The Communications Ombudsman, which is one of the two Ofcom approved Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) providers for UK consumers of broadband ISPs, mobile and landline phone operators, has released its complaints data for the first half of 2024 and reported a 54% increase in telecoms cases accepted vs the same time last year.
Ofcom requires that all such providers – those offering services to consumers and small businesses – must be members of an approved ADR scheme. The schemes are free for consumers to access and designed to supplement (not replace) your provider’s own internal complaint procedure(s), although ISPs often have to pay sizeable costs regardless of whether they win or lose a case.
The ADR process is usually seen as a last line of defence for consumers and thus such schemes are generally only used after a dispute has gone unresolved for 8 weeks, or earlier with the agreement of their provider (i.e. the “Deadlock Letter” stage). See our ISP Complaints and Advice section for more information.
The new data reveals that, between January and June 2023, a total of 11,466 cases were accepted by the Communications Ombudsman, which compares to 17,695 between January and June 2024. The main complaint categories so far in 2024 are service quality, billing, and contract issues, which reflect a similar pattern to the previous year.
The five most common complaint types
Complaint type
Jan – June 2023
Jan – June 2024
Billing
2700
4403
Service quality
2795
3605
Customer service
1716
3934
Contract issues
1268
1895
Equipment
1033
982
Andy Eadle, Business Unit Director at the Communications Ombudsman, told ISPreview:
“We’ve seen an increase in complaints across all dispute categories, but primarily in service quality (speed and reliability of service), and billing – continuing into the first half of 2024.
In 2023 we onboarded an additional major provider, which means more consumers than ever are now able to access our free and impartial dispute resolution services in 2024. As Communications Ombudsman, we’re here to ensure any dispute between consumer and provider can be resolved independently and fairly.”
However, it is disappointing that they don’t include a breakdown of the data by provider, since we have no doubt that consumers would be interested to see which broadband ISPs and mobile operators are attracting the lion’s share of complaints and in what areas – particularly as these tend to reflect issues that the ISP has been unable to resolve with their customers.