Ofcom fines Talk Talk and Tiscali £3m

Fines levied for failure to stop incorrectly billing customers

Regulator Ofcom has fined telecoms firms Talk Talk and Tiscali £3m after they incorrectly billed thousands of their customers.

Ofcom initially found that the companies had billed customers for unused services or, in some cases, cancelled accounts between January and November 2010.

The regulator then issued both companies with a legally binding letter, requiring them to take steps to improve their billing processes by 2 December 2010.

However, while both companies began the process of resolving the faults with their billing processes, Ofcom found that they still managed to incorrectly bill 3,000 of their customers between 2 December 2010 and 4 March 2011.

Ofcom could have fined each company up to ten per cent of its turnover, signficantly more than the £1.5m each it did; however, it said that the steps the firms had taken to comply with the rules had resulted in the lower fines.

Both Talk Talk and Tiscali also paid over £2.5m to their 65,000 affected customers in refunds and goodwill payments, which Ofcom said it had taken into account.