mobileu.co.uk

Phone operators must be correct on cancellation policies

Mobile phone companies have been warned to make sure they give customers accurate information on contract cancellation, after a consumer study uncovered alarming inaccuracies.

Secret shopper tests by the Communications Consumer Panel found that more than half of the shoppers came away with inaccurate information about how they could terminate their contracts.

Panel chair Anna Bradley said that consumers must be given simple but correct information before locking themselves into contracts that they might not be able to leave for up to two years.

"We are calling for an across-the-board minimum 14 days to cancel contracts where consumers have coverage problems," she said.

Bradley added that a particular area that needed clarification was when people encounter signal problems, with cancellation grace periods for coverage issues varying from unlimited time from 3 to 28 days for Virgin Mobile to no grace period at all from Orange.

A spokesman for Orange has attempted to justify their policy on the grounds that the handset would be 'used goods.'

"When a customer purchases a handset and then returns it to us, the handset becomes second hand. As such we are not able to offer a formal money back guarantee," the representative said. He added that they were not completely deaf to complaints, however, and that if customers were desperately unhappy with their purchases then they would look at it on a case-by-case basis.