Communications Ombudsman Reviews 

My experience with ROY at the Ombudsman service has been nothing short of useless. After months of dealing with EE’s mistakes, I finally turned to the Ombudsman expecting an independent review. Instead, I received a message so lazy and unprofessional it honestly looked like it was written without even reading my case.

The person (ROY)handling my complaint didn’t address me by name, didn’t acknowledge a single piece of evidence I submitted, and didn’t show any sign that they had actually reviewed anything. They simply sent a copy‑and‑paste message saying my case was closed because of a “break in communication” and an “old referral letter.” That was it. No explanation, no effort, no investigation.

And here’s the part people need to understand:
The Ombudsman only charges a business a fee if they actually investigate a case.
If they close it early, they don’t have to do the work and they don’t have to charge the company. So when they shut down a complaint with a template message, it’s not hard to see why. It’s quicker, easier, and keeps their statistics looking clean.

So no — EE doesn’t “pay” them directly.
But the system is set up in a way where closing cases fast benefits everyone except the consumer.

That’s exactly what happened to me. Instead of helping, they took the quickest route to get rid of the complaint. It felt dismissive, unprofessional, and completely pointless. If this is the level of service people get when they’re already struggling with a company, I genuinely worry for anyone who relies on this organisation — especially vulnerable customers who can’t fight back.

The Ombudsman is supposed to protect consumers. Based on my experience, it feels more like a box‑ticking exercise designed to move cases out of the way as fast as possible.

I am submitting this following a catastrophic breakdown of professional standards and an admitted failure of the investigation process.

Admitted Negligence (Kathryn A): On 07/04/2026, the Dispute Resolution Coach, Kathryn A, admitted in writing: "While I have not reviewed any primary evidence, my understanding of the situation is..." This is a prima facie admission that a Final Decision was issued without reviewing the call recordings or the case file evidence.

Administrative Error: In her decision, Ms. Kathryn A claimed she had "not identified" any statement from EE saying they lacked the original contract. This is factually incorrect; the case file contains two explicit admissions from EE stating they do not possess it. This proves the file was not read.

Contradictory Record-Keeping: After being challenged on her admission, Ms. Kathryn A issued a contradictory statement on 08/04/2026 claiming she had reviewed the evidence. This inconsistency demonstrates a total lack of professional integrity and a failure to maintain a transparent audit trail.

Obstruction of Oversight (Michael B): The Service Improvement Lead, Michael B, has actively obstructed my access to the Independent Assessor. He has attempted to redefine "primary evidence" to cover the Reviewer’s error and is gatekeeping the service complaint process to prevent external scrutiny of this documented failure.

Conclusion: The Ombudsman’s "foundational requirement" to be evidence-led has been abandoned. This case represents a systemic failure of Alternative Dispute Resolution transparency and has been escalated to the Trust Alliance Group executive board and OFCOM.

UPDATE (17/04/26): The company’s reply below is demonstrably false. I have a written email from the Dispute Resolution Coach (Ms Kathryn A) dated 07/04/26 explicitly admitting: "While I have not reviewed any primary evidence, my understanding of the situation is..." To claim they "take great care" and "all evidence is considered" while holding a written admission that they bypassed the evidence is a total failure of integrity. This documented contradiction has been reported to Ofcom and the Ombudsman Association.

Lewiss actively listened to my complaint, discussed options and what the maximum I would gain from the complaint if it was upheld.
Regular updates throughout the process and it was really good to have someone independent to talk to, who understood my situation but spoke with an unbiased as they fact founded from both sides of the complaint.

Waste of tax payers money. They work in cohorts with supplier. Case handler have poor investigation skills.

Do not rely on the services of the Ombudsman. They side with companies and just pretend to investigate. Even if they issue a decision following your complaint, the company is obliged to comply with that decision. However, if a company does not comply with the decision and you contact the Ombudsman again about it, the Ombudsman later does not respond at all. Therefore, they are useless and never really help.
If you have clear evidence against a company (in my case, EE), go directly to a tribunal and do not accept the Ombudsman’s decision.

They gave me an answer very quickly and pointed out the likely outcome.

Case successfully concluded in under 2 months by Catherine Whyte, who kept us informed throughout. Many thanks! - The case itself: BT Business continuation of billing despite termination of contract; accumulation of debt by the same through incorrect billing and attempted enforcement through their debt collectors, MIL Collections, despite case being handled by Ombudsman.

Overall a good experience start to finish, did i get a 10 grand payout? No, did I get multiple people disciplined or sacked, No, or did I get a personal apology delivered in person from the CEO, sadly No

What I did get was exactly what they said they would do which was contact the company, explain my issues, and get a solution, all I had to do was provide information within a time frame, simple, easy, and free

To all you “One Star” reviewers looking for some sort of lottery size win if your grievance is that bad why not take the company to the small claims court yourself, however please be aware this would cost YOU money!

Funny how it’s everyone else’s fault when complainants don’t get what they expect.

Excellent FREE service keep up the good work

The Comms Ombudsman has no real powers and complaining to them is a total waste of time.

