Vodafone and Virgin Top Ofcom Complaints Charts

Telecoms regulator Ofcom revealed that Vodafone and Virgin are the most complained about providers, in their latest third quarterly review.

Virgin received a large number of complaints about contract issues as well as about its customer service, making its monthly mobile and pay-tv services the most complained about.

A fee dispute between Virgin Media and UKTV caused the former’s customers to lose ten channels for three weeks, and is thought to be a key reason for poor performance in the third quarter.

Vodafone entered Ofcom’s charts for broadband and landline services this year for the first time, passing the 1.5% market share threshold with its 500,000 fixed broadband customers. As one of the cheapest ISPs currently available, it did however generate a large number of complaints about the switching process.

A spokesperson for Vodafone UK said: “We are the UK’s fastest growing broadband provider, with the highest levels of customer satisfaction in the industry.

“With these high levels of growth, we have however unfortunately seen some issues with the signing on process and this is reflected in the complaints data.”

The company has now put in place a plan to make its switching process ‘as easy as possible’, it claims, by setting up a new ‘Easy Switch’ team.

The Post Office received the industry average level of complaints in its first debut into the broadband league table.

Jane Rumble, director of consumer police at Ofcom, said: “With so much competition in telecoms and TV services, companies that are falling short need to make service quality and complaints handling their priority.

“Customers who aren’t happy with their provider can shop around and vote with their feet.”

Low levels of complaints were recorded for Sky, Tesco Mobile, EE and O2.

This time last year TalkTalk topped the complaints charts in ISP broadband whilst Vodafone took the most criticism for its mobile services.

To complain about your broadband to Ofcom you must first lodge the complaint directly with your provider. If you don’t receive satisfactory resolution, then you can ring Ofcom Monday to Friday between the hours of 09:00am and 5:00pm (BST/GMT) on 0300 123 3333 or 020 7981 3040 to formally raise a complaint or ask for advice.

The ombudsman and CISAS are two alternative dispute resolution schemes which can help resolve disputes that have not been addressed properly. This may be important for self-employed business owners who work from home, or small businesses who may see loss of earnings as a result of poor broadband.

You are entitled to use these resolution schemes for mobile as well, after eight weeks of the formal complaint.

Anna Thomas

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