Communications Ombudsman is one of Ofcom’s approved telecom ADR schemes and can decide eligible individual disputes with member providers.
If your phone/broadband provider belongs to Communications Ombudsman, you can normally take an unresolved complaint there once the provider has issued deadlock or six weeks have passed since the formal complaint.
The ombudsman will consider the complaint, the provider’s response and the evidence. A strong submission clearly defines the issues and remedies instead of relying on the original complaint chain to speak for itself.
Key points
- Check scheme membership before submitting.
- Use the current six-week telecom ADR threshold.
- Give a chronology and indexed evidence.
- If the decision omits an issue or misstates evidence, identify that precisely in any available challenge/review process.
What to put in your case
- What happened
- What the provider says happened
- The disputed facts
- Applicable contractual/regulatory framework
- Documents proving each point
- Remedy sought
Read the decision as a reasoned document
Check whether it identifies the correct complaint scope, uses the right chronology and actually determines each issue. A decision can reach an outcome you dislike without being defective; a challenge should focus on identifiable error, omission or unsupported reasoning.
Remedy should connect to findings
If the decision finds provider failings, examine whether the remedy actually addresses the financial position, credit data, inconvenience or corrective action.
In practice
- Do not bury the decisive document in a large upload.
- Quote a contradictory provider statement with date and filename.
- Keep a failure-to-answer schedule if important issues remain undetermined.
What to do
A practical next-step plan
- Complete provider complaint/deadlock or wait six weeks.
- Check Communications Ombudsman membership.
- Prepare complaint scope, chronology and evidence index.
- Submit remedies sought.
- Review any proposed/final decision line by line.
- Use the scheme’s available challenge/escalation route where a important error or omission exists.
Common traps
Things that often confuse the issue
- Do not assume “ombudsman” means the same rules as FOS.
- Do not challenge solely by restating disagreement.
- Do not let a goodwill payment obscure a required correction to inaccurate data.
Evidence worth keeping
Read the outcome against what you actually asked the scheme to decide.
If a decision omits a material issue, misstates evidence or applies the wrong factual chronology, identify that precisely using the scheme’s review/challenge process if one is available. Disagreement with the result is different from showing a material factual, procedural or reasoning problem.
Useful wording.
“My challenge is not simply that I prefer a different outcome. The decision states [X], whereas document [Y] records [Z]. That difference is material because it affects [issue/remedy]. Please address that point expressly.”
Submit the dispute as issues, evidence and remedies: not a dump of correspondence.
State what happened, what remains disputed, the provider’s position and the exact outcome you seek. Then tie documents to those propositions. A 70-page upload with no explanation is usually less persuasive than a concise chronology and an indexed set of documents.
| Case component | Useful content |
|---|---|
| Issue | “Provider charged £X after the effective switch date.” |
| Evidence | Contract, switch confirmation, final bill and complaint response. |
| Provider position | Quote or accurately summarise the reason it says the charge is valid. |
| Why you disagree | Explain the factual/contractual contradiction. |
| Remedy | Correct bill, refund/credit, data correction and/or reasonable compensation where justified. |
Eligibility starts with the complaint date and the provider’s ADR membership.
For complaints raised from 8 April 2026, eligible residential customers, small businesses and qualifying not-for-profits can generally access telecom ADR after six weeks if the complaint remains unresolved, or sooner where the provider issues deadlock. A deadlock letter is therefore useful evidence, but you do not necessarily have to wait indefinitely for one once the six-week point has passed.
Check whether the provider belongs to Communications Ombudsman or CISAS before preparing the case. The wrong scheme cannot usually determine it.
The Ombudsman is an ADR decision-maker, not Ofcom and not the provider’s next customer-service tier.
Communications Ombudsman considers eligible unresolved disputes between customers and member providers. It can look at the evidence from both sides and award remedies within its scheme rules. Ofcom is the sector regulator; it generally does not decide individual consumer billing or service disputes. Keeping those roles separate avoids sending an individual remedy request to the wrong body.
Present the case for determination
Turn a long complaint into issues, evidence and requested outcomes
An Ombudsman case is easier to determine when each disputed issue has a short statement of fact, the provider's position, the evidence and the remedy requested. A 100-page correspondence chain may contain everything, but it should not be the map.
Where several issues interact: billing, closure, data accuracy, default reporting and complaint handling: keep them separate enough that the decision has to determine each one.
The current Terms require reasoned decision-making
The Communications Ombudsman's published Terms say the Ombudsman should proceed fairly, make reasoned decisions according to what is fair and reasonable having regard to law, good practice, equitable conduct and good administration, have regard to relevant contracts/regulatory provisions/codes, and give reasons for conclusions. That does not guarantee the consumer will win. It does give a useful framework for testing whether a decision actually addresses the material evidence and issue put to it.
If a decision uses the wrong framework, identify the mismatch precisely
For example, a decision about telecom CRA reporting should not dispose of a complaint merely by saying that no statutory Consumer Credit Act default notice was required if the consumer's actual point concerned a different credit-reporting standard. State the issue that was raised, the framework the decision applied and why they are not the same question.
Similarly, if the decision accepts provider system failures but later reaches a conclusion that appears to assume the chronology was caused solely by the consumer, ask for the reasoning that connects those findings.
Compare the remedy with the findings, and with any earlier offer
A remedy should make sense in light of what the Ombudsman has found. If complaint handling was poor, information was wrong or avoidable delay occurred, check whether the redress actually reflects those findings. If the provider had already offered a more favourable practical resolution before referral, it is legitimate to ask why the Ombudsman outcome leaves the consumer worse off, although the existence of an earlier offer does not automatically bind the Ombudsman.
A challenge, service complaint and Independent Assessor complaint are different things
Use any review or challenge opportunity shown in your case to identify material factual error, overlooked evidence, framework mismatch or failure to answer. Do not assume it is a complete rehearing. Separately, a complaint about the Ombudsman's service concerns administration and service standards. The Independent Assessor's published terms expressly exclude reconsidering the merits, evidence weighting or redress of the underlying provider dispute.
Separate disagreement with the outcome from a defect in the reasoning
If you challenge a decision under an available review process, identify the alleged factual error, overlooked evidence, wrong framework, unresolved issue or mismatch between findings and remedy. “I disagree” is weaker than showing precisely why the stated reasoning cannot support the conclusion.
A service complaint about the Ombudsman is not another merits appeal
The scheme’s Independent Assessor deals with service standards, not a re-run of the substantive evidence or redress decision. Before escalating, identify whether your concern is about case handling/service or whether you are still trying to change the merits outcome.
Official sources
Check the rules behind this guide
These are official or primary sources for this topic. Rules, scheme terms and deadlines can change, so check the live source before relying on a formal time limit or procedure.