Relations between BT and Onetel took a turn for the worse yesterday after BT revealed that the rival telco and its parent company Centrica had signed undertakings not to infringe BT’s trade marks in a dispute that involved allegations of "slamming".
In response, Centrica insisted that it had signed the undertakings because it had no desire to mislead customers or to present itself as having anything to do with BT.
According to reports, BT had accused the firm of allowing its sales staff to pose as BT employees when persuading customers to switch to a cheaper deal. Many customers only realised that they had moved to Onetel when they received a welcome letter from the telco.
This practice – where consumers are switched from one supplier to another without their knowledge and consent, usually after a cold-call from the new supplier – is known as slamming.
UK telecoms regulator Ofcom is cracking down on the practice, and recently obliged all fixed-line telcos to draw up sales and marketing Codes of Practices to tackle the problem. The regulator has also warned that it will investigate allegations of mis-selling and is looking through a pile of complaints to see if investigations are warranted.
Meantime, BT fears that it is losing customers, and has launched its own crackdown, settling a mis-selling court action against Cauldwell Communications in August.
BT also accused Onetel of mis-selling, and threatened to take the case to court. According to BT, the dispute has now settled, with Centrica giving an undertaking not to infringe BT's trade marks or pass itself off as BT.
But Centrica fought back yesterday, accusing BT of seeking to damage the firm.
"By publicising our signing of undertakings in regard to IP infringement BT are attempting to infer that Onetel has not had controls in place previously. Clearly, their desire is to damage the Onetel name,” said Ian El-Mokadem, Onetel’s Managing Director.
"Onetel already has the strictest controls in place and on that basis we have signed the undertakings. One has to ask why, having cooperated in this way, BT insisted on publicising this matter," he added.
In response, BT Retail boss Ian Livingston today told The Register:
"BT has acted because customers were contacting us to say they had been misled. Customers have repeatedly asked us what we are doing and why we let companies get away with certain practices.
"The fact is we lodged legal complaints about OneTel back in March and we get more complaints about the switching process where OneTel is concerned than any other company.”
