Ofcom Reviews 197

Since Sat May 23rd I have had no Wifi at my home. I still do not have Wifi. I was told again and again my connection would be fixed within a few days. This happened over and over and still it has not been fixed. Latest date I have been told is Thur 2nd July.

All this during lockdown where myself and 3 housemates need to WFH.

Even before all this it took BT over 2 weeks to send us a BT 4G Mini Hub as a backup. Reason for the dealy was that they thought we already had one! Sorry, we dont have one, can you please send one? It took several phone calls with various staff just to solve this small issue. I was hung up on 3 times trying to get info relating to this.

I would guess I have spent about 15hrs in total in comms with BT by phone and text trying to get this resolved. I have even spoken to the Open Reach engineers on the street asking what I should do and what is the latest getting the internet reconnected.

BT are a muli-billion pound operation. Just look at how much money they spent acquiring Champions League football and the staff on their payroll to present it. And yet, their cusomter service is utterly clueless. Ofcom need to do their job here and fix this problem. Open Reach are to blame also btw. They are the only company in the UK who maintain the broadband lines meaning there is no compeition with them to provide a quick and efficient service.

So, what kind of service are people getting across the UK? Ofcom need to look and fix this problem because it affects home and working life especially since its looks like we will be WFH from now on. The public deserve better.

Land line and broadband down for 3 days
Open reach through NOW TV came to inspect and fix the problem.
Now tv knowing that an elderly 82 year vulnrable adult with medical conditions lives here and Burglar alarm system depends on Land line for emergency could do nothing.
OFCOM besides sending a complaint to Highest authorities at NOW informed NOW TV can take upto 56 days and OFCOM cannot do anything even with a high risk situation.

Ofcom should be abolished, that have no real clout with the big broadband providers and the consumers are getting, sorry to say this shafted.
We need a more direct governing body who can act on behalf of the consumer directly and penalise the providers when they don't provide what consumers are paying for.
Third world countries have better broadband than the UK. There needs to be more direct action sorting Openreach problems as well, which Ofcom cannot do.

Following the same lefty agenda as the rest of the UK MSM , not fit for purpose

Ofcom's reputation and importance cannot be underestimated. On the recent PIERS MORGAN GMB morning show, it's HELEN WHATELY MP who's causing mass upset and distress in regards to her gross incompetence as CARE MINISTER. PIERS MORGAN did nothing wrong or was ever abusive to the incompetent MP. Ofcom was contacted about it but they are doing there job well by collecting any information about disgruntled customers who obviously want to attack PIERS.

Advised by Age Concern to ring them re my 87 yr old mother in law being duped into switching from one telecom provider to another with no written agreement. The gentleman at the time was very helpful and advised to ring back in 3 days to give them chance to investigate when I rang back today they told me what I already knew and could do no more !!

All these helplines are given out but none of them can help !!!

Contacting them was a waste of time. My ISP was taken over by another one and a seamless transition to a new account promised. Then I find that I am being billed for both the old account and the new one. Got nowhere with TalkTalk, who said 'you could still use the old account and some users wanted to run both'. As I was not told that the old account was still live this was a unilateral imposition and not a choice. So I complained to Ofcom, although without much hope given other people's dire experiences with them. They naturally took the side of TalkTalk.

They are an expensive drain on the public purse and should be replaced with a regulator who actually upholds fair dealing and good business practice.

What a waste of time. They do not help you solve issues with telephone and broadband suppliers. All they do is record the complaints made. What nice jobs to have, sitting in an office a plotting graphs.

Can you explain why are they changing the Google net work and can the say in public why they are doing it.and to many adverts of bank card from fraund companys that are not registered all blame boris Johnson for this ..mind you come. 2059 it will be like China no( food water gas electricity nhs prescriptions hospital waiting time if the queen reads trust pilot recomandion. She should be in shock.

What's the point? They just tell you to contact your provider, which in openreach's case you can't. The sooner China take over the UK phone network the better.

In essence Ofcom is a paper tiger, a waste of space, ineffective and powerless. They might just as well not exist.Their form reply was just an admission of just how pointless their existence is and littered with gobbledygook and meaningless buzz phrases like 'customer facing' What the hell does that mean?

The reply merely listed other organisations to contact because Ofcom does not actually do anything for customers.

I have experience of Ofcom in the past and they are still absolutely useless. I'm on PAYG EE 4G which works very well most of the time. I used Ofcoms coverage checker to see if there was an even better option. There site suggested that O2 had much better 4G and phone reception so I decided to give it a try. I bought an O2 4G PAYG sim package on the strength of the information from Ofcoms site. What an absolute waste of money. I got extremely poor reception with 4G barely working only occasionally. EE reception was infinitely better. OFCOM WHY DO YOU PRODUCE SUCH AN ABSOLUTELY PATHETIC COVERAGE CHECKER THAT HAS WASTED MY MONEY!!!!

Why do we bother with these when they don't seem to help the consumer against the media companies
They are just as bad or is it they are the payroll from them ?????

Hi, I e-mailed Ofcom management about getting charged £17 for a 16 minute call. Below is what I wrote.

Good morning,

I wish you to use your powers and modify the way certain numbers charge huge amounts when the customer does not know this.

My mobile bill suddenly increased from £12 pcm to £29 as I had rung an 087 number for 17 minutes.

You have the power to ban or at lease make these numbers tell you there cost when you dial. Just like loads of other services talk you through things, ie; Doctors Surgery, Insurance Claims, Saga etc.

We, the public are being scammed by these companies and people, and you the CEO of Ofcom have the golden opportunity to correct this for all the British public.

Its not good enough to expect ordinary people to look up or carry lists of these prohibitively expensive call numbers.

Awaiting a positive reply from you on the way forward to help the British Public.

They replied with a long winded answer that basically they could not find a simple solution. I replied with this below.

Hi, your standard answer does not get to grips with the problem.

The solution is simple, yes all calls that are over 5ppm or a reasonable set figure, then the number you are ringing should inform you.

You have the power to change things for million of users in UK, but you put up brick walls and waffle on. If you cannot change or improve things for the vast majority or the British worker bees then Ofcom should be disbanded.

How clear is this statement from you? If this information is given before the start of each call.

Awaiting a reply with a solution to this rip off problem for millions of UK people.

Regards

David Gates.
Never got a reply. Any know what they have achieved for the people?

toothless organisation. up until the 1st March broadband providers could mislead and short change consumers without repercussions.I doubt if that will change.

re: my complaint of wrongful billing by the Phone Co-op. Ofcom need to make it mandatory for openreach engineers to log all completed work when signing off jobs with isps as there is currently no obligation for an engineer to do so.
Ofcom also need to mandate that engineers provide customers with a checklist of work completed at each address they attend.
These two simple measures would go a long way to helping ensure that customers are no longer wrongly billed for engineer call outs as they currently are. At present, there are No protections in place to prevent vunerable, poor customers from being scammed by disreputable openreach engineers and screwed over by their isps and communications ombudsman and left with bills for hundreds of £s they do not owe.

New EE sim card in the phone
EE have a problem and will fix it.
Click try again button
To activate the sim card there is MB data, but when click try again button, the MB data is reduced.
After several clicks there no more data left, and the new sim card is worthless.
It’s a SCAM
Text EE useless nothing
Tebs/ebsmobilephones full of excuses refuse refund
Ebay I have lost £22.99

They are brilliant.

Even though they don't get involved in individual cases they have provided me with amazing information and have contacted a mobile network provider on my behalf when I was refused my Pac Code. That triggered the network to contact me immediately, resolving my issue.

Thank you Ofcom.