Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make representations to Ofcom about the practice of telephone service providers terminating and transferring users’ numbers without their consent.

The cancellation of services without consumer consent is prohibited and is a matter for Ofcom. Ofcom requires companies to get customer permission and consent to cancel and specifies the type of information that needs to be made available to the customer before this can take place. Ofcom also places a requirement on companies to keep records of the customer’s consent to cancel their service for 12 months.

In addition to these strict requirements, Ofcom has imposed several important safeguards within the current cancellation process to minimise the opportunity for error to occur, including a requirement that the company must write to the customer letting them know of the imminent cancellation of their phone line before the cancellation can happen. The customer then has a 10-day period in which to stop the cancellation going ahead if they change their mind, or if there has been a mistake.