What to do if you have a complaint
If you are a consumer who has had problems with a communications services, comprehensive advice on how to make a complaint and how to raise a dispute with an alternative dispute resolution scheme can be found on Ofcom's website.
To get help with your individual problems, follow these steps:
Contact your communications provider
- Contact your provider’s customer services department and explain your problem.
- If this doesn’t resolve the issue, make a formal complaint to the company. You should find details of how to do this on your bill, on their website or ask their customer services.
- If your provider is unable to resolve your complaint, ask for a 'deadlock' letter. This enables you to take your complaint to an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) scheme.
If your provider is unable to resolve your complaint, raise a complaint with an ADR scheme
ADRs are independent and will examine the case from both sides and reach a decision they think fair.
If eight weeks have passed since you first formally complained, or you have received a 'deadlock' letter, you can contact the ADR scheme directly.
There are two ADR schemes - Ombudsman Services: Communications, and the Communications and Internet Services Adjudication Scheme (CISAS). All service providers must belong to one of the schemes. Your provider will tell you which scheme it is a member of.
If you would like to highlight an issue for industry monitoring purposes, contact Ofcom
If you have had billing problems, you can let Ofcom know by filling out its short monitoring form.
Although Ofcom does not investigate individual complaints, your help in highlighting problems plays a vital part in its work and it may investigate a company if monitoring data reveals a particular problem.