By Jo Best, 11 January 2007 15:10
NEWS
Cable & Wireless has admitted it was at fault after British Gas was fined £5,000 by regulator Icstis for its premium rate phone line.
British Gas received the penalty earlier this week, after the watchdog investigated a complaint by a member of the public who had said callers to the utility company's 75p per minute Click Energy line were kept on hold too long.
Icstis said in its adjudication: "Although it appeared unlikely that there was any wilful attempt to mislead or cause consumer harm, it remained the fact that the live service did not have permission and that it was keeping callers on hold for an unreasonable amount of time."
In some cases, callers were kept on hold for seven minutes before they could speak to an operator, an investigation by Icstis found, although the regulator noted that the revenue from the service was "very low".
A spokeswoman for British Gas told silicon.com: "It really was a genuine mistake. We work very closely with our operator partner and they failed to tell us we need to register for permission to set [a premium rate phone line] up." After being contacted by Icstis, British Gas switched Click Energy to a non premium rate number.
Cable & Wireless said it had been at fault. "We take our obligations to Icstis and our customers very seriously," the telco said in a statement. "Clearly in this case our procedures were not satisfactory. In light of Icstis' adjudication and the recent introduction of the 11th Icstis Code of Practice, we have reviewed our premium rate number processes to ensure that our customers are fully informed of their obligations."
British Gas will now have to seek permission from Icstis for the phone line should it wish to reinstate the premium rate service.
Comments
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1. Nick Cole
If companies were obliged to publish a proper geographical number then the problem wouldn't exist. In addition if the call went straight through to an operator (or operator queue) then the implications for the caller would be lessened. Issuing a single non-geographical number and forcing people to listen to a menu (several times so it can be interpreted in relation to the query) is a major part of the problem. If their menu options were either presented before charging commenced or they published them in directories or their marketing materials then it would also assist in acceptance.
Quite obviously these facilities are deliberately set up to maximise revenue from callers. Unless they are free (0800) then they provide no benefit to callers what so ever.
2. anonymous
If Brittish Gas could be bothered answering the phone then people may not mind the call cost (if they delt with the query quickly). Last time i had to phone BG i was in their automated queuing system for over 30 minutes before giving up! Silly me my fault for using the incompetent bunch of cretins.