TIO Annual Report 2004/05

Case Studies

The complaint:

A customer said she had signed up for a new mobile phone on a two-year contract. She stated that her handset was turning on and off abruptly, not responding, and that it would often make calls to random numbers. She said that her friends often could not call her, even when her handset appeared to be switched on.

The customer claimed that this was the fifth replacement handset provided by the company and that the last four had suffered similar problems. She complained that, every time the handset was repaired or replaced, all of her data – such as messages, contacts and ringtones – was wiped. The complainant wanted to cancel her contract, as she believed the service would never work.

TIO response:

The TIO raised a formal complaint against the carrier and asked whether the handsets involved had a history of these kinds of faults. The TIO was concerned that the handset was bundled with a contract carrying a substantial “early exit fee”, and that the complainant believed she had not been provided with a working service.

The outcome:

The carrier said the handsets were generally reliable but that it no longer sold the handset concerned. It offered to replace the complainant’s handset with a more expensive model of a different brand, or to allow the complainant to leave the contract without penalty. The complainant left the contract and changed her number to a different service provider.

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