Ofcom Fine Met Technologies and Guaranteed Telecom for SLAMMING

Ofcom has today fined two little-known UK broadband ISPs – Met Technologies (Met Plus Telecom and Millenium Talk) and Guaranteed Telecom (Zoom Telecom) – a total of £35,000 after they were found to have switched 110 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. The regulator’s existing migration rules are designed to protect against such abuse, but they’re far from perfect and so cases do still occur.

The regulator’s investigation found that Guaranteed Telecom and Met Technologies slammed at least 110 customers throughout 2019 (43 and 67 respectively), a sizeable proportion of whom were elderly or vulnerable. In many cases, even when customers cancelled the order to take over their landline service, the companies still “made repeated attempts to transfer them.”

Both Guaranteed Telecom and Met Technologies also prevented at least 52 customers (27 and 25 respectively) from switching to another ISP after they had slammed them. As a result, Ofcom fined Guaranteed Telecom £10,000 and Met Technologies £25,000. The companies must also release affected customers from their contracts without charge, and refund those who had already switched and paid early termination fees.