Daniel’s beauty salon is paid $10,000 in compensation for business loss

The issue

Daniel operates a beauty salon and has a telephone and internet service with Brave Networks. Clients contact the salon by telephone to make appointments.

The salon’s telephone and internet services became faulty during a peak period. When Daniel reported a fault to Brave Networks, it said it would take some time to restore the service.

As a back-up measure, Daniel asked Brave Networks to divert the business number to his mobile so he could continue to take appointments. Brave Networks agreed to do this, but accidentally diverted the calls to an unknown mobile number.

The fault continued for five months. Although Daniel contacted Brave Networks frequently throughout this time for assistance, it did not correct the diversion issue. As a result of this, Daniel says he lost around 90% of the bookings he would normally have taken during that time.

Once his service was restored, Daniel asked Brave Networks to compensate him for the amount his business lost during that five-month period.

The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman found Brave Networks had not taken reasonable steps to help Daniel continue normal business operations during the fault. To resolve Daniel’s complaint, Brave Networks paid $10,000 compensation to Daniel.

Names of individuals and retail providers have been changed.