TalkTalk refunds £2.5m following Ofcom investigation

TalkTalk billing systems now consolidated onto one platform following billing inaccuracies last year

ISP TalkTalk has had to refund £2.5m to its customers as a result of incorrect billing information. It had been continuing to bill customers for services after they had been cancelled.

Regulator Ofcom investigated the company in July 2010 following consumer complaints. It set a deadline of 2 December 2010 for the ISP to improve its billing processes.

In a statement on its web site, Ofcom said: "Under the law as it currently stands, Ofcom must allow the company a period of time to comply with the regulations by a set deadline. If the company takes action to comply with the rules by the deadline, Ofcom cannot impose a financial penalty."

However, it added that it would welcome a change to this law to allow the imposition of financial penalties.

Although it missed Ofcom's deadline by some weeks, TalkTalk has now migrated all of its customers onto a single billing platform, called Trio.

Previously, the ISP operated nine different billing platforms, some of which were inherited from its acquisition of Tiscali UK.

A spokesperson from TalkTalk stated: "We moved all of our customers to our single billing platform at the end of January and our focus on resolving any outstanding billing issues continues."