LONDON, Jan 17 (Reuters) - British telecoms operator BT
is facing a claim for almost 600 million pounds ($800
million) lodged by a consumer campaign group, which says the
company failed to compensate fixed-line customers, many of them
elderly, for overcharging.
The group, Collective Action on Land Lines (CALL), says the
former monopoly failed to make up for increasing prices for
customers over several years even though costs for providing the
service were falling.
In 2017, telecoms regulator Ofcom raised concerns about the
price BT had charged landline-only customers, and the company
agreed to reduce its landline prices by 7 pounds a month.
However, CALL said BT had not properly addressed past
overcharging. Its 589 million-pound claim, filed with the
Competition Appeal Tribunal, sought payments of up to 500 pounds
for each of 2.3 million BT customers.
The group said it was also seeking compensation for
customers who took both a broadband service and a BT landline,
but not as a package, and were excluded from BT's 2017 price
cut.
BT said it strongly disagreed with the claim. "We take our
responsibilities to older and more vulnerable customers very
seriously and will defend ourselves against any claim that
suggests otherwise," it said in a statement.
The claim went back as far as 2015, the earliest starting
point under legal rules, CALL said.
($1 = 0.7361 pounds)
(Writing by William Schomberg; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
BT (BT.A)
