BT has been dragged into the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) over claims it overcharged more than 2.3 million residential, landline-only customers for eight years.
The case has been filed by Justin Le Patourel, a representative of CALL (Collective Action on Landlines), and seeks compensation for customers who are claimed to have been overcharged by BT for many years. If successful, the claim could result in compensation of between £200 and £500 for each affected customer, up to a total of an estimated £500 million, according to CALL.
The claim relates to regulator Ofcom’s 2017 finding that BT’s landline-only customers were getting poor value for money compared to customers who bought bundles of broadband, landline or pay-TV services.
The regulator found that the company had raised its prices many times since 2009, despite a constant decline in the cost of providing landline service to customers.
Ofcom also found that the customers affected by BT’s overpricing were likely to be elderly people from low-income groups. The regulator said that such elderly customers tend not to purchase bundled services, instead of sticking with the same rental product for years.
BT agreed to reduce its landline prices from £18.99 to £11.99 a month for nearly 900,000 vulnerable customers, although it did not compensate customers for the elevated prices they had paid from 2009 to April 2018.
“CALL has been created to campaign for compensation from BT, which could total over £500 million”, the group’s website states.
The period covered by Le Patourel’s claim is 2015 to 2019 rather than back to 2009, since the relevant legislation does not cover the full period.
