Spain's rules
My phone or internet stopped working and nobody compensated me
The official steps, and a place to count your complaint.
Who this covers
Interruptions or outages of mobile, landline or home internet service from a Spanish operator, and the compensation owed for them. Not slow speeds as such, wrong charges unrelated to an outage (es-telecom-billing), or broken devices bought outside a bundle.
Add your complaint
Rantr counts your complaint and shows you others who have it.
No promise of a fix or refund. Do not name private people or include private details. This does not send a complaint to the company.
Your official route
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Report the fault to your operator and note the reference number
Report it and ask for the reference number. There is no legal maximum time to repair a fault, but the operator must compensate interruptions.
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Check your next bill for the automatic compensation
Deadline: It must appear on the bill for the period right after the outage.
Phone (mobile or landline): you get the higher of your average bill for the affected services over the previous three months, or five times the monthly fee, both prorated to the outage time; it is automatic if it exceeds 1 euro. Internet: you get back the fixed fees prorated to the outage time; it is automatic if the outage exceeded six hours between 8:00 and 22:00. If the cause was force majeure, you only get the fixed fees back, prorated. The bill must show the date, duration and calculation.
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Complain to your operator in writing and get a reference number
Deadline: Within one month from when you learned of the problem; complaining to the operator in that time is required before you can go to the OAUT.
Give the dates and hours without service and the fault reference, and ask for the compensation. Use the channel you used to sign up, or phone: the operator must accept both. It must give you a reference number for your complaint. If you complain by phone, ask for a document that proves you filed it and what it said.
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If there is no answer within a month, or you disagree, complain to the OAUT
Deadline: Within three months from the operator's answer, or from the end of its one-month period to answer.
The Oficina de Atención al Usuario de Telecomunicaciones (Ministry) handles complaints from individuals, self-employed people and microenterprises. File online (with a digital certificate) or on paper, and attach the operator's reference number, bills and contract. Faults and service interruptions are among the matters it resolves. It does not decide claims for other damages. It has six months to decide, and the operator must comply with its decision.
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Instead of the OAUT: consumer arbitration, if your operator accepts it
Deadline: To keep the OAUT open, ask for arbitration within the same three months.
You can take the dispute to a Junta Arbitral de Consumo; it only works if the operator submits to it. If the operator refuses arbitration, your three months to go to the OAUT count again from that refusal.
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Last resort: court
The legal compensation does not cover other damages the outage caused you; those are claimed separately. Before suing you must have tried to negotiate, and you need written proof of that attempt: for example, proof that the company received your request to negotiate or your proposal. If it does not reply within 30 calendar days of receiving it, the attempt counts as ended without agreement.
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Your written complaint
To: Your operator's customer service (the channel you used to sign up, or phone)
Must include
- Your full name and the account holder's ID (DNI/NIE)
- Customer or contract number and the affected line or address
- Each outage: start and end date and time
- The fault reference number
- The bill where the compensation should have appeared
- What you ask for: the legal compensation, itemised on your bill
Keep
- The reference number the operator gave you
- A copy of your complaint, with the date and channel used
- The bills involved
- Your contract or contract summary
- Screenshots or notes with dates and times without service
- Any SMS, email or notice from the operator about the outage
Your rights
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Phone outages: compensation is at least the higher of the prorated average bill of the previous three months or five times the prorated monthly fee, paid automatically on the next bill when it exceeds 1 euro.
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Internet outages: the operator must refund the prorated fixed fees, automatically on the next bill, when the outage, continuous or not, exceeded six hours between 8:00 and 22:00.
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In a phone and internet bundle, if the offer does not say how much each service costs, internet counts as 50% of the price when the services are not sold separately.
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There is no compensation if you seriously breached the contract (for example fraud or late payment) or if the damage came from connecting non-compliant equipment.
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Contracts must also state a number of monthly outage hours above which the operator pays the compensation set in the contract.
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For services other than internet access, a significant continued or recurring gap between real and contracted performance is grounds for a complaint, which may recognise your right to end the contract at no cost.
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The operator must give you a reference number for every complaint or request, and accept complaints through the channel you used to sign up and by phone.
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The OAUT does not decide claims for damages caused by a faulty service, nor whether a clause is abusive; those go to consumer bodies or the courts.
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If a consumer arbitration board has started a procedure, you cannot use the OAUT unless the request is closed without a decision on the merits or the parties withdraw from arbitration.
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In court claims of up to 2,000 euros you can act yourself, without a lawyer or a procurador.
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