Ofcom resolved its communication shortcoming

Summary 813 |

Ofcom failed to tell Mr N when it had finished investigating his concerns, but resolved this when he later complained.


What happened

Mr N's hobby is amateur radio. He reported interference to his radio to Ofcom, and it investigated. Mr N was unhappy about the way Ofcom had investigated his case. He had an argument with two Ofcom engineers about this when they visited his home. As a result they cut their visit short. Mr N was unhappy about this, and said Ofcom had been rude to him. Mr N heard nothing from Ofcom the next time he complained about interference, and he assumed it had decided it would not deal with him in future. He complained to Ofcom about what happened, and it confirmed that it had investigated his concerns. Mr N challenged Ofcom's technical assumptions about that visit and was unhappy with what it told him. He therefore complained to us.

What we found

We did not uphold this complaint. Ofcom investigated Mr N's concerns properly, and we made no findings about the argument Mr N had with the Ofcom engineers, because there was no impartial evidence available. Ofcom had not decided it would not deal with Mr N in the future. However, it had not told Mr N when it had completed its investigation of his latest concerns. This was a shortcoming, but it was one Ofcom resolved when it told Mr N what had happened in a response to his complaint. We also found Ofcom's response to Mr N's technical queries (which were to support its engineers' qualifications and training) was appropriate.

Health or Parliamentary
Parliamentary
Organisations we investigated

Office of Communications

Location

UK

Complainants' concerns ?

Did not apologise properly or do enough to put things right

Did not take sufficient steps to improve service

Result

Not applicable