Returning kit without the fine

Switching has a last mile of cardboard. The old retailer wants their radio back, their PSU, sometimes a TV wand, sometimes a surprisingly specific ethernet cable. People bin the lot in the relief of a working new line, then pay £70 for the privilege of having been messy. The charge is in the contract you did not reread. It is also avoidable.

What actually goes back

Hub, power supply, and whatever the cease email lists. TV boxes if you had a bundle. Filters from the copper years. Do not include your own mesh, and do not include the Openreach ONT unless someone named it.

If you never received a piece they now demand, say so with the original delivery note. Ghost kit is a known trick of sloppy asset databases.

How to post like an adult

Their label, their address, tracking, a photo of the serial in the box, a photo of the receipt. A bag-for-life and a hope is how parcels vanish into a charge.

Wipe your Wi‑Fi password from your own brain too: factory reset if you can, because the next life of that hub should not know your printer’s name.

Deadlines are real

Fourteen, thirty, forty-five days — brands vary. The clock usually starts at cease, not at the day you found the box under the stairs. Put a reminder the day the new line works, while you still care.

If you are waiting on a failed switch restoration, do not post the old hub until the old line is actually dead. Kit and service can get out of order. Ask which world you are in.

Free kit is a loan with a courier at the end.

The last plastic object is part of the year-one cost. Post it as carefully as you compared the tariff.