UK Premium rate services regulator ICSTIS has published the criteria it will use when awarding consumer refunds as part of a sanction when it believes its Code of Practice is breached.

ICSTIS has also clearly defined what it means by a refund and the forms it should take. In issuing today’s statement on refunds, Paul Whiteing, ICSTIS’ Deputy Director, said: “Many companies who provide premium rate services trade fairly and give full refunds when their service occasionally fails to deliver. However, some companies do not. To ensure greater consistency across the industry, we have therefore decided to detail the circumstances where we will order refunds to be paid to consumers if a service breaches our Code. These have been consulted on widely and have received near unanimous support from across the industry.”
The possible combinations of circumstances which are likely to trigger an order to pay refunds include those where:

• there was an identifiable financial detriment to a consumer and a consequential gain to the
  service provider
• there was wilful intent by the service provider to deceive the consumer
• the product or service was not supplied or was of a manifestly unsatisfactory quality
• the marketing or promotional material was fundamentally misleading in some way and misled consumers into purchasing something they would not otherwise have wanted
• the product or service was inappropriately priced to disguise its true cost (for example, describing the service as “free” when it is clearly not).

As part of its ongoing commitment to ensuring consumers can use premium rate services with confidence, ICSTIS has also announced that it will be inviting the industry to create a taskforce to develop best practice for customer care within the industry.

Posted on October 20th, 2006 by lbraum
Filed under: UK