In
response, Centrica insisted that it had signed the undertakings
because it had no desire to mislead customers or to present itself
as having anything to do with BT.
According to reports, BT had accused the firm of allowing its
sales staff to pose as BT employees when persuading customers to
switch to a cheaper deal. Many customers only realised that they
had moved to Onetel when they received a welcome letter from the
telco.
This practice – where consumers are switched from one supplier
to another without their knowledge and consent, usually after a
cold-call from the new supplier – is known as slamming.
UK telecoms regulator Ofcom is cracking down on the practice,
and recently obliged all fixed-line telcos to draw up sales and
marketing Codes of Practices to tackle the problem. The regulator
has also warned that it will investigate allegations of mis-selling
and is looking through a pile of complaints to see if
investigations are warranted.
Meantime, BT fears that it is losing customers, and has launched
its own crackdown, settling a mis-selling court action against
Cauldwell Communications in August.
BT also accused Onetel of mis-selling, and threatened to take
the case to court. According to BT, the dispute has now settled,
with Centrica giving an undertaking not to infringe BT's trade
marks or pass itself off as BT.
But Centrica fought back yesterday, accusing BT of seeking to
damage the firm.
"By publicising our signing of undertakings in regard to IP
infringement BT are attempting to infer that Onetel has not had
controls in place previously. Clearly, their desire is to damage
the Onetel name,” said Ian El-Mokadem, Onetel’s Managing
Director.
"Onetel already has the strictest controls in place and on that
basis we have signed the undertakings. One has to ask why, having
cooperated in this way, BT insisted on publicising this matter," he
added.
In response, BT Retail boss Ian Livingston today told The
Register:
"BT has acted because customers were
contacting us to say they had been misled. Customers have
repeatedly asked us what we are doing and why we let companies get
away with certain practices.
"The fact is we lodged legal complaints
about OneTel back in March and we get more complaints about the
switching process where OneTel is concerned than any other
company.”
