In the BT overcharging lawsuit, BT which is one of the largest telecom providers in the UK has been accused of overcharging millions of its customers for landline services over a number of years. The majority of these customers are elderly people on low incomes. If the party that had made the allegation in this lawsuit wins, each one of the customers may get £300-£400 as compensation. And if you look at the bigger picture, like considering how much of a big amount would that be to all the customers, well, that’s somewhere around £1.3 billion. So yes, it is important to take a look at the details of this lawsuit, so let’s get going.
So, What Really Happened?
So, here’s how things turned out or started to happen: Justin Le Patourel, a former executive at Ofcom, the UK’s telecom regulator, is the MAN who’s leading this lawsuit. He’s taking Ofcom to court after they discovered that BT was basically robbing the customers who only use landline services, especially those without broadband, to their detriment, you know? They call it the Collective Action on Land Lines (CALL) and it’s basically a lawsuit where they’re trying to help these customers get back the cash that was taken from them under false promises made by the BT company.
The mess first came out into the open in 2017 when Ofcom did its checks. BT was accused of robbing people to put up its landline rates even though it is a fact that their cost of providing the service had gone down. Later on, though, BT responded with some price drops given to some customers but no refunds for the years they had overcharged were offered. Justin Le Patourel got too tired of BT and the situation in 2021 formed CALL and finally, the lawsuit was filed in January 2024.
BT’s Defense
Well, to be honest, right now, BT has an attitude like they are saying, “No way, that’s not our fault!” The company says their prices were good and everyone else was charging the same prices. BT also stresses that they fixed the problem back in 2017 when they cut prices after Ofcom started looking into it. The company also says they will fight the case and they are not joking when saying that they are definitely careful with customers.
Another point of contention by BT is that they disagree with the lawsuit process and how it is going. This case is regarded as an “opt-out” class action, meaning that you are included in the group of affected consumers automatically unless you explicitly state your intent to not be a part of it. All in all, they conclude that this way is totally unfair.
So, What’s The Role of Ofcom?
You see, in 2017, Ofcom looked into the offerings of BT, right? Therefore, BT, in the year 2018, was forced to cut down its prices by £7 per month for most of these customers. Yet, Ofcom did not obligate BT to recompense the customers for the previous years of overcharging. Hence, the lawsuit at hand is seeking compensation for the time span from 2009 to 2017, indicating that BT supposedly among other things overcharged their clients. So, that’s what it is all about.