Ever received an unexpectedly high phone bill from your operator? Well, Ofcom is looking to tackle the ‘bill shock’ problem, urging consumers to make their complaints heard by the end of June.
The complaints may include any unexpectedly high mobile, landline, or broadband bill incurred in the past 12 months. Consumers can participate in Ofcom’s Call for Inputs via its online consultation response form, post or email at unexpectedlyhighbills@ofcom.org.uk, from 10 May to 24 June.
By launching the campaign, the UK communications regulator hopes to find out “whether there is a need for further action either by Ofcom or by communications providers”.
Six percent of UK consumers, according to its research, faced an unexpectedly high mobile phone bill in the past year, with 18 percent of those people receiving a bill of over £100 more than expected.
As for landlines, the Communications regulator revealed that five per cent of users had received an unusually high bill over the same period, with 9 per cent of those people ending up paying over £100 more than expected.
The average “bill shock” was between £31 and £50 for mobile phone services and between £21 and £30 for landlines.
Besides the Call for Inputs campaign, the communications regulator has provided consumers with an advice guide on what to do if they receive an unexpectedly high bill.
A call costs guide is also available for consumers to check the common numbers in use today, what they are used for and how much it costs to call them from a BT landline.
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hi i got a bill from vodafone 2 months ago for about £86 my bills are around £36 they said i had gone over my 300 minutes; when i looked at the numbers ;i did recognise the numbers but i do not believe i made all them calls but you can not challenge them. they say i must have used the phone a lot that month whats to stop them putting numbers in to bump up the price for that month;you have no way of proving that you have not called that many numbers ( all uk numbers)