Vodafone hit with record fine for 'serious and sustained' breaches of consumer protection rules

The world's second-largest mobile operator, Vodafone, has been handed a £4.76 million ($5.60 million) fine by industry regulator Ofcom. The fine -- the largest ever for a telecoms company -- was a result of Vodafone's "serious and sustained" failings. The company failed to top-up customers' accounts when they bought credit, and failed to act quickly enough to rectify the problem. The failings cost customers £150,000, and it is now going to cost Vodafone £3.7 million; the remaining £925,000 of the fine is for failures with complaint handling. In all, 10,452 of Vodafone's pay-as-you-go customers were affected by problems, and the… [Continue Reading]