Consumer Scotland’s Director of Policy and Advocacy Douglas White said:
“Consumers need to be able to budget and have certainty about what their bills will be. The intent of the new rules was that any potential price increases in consumers’ mobile phone contracts would be known well in advance.
“These increases from O2 are deeply unfair for consumers who are now seeing potential rises up to 40% more than originally expected.
“While we welcome Ofcom’s decision to write to all providers, we want Ofcom to undertake a wider review of whether providers are acting in the spirit of the new rules and consider whether further regulatory changes are needed to protect consumers from arbitrary price rises.
“We also remind affected consumers that O2 must now allow them to terminate their existing contract and switch without applying an Early Termination Charge.”
Background
During a prior consultation process which proposed the ban on the inflation-linked price rises Consumer Scotland warned of a risk that providers might instead shift towards the use of discretionary price rises which are not specified in contracts, as 02 is now doing.