Channel 4 Dispatches Programme: The Mobile Phone Rip-Off

EDM number 1451 in 2007-08, proposed by Roger Godsiff on 29/04/2008.
Categorised under the topics of Competition, Consumers, Industry, Service industries and Telecommunications.

That this House welcomes the recent Channel 4 Dispatches investigation into mis-selling in the mobile telephone industry broadcast on 28th April; believes that the breadth of the programme's thorough investigation amply demonstrates the depth of mis-selling and lack of effective industry regulation and transparency which has poorly served the customer and left many thousands in debt, being pursued by debt collection agencies and owed an estimated £50 million in now worthless cashback deals; believes the network providers, Orange, T-Mobile, Vodafone, 3 and O2 to have been complicit in creating this situation and to be behaving increasingly like a cartel; notes that information relating to both the individual contribution that the network providers each make to Ofcom and data relating to the numbers of people affected by cashback is officially not available; welcomes the publication of Ofcom consultation on the industry but regrets that no action or compensation is contemplated for customers already affected by cashback and doubts whether the statutory powers contemplated by Ofcom will be effectively resourced and policed; and calls on Ofcom to refer the matter to the Competition Commission without further delay to ascertain if collusion has taken place and assuage the public's well-founded concern about whether the market is working effectively.

This motion has been signed by a total of 35 MPs.