Broadband ISP TalkTalk (Tiscali) UK has today been fined £3 million after they incorrectly billed 3,000 consumers for services, such as broadband and or phone packages, which they had not received. An investigation by Ofcom found that TalkTalk had failed to correct enough errors with its system, which in February 2011 resulted in the ISP being forced to repay £2.5m after 62,000 customers were incorrectly billed (here).

The communications regulator, Ofcom UK, has continued to keep close tabs on TalkTalk's progress since it last breached telecoms rules (General Condition 11.1). Sadly, despite the ISP promising to correct its faults, TalkTalk still managed to incorrectly bill almost 3,000 consumers between 2nd December 2010 and 4th March 2011!

Ofcom acknowledged that TalkTalk had taken "some important steps to comply with the rules," such as making changes to their customer records management systems, though the problems have not gone away.



Most of the billing problems affected customers who had already closed their accounts, which is an issue that subscribers have been reporting to us for what seems like almost a decade now. Meanwhile Ofcom believes that, despite TalkTalk's improvements, their attempts to rectify the underlying problems have been "insufficient". Ofcom is continuing to monitor TalkTalk's compliance.