A summary of General Condition 23
These are the Ofcom rules we follow to make sure we sell our mobile services fairly and honestly.
We always aim to sell our mobile phones and plans in a fair and straight talking manner. But as a mobile provider, Ofcom also asks that we give you a summary of a set of rules called General Condition 23.
You can read them in full or get in touch if you'd like us to send you a copy. But to make them more digestible, though still not as nice as a rich tea biscuit, you can read all the most important bits right here.
These rules make sure that when we sell or market our services:
- we give you all the information you need when you're deciding to buy a mobile phone or plan
- we don't do anything that's dishonest, misleading or that deceives you
- we don't contact you in an aggressive or inappropriate way
We follow these rules whether you're buying your mobile phone or plan at a shop, online, over the phone with one of our team, or through a partner company.
General Condition 23 FAQs
- When you're about to buy a new mobile phone or plan, we need to give you all of the following information, either on paper or electronically.
- Who the contract is with
- How long the contract is for
- What the monthly fee is
- What's included in the monthly fee – things like how many calls, texts and data
- What charges there will be outside your plan, like calls and texts to certain mobile and landline numbers, and calls to your voicemail service
- All your payment terms – how, when, how much
- How you can terminate your contract and if there will be any charges for doing that
- When you'll be able to start using the service
- Any offers you've taken, like line rental discounts or cashback deals, and all the terms and conditions for these. There's more on this further down
- When you buy a new mobile phone or plan from us online or over the phone with one of our team, we need to send you a confirmation of the sale by email soon afterwards.
- Before we let a partner company sell mobile services, we must take reasonable steps to avoid any fraud. That includes:
- carrying out credit checks of all the partner companies selling our products or services to make sure they don't have a bad credit history
- making sure the directors of the organisation haven't filed for bankruptcy or gone into administration in the past
- checking that the above information is all up-to-date
- We can't pass on any information about companies or use it to gain an unfair advantage.
- We need to keep all our sales records for at least six months after any sale. The records will include:
- the date of the sale
- where the sale was made – at a shop, online, over the phone with one of our team, or through a partner company (for example the address of a retail shop)
- signed copies of any contracts either on paper or electronically
- recordings of any phone calls of a sale if available
- We must always keep enough information so that we can show that you've agreed to our contract.
In serious cases where we don't follow these rules, we could be asked not to do business with a particular partner again. We could also be fined up to 10% of our revenue.
They're incentives we offer if you sign up for a contract or upgrade. They could be things like cashback, a free gift, or other rewards.
To make sure you're in the know about how all these offers and rewards work, we must:
- make clear any terms and conditions of the offer as well as anything you've got to do to claim your reward
- carry out spot checks or mystery shopping to make sure our sales teams are letting you know everything
- review any complaints about our offers
- make sure the legal info on any incentives we offer is up to scratch
- check any advertising we do as part of the incentive is accurate
- If you've signed up for one of these offers though a partner company of ours, they must keep all records of it for at least six months or 90 days after it's been redeemed, whichever is longer.
- We need to make sure that none of our partners are making it difficult for you to claim the cashback or reward. They shouldn't:
- ask you to send an original bill instead of a copy in order to claim the offer
- charge you to process the offer
- tell you that if you don't make the first claim then you can't claim the rest of the reward payments, if there's a series of payments
- We should also, either on paper or electronically, send you:
- the full details of the company offering the cashback or reward, including their address, telephone, fax and/or e-mail contact details, along with confirmation that they'll provide the offer
- a full description of the cashback or reward offer
- the terms and conditions of the cashback or reward offer, including how to claim it
- If we sell you an offer over the phone, we must send you a confirmation of the sale on paper or electronically soon afterwards.
