Ofcom fines company £50,000 for breaking number porting rules
A warning to any Communication company who tries to stop their customers from switching to another provider:
Business telecoms provider "Cloud M Limited" has been fined £50,000 for breaking rules that entitle customers to take their telephone number with them when they switch providers, a process known as ‘number porting’.
Following an investigation, Ofcom found that Cloud M refused to let one of its small business customers take their phone number with them when they wanted to switch to another provider.
Why number porting matters
Consumers are entitled to keep their telephone numbers regardless of who they choose as their service provider. This enables Customers to switch providers without the inconvenience of having to change their telephone number. Number porting removes barriers to switching and facilitates healthy competition in the market.
Telecoms companies are required to compensate customers if they break porting rules. Cloud M did not do this, so in addition to the £50,000 fine, Ofcom also requested that the company pay £1,000 in compensation to the customer.
Additional fine
Ofcom has also fined Cloud M a further £5,000 for failing to provide accurate and complete information, by the deadline given, during the investigation. Cloud M has still not submitted all the information requested, so Ofcom is also imposing a daily penalty of £100 (capped at £3,000) until Cloud M provides the information.
Thoughts from TTNC
We deal with number porting on a daily basis and although most of these porting requests are handled correctly, and without any issues, occasionally we will be forced to deal with a provider who doesn't want their customer to switch over to TTNC which can cause a lot of problems.
These providers can cause the customer an incredible amount of frustration, and sometimes lead to loss of business, so we welcome Ofcom's decision and hope to see more action from Ofcom so that this practice stops in the future.
Port your Number to TTNC
We can port in most UK Numbers beginning with 01, 02, 03 and 08 from more than 50 other UK service providers. It takes between 7 to 10 working days to port a number, and the number stays active with your old provider right up until it switches to us, so there's no downtime.
If you are interested in porting a number to us and would like more information, please visit our number porting page - [https://www.ttnc.co.uk/phone-numbers/number-porting]
