Slamming is an extreme form of mis-selling where a communications provider switches a customer to a new provider without their knowledge and/or consent. It happens to both businesses and consumers and can be very disconcerting for customers - the first you may know about it is when, out of the blue, you receive a bill from a new company.
In my case, the conversation was deliberately misleading with a claim that they were ‘working very closely with BT ‘ and that they had noticed that we were being charged the wrong rate on our BT account and wanted to rectify this by moving the account to a cheaper rate. The overall aim was to imply that we were talking to an agent of our current provider and that any change would be with that same provider. But, not surprisingly, the caller was unable to give the name of the contact person for the account, the type of account we hold, or to quote accurately the amount we were paying - despite having apparently noticed that it was too high.
Other ‘slams' include taking an order for a broadband line but switching the telephone account at the same time, asking a customer to sign for information but then switching the consumer to a different provider and even forging a customer's signature on a contract without the customer's consent.
Ofcom has been consulting on proposals to clamp down on slamming and other forms of mis-selling in the fixed-line telecoms market. There most recent consultation suggested a two stage approach.
Stage 1, which they propose to implement straight away, includes an outright ban on mis-selling as part of a set of simplified regulations that all providers must heed.
Stage 2 will be revisited in a consultation document to be published towards the end of this year following a cost/benefit assessment. Stage 2 proposals include:
The Communications Consumer Panel has welcomed Ofcom's proposals to strengthen the regulatory framework that governs the switching of fixed-line services, and we would also like to see Ofcom develop a strategy to move to a single switching process for all communications services as soon as possible.
The Panel would like Ofcom to work with industry to understand better the nature and scale of the mis-selling problem because we recognise that even where people are not slammed they can suffer considerable anxiety and distress, and we believe it important to understand:
We would also like to see financial penalties that have a wider deterrent effect on providers that break the rules thereby helping to raise the level of compliance across the industry.
The "all providers must heed" comment, how does Ofcom intend to achieve that? Another voluntary unenforcable code of practice or further Ofcom guidelines that providers can choose to follow, or not follow. Whilst large sums of money can be made from this practice and there is no risk of being fined for it then nothing will change.
Hello Fiona, Do you think the Consumer Panel should urge Ofcom to refer some of the more egregious cases to the police? At its most basic level (eg, forgery) some of this mis-selling is criminal fraud. I wonder if Ofcom has been involved in any criminal prosecutions in cases not involving pirate radio? -Russ Taylor
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