BBC:TalkTalk and Tiscali UK fined £3m by Ofcom

TalkTalk and its Tiscali UK subsidiary have been fined £3m for incorrectly billing more than 65,000 customers for services they had not received.

The largest fine regulator Ofcom has given to a telecoms firm, it follows an investigation into the two businesses that started in July 2010 as a result of more than 1,000 complaints.

Ofcom said the fine reflected "the seriousness" of their actions.

If it wasn’t for the measures they had already taken to rectify the problems then TalkTalk would have received an even greater fine.

In their defence TalkTalk blamed the billing errors on the amalgamation of the Tiscali UK business which they purchased in 2009.

The problem arose when TalkTalk and Tiscali UK wrongly issued bills to 62,000 customers, in particular those who had closed accounts between 1 January and 1 November 2010. On top of the fine TalkTalk paid out £2.5 million in refunds and goodwill payments to those customers which had raised grievances.

In my book I make that an extra £5.5 million in fines and refunds, that’s a lot for any telecom company to get over.

In April this year, Ofcom revealed that TalkTalk was the most complained about telecoms firm for landline and broadband services. Let’s see where they are next year - hopefully we will see a vast improvement in their performance.