The router installed by your operator is not yours. It is a loan. And that is why you must take care of it and return it when you change or unsubscribe. It is an assignment, whatever the company you have hired. That is why you are probably wondering what penalty you have to pay for breaking the company’s router. Are they going to make me pay to replace my router? These are the possible penalties and fines.
The router may not work due to a technical error. That it has been damaged by a voltage drop. Or simply that it arrived defective. But, who is responsible for paying for it if it has broken?
Return the equipment
Whenever we terminate our line we must return the equipment. All that we have and have installed us. They do not belong to us nor are they ours, but are transferred or rented. Once we cancel, we return them to the operator in the store or through courier within a maximum period of days. In most cases it is 30 days that we will have to make the return.
If you do not return the equipment, you have to pay a penalty. Although it may vary depending on the operator, the fine is usually around 50 euros in the case of the router. But you may not only have a router but you may have more devices…
Collect Orange from its help website that if you stay with only one team, the penalty is 50 euros or 60.50 with VAT included. Either the router, the decoder or the ONT. If you stay with two, the proportional: 121 euros with VAT included. And if you stay with three you have to pay 181.50 euros with VAT included.
But are not the only ones. You must also return all the repeaters that have been installed to improve the WiFi network. Orange explains it from its help page. If you do not return the WiFi repeater you will have a charge of 49 euros with VAT included.
And if it breaks?
We know that we have to return the router, the ONT or the decoder when we unsubscribe. But what if it doesn’t work? What if you have broken it? Depends. It depends on the reason why it does not work and what the fault technician considers.
If the Internet doesn’t work, you usually call customer service to report a problem. This fault will cause a technician to go to your house to see what is happening. You may think that it is not working and it is simply a bad configuration or a loose cable that you have not noticed. Although it seems obvious, it happens in many cases. When the technician comes to your house, he will be able to find out what has happened and why it doesn’t work.
What happens in these cases? There may be a fault with the Internet or a technical problem has caused your router to stop working. In that case, it will be replaced without any problem so that you can connect well and without errors.
But the technician may come to your house and see that the router has broken because you hit it with a hammer, for example. Or because he has a clear dog bite. These cases are rare but they can occur and it will be easily detected that you are the culprit of this break. What happens then? Depends. It may be that, if the technician considers it, you will be claimed and have to pay for a device that you have on loan and that was not yours. Or that the technician simply makes the substitution and repairs the fault and does not mark as that the failure is due to you having broken it and not by accident.
But it would be logical that you would have to pay the corresponding fine for replacement and it would be comparable to the payment for not returning it. It is a device that does not belong to you and that you will not be able to return because it is damaged. That is, we would pay 50 euros (+ the amount corresponding to VAT) for each piece of equipment that you have broken or damaged.