Ofcom Hit BT UK with £245K Fine for Overcharging on 118 Calls

Last year’s confession by BT that they had failed to immediately apply Ofcom’s new price cap on UK calls to 118 numbers (Directory Enquiries) until June 2019 (here), which resulted in several thousand of EE’s mobile customers being overcharged, has resulted in the operator being fined £245,000.

Today the popularity of the internet means that only a few people still use 118 numbers. Nevertheless Ofcom last year noted that some operators of such services were charging as much as £20 for a 90 second call and so they decided to take action. The regulator capped the maximum cost that a 118 service can charge at £3.65 per 90 seconds and this was enforced from 1st April 2019 (here).

However it wasn’t long before BT informed Ofcom that “it did not apply this cap to calls made by a number of its EE customers to 118 numbers until mid-April 2019” (here), although today’s announcement found that almost 6,000 customers were affected between a wider three month period from 1st April and 26th June 2019. The overcharge itself amounted to a total of £42,000.

The good news is that BT were able to correct most bills before EE customers paid them, which meant that only around £10,000 of the total amount overcharged was actually paid by their subscribers. All customers have since been refunded.

Ofcom Statement

BT’s failure to implement the 118 price cap was a serious breach of our rules, particularly taking into account the potentially vulnerable people that use directory enquiry services. So we have imposed a penalty of £245,000 on BT. The penalty includes a 30% discount in recognition that BT admitted its failings by agreeing to settle the case.

An EE Spokesperson said:

“We apologise for any inconvenience that this mistake caused to a very small number of our customers. Customers that were affected were overcharged by less than £5 on average and we quickly contacted and refunded every one of them. We have taken this very seriously and have reviewed and updated our procedures to ensure it does not happen again.”

The money raised from the fine, which must be paid to Ofcom within 20 working days, will be passed on to HM Treasury.

UPDATE 11:52am

Updated to add EE’s statement.