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Ofcom has fined Post Office £175,000 after an investigation found the company overcharged people with hearing or speech impairments who made telephone calls using a relay service.
Relay services help people with hearing and speech difficulties communicate with anyone over the phone by offering text-to-speech and speech-to-text translation. Our rules require phone providers to offer a ‘special tariff scheme’ for these types of calls when they are made by disabled people. The scheme is designed to compensate those callers for the additional time it takes for them to make phone calls using a relay service.
We found that Post Office failed to apply the special tariff to relay calls for at least five years, resulting in up to 126 people each year being overcharged. It also took over two years between Post Office becoming aware of the problem and it being fixed.
We consider this to be a serious breach of our rules to protect potentially vulnerable customers. Taking this, and the lengthy period of Post Office’s non-compliance into account, Ofcom has imposed a penalty of £175,000 on the company. We are also requiring Post Office to refund affected customers.
The penalty includes a 30% discount in recognition that Post Office has admitted its failings and agreed to settle the case. The money raised from this fine, which must be paid to Ofcom within 20 working days, will be passed on to HM Treasury. More information on our ruling is available.
