Plusnet fined £880,000 by Ofcom for billing customers after contracts were cancelled
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Version 0 of 1. Plusnet has been fined £880,000 by regulator Ofcom for continuing to charge customers for landline and broadband services after they cancelled their contract. The phone provider, which is owned by BT, continued to charge 1,025 customers who had cancelled either their landline or broadband service as a result of an error in Plusnet’s billing system which meant that the lines were still recognised as “live”, Ofcom said on Wednesday. The customers were overcharged by more than £500,000 in total, it added. “There can be no margin for error, and no excuses, when it comes to billing customers correctly,” said Lindsey Fussell, Ofcom’s consumer group director. “This fine should serve as a reminder to telecoms companies that they must adhere to Ofcom’s billing rules at all times, or face the consequences,” she added. Ofcom said that Plusnet had tried to refund all affected ex-customers and had so far paid 356 customers a total of £212,140, which included interest at a rate of 4 per cent for each customer. The remaining funds, had been donated to a dozen local charities, “in lieu of payments owed to customers whom it could not contact”. In a statement to the Independent, Ofcom said that it is "very sorry and would like to apologise to the 1,025 customers affected". "We reported this ourselves to Ofcom, and made every effort to contact these customers to arrange a full refund before the investigation started. We would also like to reassure all customers this was an isolated historic issue and we have implemented a number of new robust measures to make sure this doesn’t happen again," it added. The £880,000 fine, which must be paid to Ofcom within twenty working days, incorporates a 20% reduction to reflect Plusnet’s willingness to enter into a formal settlement, which will save public money and resources, Ofcom said. |