless you immediately restore our Internet connection to its former level within 7 calendar days I will be proceeding to the Small Claims Section of the County Court to recover my losses due to your deliberate breach of contract without further reference to yourselves.

Should you restore the Internet connection, I will also require a payment of £xxx.xx to cover my losses during this period plus the cost of having to find another provider at a higher cost for a period of 12 months. If this is not received within 7 calendar days, I will again proceed to the Small Claims Court without further reference to yourselves.

I look forward to receiving immediate restoration of our Internet service, as contracted, and the payment listed above, along with confirmation that our service has been restored and your written assurance that it will not be restricted again.

Yours sincerely

As at this date, Demon have not answered my letter. So on Wednesday next week, if I haven't received the amount and assurances that I demanded I will issue the writ and get things moving. Of course I will update this blog and print the writ details.