TalkTalk, Vodafone Continue To Top Complaints League

Ofcom has published its latest quarterly league tables on the complaints it receives about the UK’s telecoms and TV providers.

The new table will make for uncomfortable reading at TalkTalk, Vodafone and BT, as all three continue to receive the most complaints from unhappy customers.

All three have been the most complained about ISP or mobile operator for some time now.

Most complaints

Indeed, the last time Ofcom’s complaint tables were published (in January) TalkTalk and Vodafone were the UK’s most complained about broadband and mobile operators.

And fast forward three months and nothing seems to have changed much for the period between October and December last year.

In the mobile sector, Vodafone and BT received 11 complaints per 100,000 customers, and Virgin Media on 10 and TalkTalk on 7.

The goody two shoes were EE (3), Three (3), O2 (3) and Tesco Mobile received just 1.

In the home broadband category, the most complained about ISP remains TalkTalk with 31 complaints per 100,000 customers. BT and Plusnet tied with 27 complaints.

Virgin Media scored 14, EE scored 12, and Sky had just 7 complaints.

This patterns continued onto the landline category with TalkTalk once again on top with 23 complaints, followed by Plusnet (21), Post Office (21) and BT (16).

Sky was the winner (again) with just 6 complaints.

On the Pay TV side, BT had 18 complaints, TalkTalk 10 and Virgin 9.

The quarterly report reveals the number of complaints made to Ofcom about the UK’s largest providers of home broadband, landline telephone, pay-monthly mobile and pay-TV services.

Ofcom said that overall complaints in the quarter across all four services remained broadly in line with the previous period. Broadband and landline services continued to generate the highest volume of complaints.

“TalkTalk was the most complained-about provider for broadband and landline services,” said Ofcom. “The main reason for complaints about the company was faults and other problems with its services.

Naughty step

“BT and Vodafone received the most complaints for mobile services, and BT received the most complaints about pay-TV,” the regulator said. “For both services, customers’ main problems related to complaints handling, billing, prices and charges.”

“These figures give people the information they need to shop around and compare providers’ performance,” said Jane Rumble, Ofcom’s Director of Consumer Policy.

“The scorecards also motivate companies to improve their performance, and we want to see them follow through on their promises to give customers better service,” she added. “Complaint volumes is one of many measures that can shine a light on service quality.”

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