Home phone Guides

Home phone complaints

Tuesday 17 August, 2010

By Becca Talbot - becca@consumerchoices.co.uk

Are you frustrated with your landline service? Have you experienced poor customer service or received an unexpectedly high bill? Find out how to make a complaint to your home phone provider…

If you are having problems with your landline provider, whether it’s about billing, customer service, faults on your line or mis-selling, follow our simple step-by-step process to make a complaint.

1. Contact your phone provider

The first thing to do if you are having problems with your landline service is so contact your home phone provider. Call or email your provider’s customer service department and explain the problem you are experiencing.

Some customer services’ numbers can be found in the table below:

Regulator Ofcom says it is in the provider’s own interests to deal with a customer’s grievance “fairly and reasonably,” so in most instances problems will be resolved immediately. However, if the provider doesn’t address your concerns satisfactorily, you have the right to lodge a complaint.

2. Make a complaint

If you are still experiencing problems, tell your home phone provider that you’d like to make an official complaint. Under Ofcom regulations, all telecommunications companies must have a complaints procedure. Full details of the complaints process will be available in the company’s code of practice on complaints handling - ask your provider for a copy of it if you do not have one, or find it online.

Below are links to a few of the biggest suppliers’ codes of practice:

• BT code of practice
• Virgin Media code of practice
• Sky code of practice
• TalkTalk code of practice
• Primus code of practice.

In your complaint, you should outline the exact nature of the problem, exactly when your problems first arose, and all the previous action you have taken, including dates and times of phone calls to customer services help lines and copies of any relevant emails.

If your problem still isn’t resolved satisfactorily, you can escalate the complaint through an Alternative Dispute Resolution.

3. Alternative Dispute Resolution

If your provider is still not making the effort to resolve your problem, or if it has been more than eight weeks since you first made your complaint, you can submit your complaint to an independent Alternative Dispute Resolution scheme (ADR). You must ask your provider for a “deadlock” letter so that you can refer your dispute to the relevant scheme.

There are two Ofcom-approved ADR schemes - CISAS (www.cisas.org.uk) and Ombudsman Services: Communications (www.ombudsman-services.org.uk/communications.html). Your phone provider should tell you which scheme it is a member of, or you can use Ofcom’s ADR checker. Both CISAS and Ombudsman Services are independent bodies that investigate unresolved disputes between phone companies and their companies.

UK phone companies must be a member of a recognised Alternative Dispute Resolution scheme, under Ofcom regulations. Both schemes are free, and are open to residential customers as well as small businesses with up to 10 employees.

Examples of complaints the schemes consider include:

• Disputed charges appearing on a bill
• Refund claims
• The handling of a complaint.

If the ADR scheme comes to an adjudication, the phone provider must abide by the decision. This could include requiring the provider to make a formal apology, to make a payment to you, or to take other practical steps. However, if you remain unhappy with the outcome, you are still free to seek your own legal advice.

4. Complain to Ofcom

Ofcom, the telecommunications regulator, does not investigate individual consumer complaints.

However, for certain issues Ofcom does ask consumers to register their complaints with it, to help it understand industry-wide problems. This can lead to new enforcement or policy work, which could help create an all-round better consumer experience.

Have a look at the Ofcom website to find out more about registering your complaint.