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Vodafone fined £4.6m over customer complaints

Vodafone fined £4.6m over customer complaints

Ofcom has fined Vodafone £4.6m over a series of failures in its UK business, including its handling of customer complaints.

As first revealed by Sky News City Editor Mark Kleinman, the ruling comes after the conclusion of two investigations into the communications giant.

One probe concluded that Vodafone's customer service representatives "were not given sufficiently clear guidance on what constituted a complaint".

Ofcom also said the firm's processes were "insufficient to ensure that all complaints were appropriately escalated or dealt with in a fair, timely manner."

Another investigation found that 10,452 pay-as-you-go customers did not have their Vodafone accounts credited after they paid to top-up their mobile phone credit.

The telecoms industry regulator says the affected customers collectively lost £150,000 over a 17-month period.

Ofcom consumer group director Lindsey Fussell said the failings were "serious and unacceptable".

She added: "Phone services are a vital part of people's lives, and we expect all customers to be treated fairly and in good faith.

"We will not hesitate to investigate and fine those who break the rules."

The fine must be paid to Ofcom within 20 working days.

Vodafone blamed the pay-as-you-go credit failure on a "complex IT migration" that involved moving more than 28.5 million customer accounts to a new system starting in 2013.

The migration caused errors in billing data and price plans and a "sharp increase" in the number of customer complaints, the firm said.

In a statement, it added: "This has been an unhappy episode for all of us at Vodafone, we know we let our customers down.

"We are determined to put everything right."

Vodafone said it has fully refunded or recredited more than 10,422 customers an average of £14.35 each.

On the Ofcom ruling, Sky News City Editor Mark Kleinman said: "Vodafone is still the most complained about mobile network in the UK, which suggests that problems which led to these fines today have still not been fully resolved.

"£4.6m is loose change down the back of the Vodafone's sofa, it has a market capitalisation on the London Stock Exchange of nearly £60bn."