Getting hit by a fine from Ofcom is never good, but overcharging your customers and having to refund them? That’s a double whammy.
O2-owned giffgaff have already had to refund £2.1 million, with around 2.6 million customers overcharged. It happened when customers bought a goodybag, which despite being purchased wasn’t immediately activated. This means that calls and data they were using at the time came out of their pre-paid credit.
Customers found that the goodybag only became active when the data session or call was completed.
Although giffgaff have spent £2.1 million refunding customers, Ofcom said the services should have been immediately available and have fined the network £1.4 million.
Ofcom told us..
Getting bills right is a basic duty for every phone company. Giffgaff made unacceptable mistakes, leaving millions of customers out of pocket.
This fine should serve as a warning to all communications providers: if they get bills wrong, we’ll step in to protect customers.
Ofcom said the fine was lower because Giffgaff agreed to settle the case and admitted the breach.