Complaints
Complaints, and the six-week path
Ofcom shortened the wait before you can take an unresolved complaint about a communications provider to an independent alternative dispute resolution scheme. From 8 April 2026 that wait is six weeks, not eight. You still complain to the provider first. This website is not the scheme and not Ofcom.
Reviewed 5 November 2026 · 6 min read · Independent · Not a price list
The order of the conversation
Start with the provider who sold the service. A missed appointment, a late activation, a bill you do not recognise, or a switch that did not complete is their ticket first. Ask for a complaint reference. Write the date you asked for it. A chat transcript is a record. A mood is not.
If they do not resolve it, you can go to the independent scheme they belong to. Ofcom’s rule change, announced on 8 April 2026, cuts the time you must wait before that step from eight weeks to six. A provider can also issue a deadlock letter sooner, which lets you go to the scheme without waiting out the weeks. Ask whether they have done that.
Ofcom is the regulator. Telling Ofcom can form part of the wider picture. It is not a substitute for the provider’s process or for the scheme, and it is not how a single refund is ordered as your first move. People who start at the regulator often lose the weeks they were trying to save.
Which scheme, and what it will not do
More than one alternative dispute resolution scheme operates in UK telecoms. The one that can take your case is the one named by your provider. We will not guess from a logo on a van or from a social-media reply. Read the provider’s complaints page and keep the name.
The scheme is there to look at an unresolved complaint. It is not a way to renegotiate a price you simply regret, and it is not an appeal against an exit fee that the contract always described, unless the complaint is that the fee was applied outside the contract. Take the contract, the bill and the dates.
The scheme is free for you to use. It cannot order OneTouchSwitch to do anything about a provider’s network, because we are not the provider. If the complaint is that a page on this site is wrong, tell us. That is a correction, not an ombudsman case.
How this relates to automatic compensation
Automatic compensation, where the provider is in Ofcom’s scheme, is meant to arrive without a complaint. The April 2026 figures are on our compensation page. If the money does not arrive, the missing payment can itself be the complaint. Say what you think was due, and which of the three triggers you are describing: delayed repair, missed appointment, or delayed start.
A provider outside the scheme does not owe those figures merely because you read them here. You can still complain about the service. The remedy is then whatever the contract and the law and the scheme they do belong to will support. Do not quote the daily amount as if it were universal.
Keep the promised date and the date service actually worked. Those two dates do more work than a paragraph of frustration. Add whether an engineer was booked, whether they came, and how much notice you were given of any cancellation.
If the complaint is also a risk
If a care alarm, a medical device or a person who cannot easily leave the house depends on the line, say that in the first sentence to the provider. It does not invent a higher compensation rate. It tells them what urgency their own duties require. Also call the alarm’s monitoring company. Broadband chat is not their desk.
Do not send medical details, benefit letters or photographs of people to OneTouchSwitch. We do not run a vulnerability register. We cannot flag your account at the provider because we cannot see the account.
A power cut is not always a broadband fault. Full fibre often dies when the mains dies, because the equipment in the home needs power. If that matters in your house, ask about battery backup before you switch away from a line that still worked in a cut. Ask before the cease, not after.
Questions
- Do I wait six weeks or eight?
- Ofcom’s change from 8 April 2026 makes it six weeks before you can go to the independent scheme, unless the provider deadlocks the complaint sooner.
- Can I start at Ofcom?
- You can inform the regulator. The resolution path still starts with the provider, then their scheme.
- Which ombudsman do I use?
- The one your provider names. We will not guess.
- Does complaining cancel my exit fee?
- Not by itself. Ask. Get any hold or waiver in writing, with a date.
- Can you escalate the ticket?
- No. We do not have access to provider accounts.
- Is the scheme for energy bills too?
- No. Energy complaints follow the energy ombudsman path. Do not send a gas bill to a telecoms scheme.