Citizens Advice reveals top five mobile and broadband issues faced by consumers
Citizens Advice now helps someone with a telecoms problem every three-and-a-half minutes
Almost 35,500 people contacted the charity with a mobile or broadband issue in 2024
Consumers seeking help for tech problems and billing issues the most
With millions of mobile and broadband users set to face price hikes in April, Citizens Advice has revealed the top five telecoms issues consumers are grappling with.
The charity helped almost 35,500 people with a mobile or broadband problem last year - more than double the amount it did in 2020 (around 15,000).
Additional research from Citizens Advice shows UK consumers had more issues they wanted to complain about with mobile and broadband providers (16%), than in any other essential services market, including energy (12%), postal services (9%), water (5%) or financial services (4%). This is equivalent to 8.6 million people experiencing problems with their telecoms providers.
The top five telecoms issues people contact Citizens Advice’s Consumer Service with:
Technical issues (21% of all mobile and broadband complaints)
The most common technical issues are damaged or faulty equipment, service outages and poor connection. The charity finds these problems usually can’t be addressed by the customer, and often escalate, resulting in contract cancellation. In some cases, the consumer is left liable to pay for a service not received.
Billing problems (20%)
Sometimes, a consumer only realises they’re receiving the wrong service or paying the wrong amount when their bill arrives. By then, they may be past their cooling-off period and liable for termination fees. People regularly seek help for unexplained bills; bills for products or services not received; mid-contract price rises; and when they find they’re paying more than new customers for the same service - known as the loyalty penalty.
Issues with cancelling (14%)
The most common cancellation problems involve termination fees and a failure to cancel - meaning people are billed after they’ve ended their contract. Citizens Advice found some consumers are being charged a termination fee when they’re still in their contract’s cooling-off period, and when the devices given to them were faulty. The charity says termination fees can bind people into contracts that no longer work for them, acting as a barrier against competition.
Fraud and scams (12%)
Complaints are being made about cold calls and emails, in which a fraudster pretends to be from a telecoms provider, as well as fake offers and bogus upgrades. More than 1 in 8 people who contact our helpline with a telecoms issue have been targeted by a scam, with the average financial loss suffered £700.
Misselling and marketing (11%)
People are complaining about providers’ sales practices - and face a lack of pricing clarity, being directed to the wrong offer or given incorrect information. As telecoms is a complex market, it can be challenging for consumers to understand if they need everything they’re sold. Citizens Advice found this confusion paves the way for providers to upsell - and can leave those in vulnerable circumstances overpaying.
Tom MacInnes, Director of Policy at Citizens Advice, said: "Clearly consumers are facing significant hurdles in this industry, but without a watchdog or advocate they've no way of making their voices heard.
"We see the fallout from this, with consumers coming to us every three-and-a-half minutes for help with telecoms issues.
"What we hear shows how urgently a statutory body to represent consumers is needed. There will be benefits for providers too, decreasing the number of issues which escalate unnecessarily, and result in people cancelling their contracts."
Jane Parsons, Consumer Expert at Citizens Advice, offers tips on how to deal with some of these telecoms issues:
General advice - all complaints to providers
If you have any issues, tell your provider straight away, and keep a record of any contact with them. Keep copies of evidence, like advertising materials or bills, that are important to your complaint.
If there’s an issue with your mobile, broadband or landline service
Tell your provider you’re having problems and ask when they’ll be fixed. They may have a service status checker, so you can see if there’s a problem the provider knows about. You could be entitled to compensation if there are issues with your broadband or landline service, and your provider is part of the automatic compensation scheme. You can find details on Ofcom’s website.
Avoiding telecoms scams
If you get any calls, texts or emails you aren’t sure of, hang up or don't reply. Be particularly careful if you’re asked to verify your account details by clicking on a link - this is an attempt to get your account details from you. You can check if your provider has contacted you by using the phone number you know is correct, or using their chat facility.
Complaining about marketing and advertising
You need to complain directly to your provider if you think they misled you about what you thought you were getting, and include any evidence you’ve got to support your complaint. You can report mis-selling to Ofcom, but it can't investigate individual complaints. You can flag misleading adverts to the Advertising Standards Authority, which can act against a provider breaking any rules, but can't help with individual disputes.
-ends-
Notes to editors:
A total of 35,481 people contacted Citizens Advice last year with telecoms issues, through the charity’s Consumer Service and local Citizens Advice centres. The number of people the charity is helping with these issues has more than doubled in the last five years, up 135% from 2020 (15,107). The charity helps someone with a telecoms issue roughly every three-and-a-half minutes. Citizens Advice Consumer Service and Local Citizens Advice data, January 1 - December 31, 2024.
Research conducted by Citizens Advice shows consumers had more complaint-worthy issues with mobile and broadband providers (16%), than in any other essential market, like energy (12%), postal services (9%), water (5%) or financial services (4%). Citizens Advice commissioned Yonder Data Solutions to survey 2,000 UK adults from June 7-9, 2024. The percentages represent the proportion of adults who said they had, in the last 12 months, experienced a problem they felt like complaining about - or did complain about - with each of those services. 16% is equivalent to 8.6 million people across the UK. Respondents were able to select more than one service that they either complained about, or felt like complaining about, and 67% reported no complaints about any of the listed services.
To find out the top five telecoms issues Citizens Advice’s Consumer Service helps people with, a sample of 2,000 (out of a total of around 10,000) calls to the service were taken (from September 1, 2023 - to August 31, 2024). They were hand-coded based on the problem experienced, to determine the proportions of people experiencing each issue. For example, there were 429 cases of ‘tech issues’ (the top issue), equivalent to 21% of all calls to the Consumer Service.
Citizens Advice is made up of the national charity Citizens Advice; the network of independent local Citizens Advice charities across England and Wales; the Citizens Advice consumer service; and the Witness Service.
Our network of charities offers impartial advice online, over the phone, and in person, for free.
Citizens Advice helped 2.68 million people face to face, over the phone, by email and webchat in 2023-24. And we had 51.7 million visits to our website. For full service statistics see our monthly publication Advice trends.
Citizens Advice service staff are supported by more than 19,000 trained volunteers, working at over 1,900 service outlets across England and Wales.
Citizens Advice is the statutory consumer advocate for energy and postal markets. We provide supplier performance information to consumers and policy analysis to decision makers.
You can get consumer advice from the Citizens Advice consumer service on 0808 223 1133 or 0808 223 1144 for Welsh language speakers.