By Bill Ray for The
Register. This story has been reproduced with
permission.
Under the Communications Act 2003, all telecommunications
companies are required to be members of an independent dispute
resolution scheme (DRB), by joining up with either Otelo and
Cisas.
Customers in dispute with their telecommunications provider can
complain to the organisation of which their provider is a member
without being charged.
Assuming the dispute is three months old and the company
complaints procedure has been followed, the DRB gets involved and
issues an invoice to the telecommunications company for the cost of
the investigation - a set fee which is agreed by members each year.
This fee is payable regardless of the validity of the
complaint.
Mercury's contention is that if a customer owes less than the
fee (a figure which isn't officially public, but is widely known)
they might as well file a spurious complaint on the basis that the
telecommunications company is unlikely to let the complaint last
three months and incur the greater cost of an investigation.
Mercury issued an invoice to a complainant to recover its costs
in what it considered a case of this type. But that is clearly in
breach of the Act.
As a result of this dispute, Mercury was kicked out of Otelo
but, as it is legally required to be within a DRB, it applied for
membership of Cisas.
Unfortunately for Mercury, Cisas and Otelo have an agreement to
inform each other of companies expelled from either scheme, and a
policy of not granting membership to such companies - leaving
Mercury with nowhere to go.
Ofcom has now ruled that Mercury will have to concede to
everything Otelo has claimed, and if it wants to continue trading
it's going to have to pay up and play nicely.
Mercury director Ian Burrow says the company is a victim of
circumstance and at the mercy of a closed society of regulators and
dispute resolution schemes which leaves small operators in an
untenable position.
With websites now providing information on how to make claims
against telecommunications companies, and how to win those claims
though careful manipulation of the rules, more people might be
tempted to get what they can - making life very difficult for the
small trader with the rules standing as they are.
© The Register
2007
