Helping you resolve your constituents’ telecommunications disputes
If your constituent or small business is having issues with their mobile, broadband or landline provider, we may be able to help resolve their dispute.
Communications Ombudsman is part of a wider group that was founded in 2002 to provide a free and impartial dispute resolution services for consumers – whilst helping providers understand their consumers and improve their experience.
With over 1,200 telecommunications companies signed up to our scheme, we're appointed by Ofcom as one of two dispute resolution schemes for the communications sector.
How can we help?
We can help constituents who have disputes with:
- Mobile phone providers
- Broadband providers
- Landline providers
- Pay TV providers
Common disputes include:
- Bills, payments and unexpected charges
- Service quality and coverage
- Customer service
- Roaming charges
- Sales, mis-selling and contracts
- Delays in providing service and repairing faults
- Problems that arise as a result of switching communications provider
- Faults and delayed installations
If you think we can help your constituent
If you think your constituent has a case that should come to Communications Ombudsman, you can either:
- Signpost and encourage your constituent to come to us via our website or phone lines
- Secure consumer consent for us to make contact with your constituent directly.
Our process
Our simple process makes it easier than ever to raise a dispute with your constituents' communications provider. If the provider is signed up to our scheme, we’ll be able to help. You’ll be able to find out if a provide is a part of our scheme using our website search bar.
Here's what our dispute process looks like:
*Before raising your dispute with us, please allow the provider an opportunity to put things right as per their complaints process. Only once both parties have reached deadlock, or the dispute has remained unresolved for eight weeks or longer may we look into your dispute.
Helping your constituents to access our service
Here at Communications Ombudsman, we’re committed to treating everybody with fairness and respect. We want our services to be accessible for everyone, so have worked hard in removing barriers that people may face. We understand everyone has unique circumstances and sometimes people need us to do things differently for them to ensure they can get the best service from us, which is why we believe it’s important that we make our services easy to access.
- Audio or verbal communication only
- Written/email communication only
- Sign Language
- Large print and Braille
- Written communication in foreign languages
- Audio communication via interpreter
- Request for an advocate or third party to help you with the dispute
How we can support you in Parliament
As well as helping your constituents with their communications disputes, we use our expertise and evidence from our services to influence policy.
We can support your parliamentary work by:
- Drafting suggested verbal and written questions
- Providing briefings for parliamentary debates, including on relevant Bills
- Providing data
- Supplying information about our services to share with your constituents
- Meeting with you to discuss our campaigns and policy work
For more information, or to order more signposting materials, please get in touch on parliament@commsmbudsman.org or complete our contact form below.
Get in touch
If you would like to raise an issue on behalf of a constituent, or if you would like to discuss how we can help you in any other way, get in touch using the form, or email us at parliament@commsombudsman.org