Comms companies can be such shysters. There's one in the UK who use the ADSL Contention Ratio salesspeak fudge of "up to..." for broadband speeds to supply customers with up to 8Mbps contracts with actual rates in the Kbps range. Even when the consistent highest speed reached has been shown to be 4 or 5 times dial-up speed they can just answer "well, it does say up to...".

R Soles.

At least the neighbour cutting the cable (has happened here too, aren't people supposed to SURVEY?) wasn't their fault.

I used to cover customer service for a major carrier in the US.  $15 is normally all a customer service rep has for adjustments/ courtesy credits that they can offer on their own.  If they didn't try to pawn that off on you they would likely have been fired.

It's really all a wash when it comes to issue resolution on those subjects with any major internet provider or cell phone carrier really.  The representatives all have to try to get you to agree to settle for much less than what should be reasonable otherwise they lose out on part of their pay or their jobs, then they put you on hold for several minutes getting bitched at for leaving you on hold for over 30 seconds because they had to wait in line to try to get approval from supervisor/lead who is bogged down with a flood of other requests usually resulting in them not paying attention to the request and denying it for xyz reason of the month, and finally it results in a back and forth between you, the rep who can't give out what you want and some supervisor who has about 20 other people shouting in their ear.  It's true for AT&T, Comcast, and virtually everyone else involved in the same line of business.

They should reimburse everyone who had their phone and internet down that whole time, then take that sum and charge it on the idiots who caused all of this to happen.

I say that's only fair. Seriously, being an idiot should be a fine.