Advertisement
UK markets close in 1 hour 23 minutes
  • FTSE 100

    7,973.06
    +41.08 (+0.52%)
     
  • FTSE 250

    19,891.44
    +80.78 (+0.41%)
     
  • AIM

    743.55
    +1.44 (+0.19%)
     
  • GBP/EUR

    1.1696
    +0.0027 (+0.23%)
     
  • GBP/USD

    1.2631
    -0.0007 (-0.06%)
     
  • Bitcoin GBP

    56,481.41
    +1,140.27 (+2.06%)
     
  • CMC Crypto 200

    885.54
    0.00 (0.00%)
     
  • S&P 500

    5,251.42
    +2.93 (+0.06%)
     
  • DOW

    39,737.17
    -22.91 (-0.06%)
     
  • CRUDE OIL

    82.62
    +1.27 (+1.56%)
     
  • GOLD FUTURES

    2,234.80
    +22.10 (+1.00%)
     
  • NIKKEI 225

    40,168.07
    -594.66 (-1.46%)
     
  • HANG SENG

    16,541.42
    +148.58 (+0.91%)
     
  • DAX

    18,505.90
    +28.81 (+0.16%)
     
  • CAC 40

    8,218.02
    +13.21 (+0.16%)
     

EE fined £2.7m for overcharging tens of thousands of customers

The telecoms regulator has fined EE £2.7m for billing errors affecting 40,000 customers.

OFCOM said the mobile network broke a "fundamental billing rule" twice, meaning they were overcharged by around £250,000 in total.

Its investigation, launched last month, found the firm was guilty of either "carelessness or negligence" because it had decided not to reimburse the majority of affected customers until OFCOM intervened.

Lindsey Fussell, OFCOM's consumer group director, said: "EE didn't take enough care to ensure that its customers were billed accurately.

"This ended up costing customers thousands of pounds, which is completely unacceptable.

ADVERTISEMENT

"We monitor how phone companies bill their customers, and will not tolerate careless mistakes. Any company that breaks OFCOM's rules should expect similar consequences."

The regulator charted two billing errors.

It said EE customers who called the company's 150 customer services number while roaming within the EU were incorrectly charged as if they had called the United States.

The blunder meant customers were charged £1.20 per minute instead of 19p per minute.

The second mistake meant customers were incorrectly billed for contacting the 150 number despite EE making it a free service within the EU from 18 November 2015.

OFCOM said it had ordered EE to trace and refund almost 7,000 people it had not yet compensated after hearing the company had given £62,000 to charity in lieu of payments to those customers.

A spokesman for the firm said: "We accept these findings and apologise unreservedly to those customers affected by these technical billing issues between 2014 and 2015.

"We have put measures in place to prevent this from happening again, and have contacted the majority of customers to apologise and provide a full refund."

He added: "Following OFCOM's findings, we have made a number of additional improvements to our systems and policies to allow us to better support our customers in the rare occasion that billing issues do occur."