Rallying call over mobile phone bills

AN MP has offered to fight mobile giant mmO2 on behalf of customers who claim they were overcharged by the company.

Brian Donohoe said he was contacted by customers in his Cunninghame South constituency in Irvine, Scotland, after Financial Mail on Sunday last week highlighted the case of Open-Air, a small mobile business that claims it was massively overcharged by mmO2.

'There are clear problems,' the Labour MP said. 'One customer found they were being overcharged for nine months. I am writing to Peter Erskine, chief executive-of mmO2, to demand an explanation.'

Scores of angry mmO2 customers also contacted Financial Mail giving details of disputes over bills.

Problems experienced include loss of free minutes, double billing and being billed late. Virtually every letter from readers claimed that attempting to put matters right resulted in more aggravation.

Elizabeth France, the Telecommunications Ombudsman, said she would look into complaints from customers who had exhausted the grievance process with mmO2.

Last week, Erskine used an industry dinner organised by France's recently established Office of the Telecommunications Ombudsman to deny that mmO2 had billing problems.

But France said it was 'too soon to tell' if complaints against mobile phone firms being handled by her showed signs of consistent problems.

'We are a young organisation and there are a lot of complaints being processed right now,' she said.

'I can't say how big a problem overcharging is, but already I see that customer service and poor information are big issues. Poor customer service makes any situation much worse.'

Alan Barry, a communications consultant, said overcharging was widespread in the industry: 'I ran a consultancy that helped businesses challenge their bills.

'Often people are on the wrong tariff and huge amounts of money could be saved, especially by businesses, if they switched. But overbilling is also rife in the industry.'

Barry claimed that because his company was damaging mobile firms, he was 'frozen out of the business'.