By Ben Kerrigan-
Vodafone ‘s £4.6m fine by Ofcom For Overcharging customers is a shameful disgrace on the part of the company.
Vodafone was charged fined £4.6m by Ofcom for “serious and sustained” breaches of consumer protection rules.
And the eye of media.com can confirm that we have been separately investigating claims of overcharging by Vodafone on one of our writer’s telephone bills. After a complaint was put in writing to Vodaphone, the company promised to look into the claims, with a promise to resolve them.
Vodaphone’s ombudsman sent a mail to acknowledge the complaint, promising to address them in due course. Over a month later, they have still not addressed it- something we are due to follow up with them this week. The eye of media.com may yet soon be exposing our complaint that suggests Vodafone deliberately or inadvertently exploits the ignorance of customers in its dealings.
The findings leading to such a huge fine, are a blow to the giant telecom company, who customers should be able to trust to deliver an efficient and honest service.
INVESTIGATIONS
Ofcom carried out two investigations into the telecoms company. Vodafone was fined £3.7m for taking pay-as-you-go customers’ money without providing a service in return, and £925,000 for flaws in its complaints handling processes. The penalties have to be paid to Ofcom within 20 working days.
Complain processes are meant to be handled professionally and thoroughly, but Vodafone has shown a tendency not to respect the complaints of its customers, whilst pocketing their money unlawfully.
Lindsey Fussell, Ofcom’s consumer group director, said: “Vodafone’s failings were serious and unacceptable, and these fines send a clear warning to all telecoms companies. Phone services are a vital part of people’s lives, and we expect all customers to be treated fairly and in good faith. We will not hesitate to investigate and fine those who break the rules.”
Vodafone apologised for its failings and said it had reimbursed all but 30 pay-as-you-go customers who could not be identified. The company made a donation of £100,000 to charity. The average refund per customer was £14.35.
“We deeply regret these system and process failures,” the company said. “This has been an unhappy episode for all of us at Vodafone: we know we let our customers down. We are determined to put everything right … We offer our profound apologies to anyone affected by these errors.”
Unfortunately, an apology of this sort comes too late. Apologising after a public revelation of unacceptable conduct amounting to an offence close to defrauding customers is simply not good enough.
OFCOM
One Ofcom investigation found 10,452 pay-as-you-go customers lost out after Vodafone failed to credit their accounts following top-up payments to their mobile phone credit after the company introduced a new billing system. Affected customers lost a combined £150,000 over a 17-month period between late 2013 and 2015.
With this serious failing, not many responsible people or organisations will be recommending Vodaphone to anybody. This revelation should be very embarrassing for Vodaphone bosses, who have branches all over the world.