Home
 » ISP News » 
Sponsored Links

Ofcom Investigate “Extraordinary” Billing Accuracy Failure at O2 UK

Wednesday, Jul 10th, 2019 (11:50 am) - Score 4,819

The telecoms regulator has opened an investigation into mobile operator O2 and its compliance with their billing rules (General Condition 3.2), which requires providers to ensure that their charges are accurate and represent the services received by the customer. Apparently they’ve suffered an “Extraordinary Performance Failure.”

The rules are broadly intended to ensure that communications providers have systems and processes in place which are fit for purpose, deliver accurate bills to consumers and ensure that consumers are not overcharged for services. This also requires providers to obtain approval of their metering and billing systems from third-party assessors, known as Approval Bodies.

In this case it appears as if the Approval Body working for O2 has notified the regulator of a “Category 1 Extraordinary Performance Failure” (EPF) at the mobile operator.

Ofcom Statement

That notification also suggests that from at least 1 January 2012 – 7 March 2019, O2 took duplicate final direct debit payments from customers who terminated their contracts on a Saturday or Sunday and had an outstanding periodic bill to pay.

The notification explains that the termination bill did not take into account other payments made against the outstanding bill when calculating the final payment. This means that there is an issue as to whether the termination bill included the whole value of the outstanding periodic bill and so whether final payment was in fact taken twice.

In addition, O2 did not classify this incident as EPF, and did not follow all the requirements in the timeframes set out in the Direction.

Investigations like this can be quite complicated due to all the admin involved and as such Ofcom aim to complete their evidence gathering phase by the end of December 2019, which means that we probably won’t learn of their provisional findings until later in 2020.

Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and .
Search ISP News
Search ISP Listings
Search ISP Reviews
Comments
1 Response
  1. Avatar photo Martin hibben says:

    O2 by stating bills unpaid and direct debits deadlines missed have caused considerable problems regarding credit check records and in result black listed my address as well as my credit score with my bank

Comments are closed

Cheap BIG ISPs for 100Mbps+
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £24.00
132Mbps
Gift: None
Shell Energy UK ISP Logo
Shell Energy £26.99
109Mbps
Gift: None
Plusnet UK ISP Logo
Plusnet £27.99
145Mbps
Gift: None
Zen Internet UK ISP Logo
Zen Internet £28.00 - 35.00
100Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
Cheapest ISPs for 100Mbps+
Gigaclear UK ISP Logo
Gigaclear £15.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
YouFibre UK ISP Logo
YouFibre £19.99
150Mbps
Gift: None
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
BeFibre UK ISP Logo
BeFibre £21.00
150Mbps
Gift: £25 Love2Shop Card
Hey! Broadband UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
The Top 15 Category Tags
  1. FTTP (5472)
  2. BT (3505)
  3. Politics (2524)
  4. Openreach (2291)
  5. Business (2251)
  6. Building Digital UK (2234)
  7. FTTC (2041)
  8. Mobile Broadband (1961)
  9. Statistics (1778)
  10. 4G (1654)
  11. Virgin Media (1608)
  12. Ofcom Regulation (1451)
  13. Fibre Optic (1392)
  14. Wireless Internet (1386)
  15. FTTH (1381)
Promotion
Sponsored

Copyright © 1999 to Present - ISPreview.co.uk - All Rights Reserved - Terms , Privacy and Cookie Policy , Links , Website Rules , Contact
Mastodon