BT accepts £150,000 damages and costs from rival
Telecoms giant BT today accepted an out of court settlement from a rival UK company over mis-selling claims, it announced today.
Caudwell Communications Ltd, a sister company of Phones 4 U, agreed to pay £150,000 (€221,000) costs and damages after customers complained its sales staff had inferred they worked for BT.
Workers at a call centre sub-contracted by CCL made the claims while trying to sell its fixed line phone product.
The tactic provoked “serious” complaints from members of the public who said the call centre staff misled them, BT said.
BT started High Court action against CCL in May this year over infringement of registered trade marks and passing itself off as BT.
Gavin Patterson, BT consumer group managing director, said the company was pleased to have reached an out of court settlement.
He said: “Generally, we are still concerned about the level of mis-selling in the telecommunications industry and we are prepared to take similar action against other communication providers, if they confuse customers in this way and cause damage to BT’s brand.”
BT receives around 21,000 complaints per month from customers about telecoms mis-selling, the company said.
As part of the settlement CCL agreed to pay a sum towards BT’s costs and damages and pledged not to infringe BT’s trademark.
Tim Whiting, group managing director for the Caudwell Group, said an investigation had shown that third party operators acting on behalf of CCL had failed to follow strict guidelines.
“Once we were fully aware of these issues the business moved swiftly to remove the third party suppliers from the supply chain and to correct any wrong doing to the small number of customers affected,” he said.
“We are pleased to have worked with BT to resolve the situation without the need of court intervention.”
