General Condition C8 Sales and marketing of mobile communications services

Ofcom have a set of rules that all telecommunications providers (like VMO2) have to adhere to, these are called the General Conditions of Entitlement or GCs.

Under Ofcom’s GC C8, providers must provide a comprehensive summary of their obligations under this specific GC.

Aim:

To protect customers (consumers, microenterprise, and small enterprise and not-for-profit) by ensuring we, as a communications provider, observe certain obligations when selling and marketing mobile call and text services. We are also required to put in place certain minimum standards in respect of the sales and marketing behaviour of companies that sell our services on our behalf.

What does C8 cover?

• Prevention of mis-selling
• Publicising our obligations
• Obligations on us to ensure that retailers selling our services adhere to these rules, including that the information provided to customers is accurate and not misleading
• Specific information must be provided to customers at point of sale about the tariff they are purchasing
• Ensuring staff are trained to comply with the requirements under this General Condition
• Specific information at point of sale in respect of sales incentives
• Retaining sales records for at least 6 months
• Due diligence requirements for the provider carry out in respect of the mobile service retailer.

What we need to do

When we sell you a mobile service we need to confirm that you:

• are authorised to enter into the contract
• intend to enter into the contract
• are provided with specific information (set out below)
• if we are selling the service to you over the phone, we need to provide the information in writing as well.

The information we need to give you

• information about who we are, including our contact details
• a description about the service you’re taking, including:
  • what you’ll pay
  • how you’ll pay it
  • how long your contract (commitment period) is for
  • whether you have any rights to terminate the contract
  • how you go about terminating the contract
  • whether you need to pay any early termination charges
  • the date you’ll be able to use the service
  • the access charge which applies when you call numbers not included as part of your plan.

Sales incentives

A sales incentive is something extra that’s being offered on top of your core tariff, as part of the deal you’re looking to take out with us.

Where a sales incentive is being offered, but that you don’t benefit from straightaway, we need to make sure that it’s not too difficult for you to take up the incentive and that you are provided with the following information in a clear, easily understandable way, this includes sending you the information via a durable medium (like an email or letter), if you’re making the purchase via phone:

• who is making the sales incentive offer to you and their contact information i.e. address and email
• a description of the sales incentive
• the terms and conditions of the sales incentive
• the process you have to follow to obtain the sales incentive.

Our obligations where a retailer sells our services

Mis-selling

Any retailer that sells our services has to ensure that it has processes and procedures in place to make sure that:

• any information you receive is accurate and not misleading
• you’re asked if you want any information in a durable medium e.g. a letter or email
• it keeps records of sales for at least 6 months (3 months for sales incentives).

Training

We have to make sure that process are in place to ensure that any retailer that sells our services, is trained to comply with this GC.

Due diligence

We have to make sure that the following checks are carried out by us if there’s a retailer selling on our behalf:

• a credit reference search and check to makes sure that the retailer has a good history meeting financial obligations
• a director check to make sure that none have been disqualified or been a director of a company that has filed for bankruptcy or gone into administration
• make sure that the information remains up to date.

A copy of GC C8 can be found here. Ofcom’s full General Conditions can be found here.