Phone firms face payback

LANDLINE and broadband providers could be forced to pay out £185million a year in compensation for slow repairs and missed appointments as the telecoms regulator rings the changes.

Under Ofcom’s plans up to 2.6 million customers who suffer poor service could receive money back without having to ask, by a cash payment or a credit on a bill.

With the automatic scheme, if a service is not fully fixed after two working days, the provider would have to pay £10 a day until it is.

An engineer missing an appointment or a cancellation with less than 24 hours’ notice would trigger a £30 payment, while the failure to start a new service on a particular date would mean £6 for each day of delay including the missed start date. Ofcom said a draft proposal from BT, Sky, and Virgin Media to introduce automatic compensation through a voluntary industry code of practice did not “meet our concerns”.

Its analysis showed about 5.7 million consumers experience a loss of landline or broadband service each year.

Engineers fail to turn up for about 250,000 appointments, while one in eight installations are delayed, affecting over 1.3 million people.

Currently compensation payments are ad-hoc and in just 15 per cent of cases. Ofcom’s Lindsey Fussell said: “When a landline or broadband goes wrong it is frustrating enough without having to fight tooth and nail to get compensation.

“New rules would mean customers are properly compensated while providers will want to work harder to improve their service.”

Virgin Media said: “It’s important that customers are treated fairly when services can’t be delivered, but this is best achieved through a robust industry-led approach. The industry is working together on ambitious reforms that would incentivise providers to compete to provide a better service, while also setting minimum standards.”

TalkTalk “broadly supports” Ofcom’s measures, but added: “It’s important that any scheme is fair and transparent and based on minimum standards.”