The statistics revealed by the TIO today saw a decrease in complaints for most areas of mobile services. Overall the number of complaints fell from 20,434 in 2001-02 to 16,773 in 2002-03. This figure accounted for 26.8 percent of all complaints received by the TIO.
A significant drop was recorded in the number of complaints concerning mobile number portability which dropped to 180 complaints in 2002-03 from 1,264 complaints in 2001-02. The TIO attributed the drop to the solving of 'teething problems' encountered during the introduction of mobile number portability in 2001.
The majority of complaints (28.6 percent) were over billing issues with mobile phones. The number of billing complaints fell from 7,047 in 2001-02 to 4,797 in 2002-03, although this is partly explained by the TIO moving complaints of early termination fees from the billing category to the contract category.
The number of complaints over contracts also fell in 2002-03 over the previous year, dropping from 5,168 in 2001-02 to 4,164 in this report. This figure accounts for 24.8 percent of all mobile services related complaints to the TIO. Almost a third of these complaints related to advice provided to customer at the point of sale.
There was a sharp rise in complaints about credit control, which increased by 48.7 percent from 1,597 in 2001-02 to 2,374 in 2002-03. Over half of these complaints related debt recovery, which the TIO attributed to the recent practice of telcos to get other companies to collect the debt. There was also 1,121 complaints concerning early termination fees.
In September 2002 the TIO amended its constitution to allow it to investigate handset faults when the mobile was sold as part of a contract or bundled service. This helped raise the number of complaints regarding mobile faults from 1,550 in 2001-02 to 2,051 in 2002-03.
