Original article Total Telecom:Read More
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The refunds relate to having sold contracts without offering customers information they were entitled to
Since the summer of 2022, telecoms operators in the UK have been required to provide customers with a single-page summary of the main terms of a contact, including potential mid-contract price hikes. These measures were introduced by Ofcom to enforce greater transparency from the operators and stop customers being hit by unexpected increases to their bills.
Soon afterwards, in January 2024, Ofcom launched a probe into BT’s compliance with these new rules, with BT’s subsidiaries EE and Plusnet also being investigated. In May, Ofcom concluded this investigation, finding that BT, EE, and Plusnet had failed to provide 1.1 million customers with the clear contact information demanded.
Ofcom subsequently fined BT £2.8 million and ordered them to refund customers that had paid early cancellation fees related to these contracts. If any money could not be refunded to affected customers because they could not be reached, that money should instead be donated to charity.
As such, this week Ofcom has revealed that BT has refunded £18 million to an unspecified number of affected customers, as well as donating £440,000 to 17 charities.
“We’re sorry that pre-contract information and contract summary documents were not available to some of our customers in a timely manner,” said a BT spokesperson. “We have taken steps to proactively contact affected customers and refund them if they had subsequently paid any early termination charges. We take compliance seriously at BT and have worked closely with Ofcom to implement all remedial actions.”
This is the second significant fine BT has received from Ofcom in recent years, having been fined £17.5 million last summer in relation to a ‘catastrophic’ failure to deliver 14,000 emergency calls due to technical faults back in 2023.
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