Ofcom Accuse Met Technologies and Guaranteed Telecom of SLAMMING

After a long investigation, Ofcom claims to have found “reasonable grounds for believing” that two little-known UK broadband ISPs – Met Technologies (Met Plus Telecom and Millenium Talk) and Guaranteed Telecom (Zoom Telecom) – may have switched a number of consumers to their service without permission (SLAMMING).

The practice of SLAMMING is a mis-selling tactic that can occur when naughty people or ISPs trigger a switch (migration) of your service to another provider, albeit without you ever having given confirmed consent. Ofcom’s existing migration rules are designed to protect against such abuse, but they’re far from perfect.

Back in 2019 Ofcom published a brief statement on the aforementioned case, which said: “Specifically, this investigation is examining whether these companies have engaged in slamming by placing transfer orders, including repeat transfer orders, for switching customers’ communication services without their express knowledge and/or consent.” Sadly, no further information was released.

At the time a quick Google around revealed a number of related complaints against the providers (some examples here and here) and one of them – Guaranteed Telecom – even managed to get on the bad side of the BBC’s Technology Correspondent, Rory Cellan-Jones, after they targeted one of his elderly relatives (here).

Ofcom has now concluded their provisional investigation and found “reasonable grounds for believing” that both operators may have broken their consumer protection rules between 1st January 2019 to 31st December 2019.

Ofcom Statement

Specifically, Ofcom has reasonable grounds for believing that Guaranteed Telecom and Met Technologies contravened:

➤ GC C7.3(a), by placing transfer orders, including repeat transfer orders, for customers’ communications services without their express knowledge and/or consent;

➤ GC C7.7, by failing to create and keep individually retrievable direct Records of Consent for the provision of communications services, for the required minimum period of twelve months; and

➤ GC C7.14(a), by using Cancel Other (a mechanism that losing providers can use in specific situations to cancel a request to transfer a customer) in a way that is not prescribed in the accompanying Annex 1 to GC C7,

Both operators have now been invited to respond to Ofcom’s findings before they issue a final decision. At the very least the regulator may force the two providers to make changes to their systems and services but, in reality, SLAMMING is one of those nasty things that tends to attract a hefty fine – especially if the providers are found to have been doing it deliberately.