Ofcom Publish UK Telecoms Complaints Bulletin for August 2012

The UK communications regulator, Ofcom, has today published its latest quarterly consumer telecoms complaints data report. Overall complaint levels have been falling since last year, although the number of people complaining about how ISPs actually handle their complaints shot up during July 2012.

Ofcom receives and monitors complaints from consumers who are dissatisfied with their broadband or phone experience, although it generally doesn’t investigate individual gripes because such matters are instead handled by the regulators Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) schemes.

However the regulator still uses this consumer feedback to help inform its wider policy decisions and or to take enforcement action against specific companies that are breaking existing rules.

Sadly the above graph only shows monthly complaint trends for some of the key areas of consumer dissatisfaction over the last 13 months, while other areas typically lack enough data for any meaningful comparison.

Separately Ofcom has also included new information on abandoned or silent calls, which usually relate to telephone marketing firms. The picture is quite bleak, with complaint levels rising sharply from 1,235 in July 2011 to 3,390 in July 2012! Sadly many of these calls now come from outside of the UK, which is difficult to prevent.

Communications Consumer Panel Chair, Jo Connell, said: “It’s good news and in the interest of consumers that Ofcom is now publishing the number of complaints made to the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) about unwanted marketing calls. However, it’s a serious concern that the figures show that the number of complaints to the TPS is nearly three times higher than two years ago.”

Ofcom’s UK Telecoms Complaints Bulletin for August 2012 (PDF)
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/enforcement/telecoms-complaints-bulletin/..