Fault or disruption
If a fault occurs in your service, your first port of call should always be to contact the company you purchased the service from, either to make a complaint or to notify them of the fault. Additionally, you are always entitled to contact the company you are paying for the service.
A fault in a service can include:
- A service being provided in an unprofessional manner.
- A service deviating from what was agreed.
- A service deviating from the information you were provided with by the seller when you entered into the contract or that was presented in the marketing of the service (you must always be able to prove any oral promises made).
- The seller has not informed you of key attributes of the service, the service’s suitability and usefulness for you in relation to the price, or other particular circumstances that the seller realised or ought to have realised would be important to you and that would have had an impact on your decision to enter into an contract.
- There is a guarantee or similar that is still in valid and the service has declined in quality.
- The service worked previously but has suddenly stopped working (disruption).
Your rights in the event of a fault or disruption
If there is a fault in your service, you may be entitled to a range of different rights of recourse:
- Demanding that the fault is rectified (at no additional cost to you, provided it does not entail unreasonable costs or inconvenience to the operator).
- A discount and potential compensation (from the day you make a complaint to when the fault is rectified).
- Terminating the contract (at no extra cost ending the contractual commitment period, notice period or other cost if purpose of the service has been fallen by the wayside and the operator ought to have realised this).
- Withhold payment (to an amount required to provide you with security for your claim). However, make sure that not paying could not lead to the service being switched off and you losing your mobile telephone number or broadband connection, for example.
Recommendation: We recommend that you request suspension of payment instead of withholding it, i.e. the operator delays the payment date until after they have investigated and responded to your complaint.
In order to be entitled to one or more of the above paths of recourse, you must submit your complaint within a reasonable period after you have, or should have, noticed the fault. A complaint within two month of having observed the fault will always be considered submitted within a reasonable period.
Important! Another requirement is that you do not reject the operator’s attempts to remedy the fault, provided you do not have a particular reason to do so. A particular reason could be that the same fault continues either fully or partially after two attempts to remedy it.
We can only provide guidance on the subscription element of your agreement. Hardware faults, such as with your mobile phone, computer or TV, should in the first instance be reported to the company you purchased the goods from. If you have tried this and the problem remains unresolved, you can contact Hallå Konsument (a national information service coordinated by the Swedish Consumer Agency).
How long could it take before the fault is rectified?
The operator is obliged to rectify a fault within a ‘reasonable period’ of the day on which you reported the fault to the operator. Your need for a functional service should be taken into account. In principle, the operator is responsible for promptly undertaking investigation of the problem after you have submitted your complaint, and a reasonable period is calculated based on what is ‘normal’ for remedying that particular fault. What is considered a reasonable period is also influenced by any circumstances that are outside the operator’s control (‘force majeure’).
In other words, there is no set period for how quickly or in what way a fault should be rectified; instead, it depends on the circumstances in each individual case. For this reason, it is important that as soon as you become aware of the fault, you report it to the operator, as you cannot claim compensation in the form of a discount, for example, from any earlier than the date of your report. We also recommend that you report the fault in writing and keep a copy of the letter, a printout of the email, or a screenshot of a notification sent via a website form, for example.
If the fault does not affect the usability of the service, you may need to accept that the company will take slightly longer to rectify it. Similarly, you may need to accept a longer wait for a fault to be rectified if the company ensures you are provided with a replacement product.
Recurring faults
You do not need to accept repeated attempts to resolve the same fault if the operator is unsuccessful in remedying it. If the fault persists either fully or partially after two attempts to rectify it, you should be able to refuse further attempts and have the right to terminate the contract at no additional cost. Even in these circumstances, you must report that the fault is recurring within a reasonable period of the rectification attempt. In short: If the fault persists either fully or partially after two attempts to rectify it, you are entitled to refuse further attempts and have the right to terminate the contract.
If the fault is a different fault, you may need to accept more than two attempts, but the limit can be deemed reached when it is causing such inconvenience that you can be considered to have a special reason to reject more offers of rectification attempts.
Cost of rectification
The fault must be rectified at no cost to you, provided the fault is due to something the operator is responsible for. If a fault appears to be due to something you are responsible for, for example if the fault is in your private equipment, the operator may require payment from you in order to send out a technician.
In order to be entitled to charge you such costs, the operator should discuss the conditions in advance, before beginning its investigations into the fault.