Appalling. They promise a lot but deliver nothing worthwhile. They wouldn’t wait for the repeatedly requested data from the phone company and made a decision without being in receipt of them.
This means that ID mobile got away with sending text messages which were pure lies, they failed to record countless numbers of complaints I made via their vulnerable client lines. These dreadfully sharp practices can and will have dreadful effects on elderly and vulnerable people. This body coukd have taken IDmobile to task over these instead they fined them £50.

This ombudsman at best is not fit for purpose - worst case they’re in the pocket of the mobile phone companies…. They had a clear and fact ridden case to work on but instead they wouldn’t wait for the call transcripts and awarded me £50.

That amount is an insult. I’ve wasted hours of my life I’ll never get back. In my opinion this ombudsman is neither helpful, caring or just.

Complete waste of time. Ignored what I was told, I even had screenshots of my conversation with EE confirming the price for 24m, but still took their side. There was an immediate increase in price due to annual increases which I was not told about when I asked for price. So unfair.

Advisor Lewis contacted me, within 24 hours of the submission on the website and fully explained the process.

Surprisingly, the Ombudsman didn't have to proceed with the complaint, as having their intervention resulted in an offer from Three's Customer Solutions, within 2 days, acknowledging the extremely poor service and shortfalls experienced, from their Bereavement department, and importantly apologising, advising these issues would be addressed, and the assurance that they would make sure in the future no other grieving relative would go through the same. They recognised they had no way of putting a monetary value on what I had gone through, but offered £50 compensation, which I accepted, as it was more important to me that they acknowledged the failings, and others in the same situation did not receive the same poor treatment and service, at such a sensitive time.

A good outcome, especially as Three's Executive Office had declined to uphold or take on the complaint, insisting that they had done nothing wrong.

One thing to mention, I believe what helped this be a smooth process, was a good summary, timeline and evidence list.

Took Plusnet to the Communication Ombudsman after 3 months of dealing with 23+ different people, was provided with inaccurate information and given exaggerated stories by them all due to a switch from FFTC to FFTP.
All the Communication Ombudsman did was to tell me that Plusnet had handled my complaint properly and fairly. No mention of the stress caused, the time wasted and at times total inaccurate and dubious information supplied by Plusnet. I was awarded two months line rental which has been acknowledged by Plusnet but not paid yet.
In conclusion I wish I had not bothered to contact the Communications Ombudsman as I wasted time preparing my case and posting a large file case. I feel the Communication Ombudsman is a Tiger with no teeth.

Wish I had not have bothered to contact them or wasted several hours preparing and sharing information.

Apparently EE not addressing or even mentioning any of my complaints, and not being able to provide call recordings is all OK, as they just sent a letter referencing my Ombudsman Referral rights.

To the Ombudsman, that meant EE had handled my complaint properly and fairly. Strangely they did not consider EE's inability to provide call recordings in anyway 'odd'

They'll post the same generic response to this as they do to all other reviews. I rated 2 stars as the people I dealt with were at least courteous - unlike EE

Dont listen to your complaint and simply represent the supplier each time

The staff is very professional. The whole process is clear, hassle-free and efficient.

A total useless service that is not 'impartial' it is not 'unbiased ' and it does not treat consumers fairly. It is a circus of clowns without a ring master. This service is funded by providers. The hands that feed them. They have no power to change anything.They are toothless. Effectively like a temp agency, a providers complaints team that replaces in house complaints teams because many providers appear to now use this service as the default go to place to sort out 'all'complaints. How can a service like this simply accept a provider telling them,without any date evidence , that a customer service ,when clearly cut off, was not disrupted when the service was down for over a week??? I have witnesses to testify to this? Because the service is either biased or grossly incompetent. And the ombudsmans decision is "final." It can only be appealed with "new evidence". Customers don't get to see such blatant lies during the investigation, not that any investigations appear to takes place as case workers cherry pick what they want to use and ignore, this only came about when I requested all paperwork under the DPA. I have sent a further request to ask how much do providers pay to have a complaint dealt with? As this information was already available to the service ,and not questioned by the case worker, then my concerns are not deemed to be deemed as new evidence and the case remains closed? So even when blatant lies are uncovered which can affect the outcome, the ombudsman doesn't care. Is not accountable to anyone. So they can donas they want, decide what they want and no accountability?
The only answer is to email the CEOs with all complaints no matter what they are, as these should be audited and those at the top can't deny not knowing of customer issues. Customer Service is a waste of time and the complaint will then find itself to the right department anyway but this gives the CEO some work to do for the hugh salary and bonuses. Avoid the ombudsman service at all costs, they are pointless and a waste of time. This will starve it of cash so that ultimately this useless service will hopefully cease and a new more robust, fair and totally impartial and unbiased system can be introduced to replace it. I now await the standard copy and paste response with contact details and email address blah blah blah which serves what point exactly ? The case is closed . The tick a box exercise. Puppets to their paymasters. You can see from all the negative reviews already my treatment is the norm by this service. As for ofcom lol. Another absolute joke that 3 encourages incompence. Fines on companies are pointless and are paid for by customers anyway when prices are hiked by providers above inflation to pay for this. All sanctioned by the regulator as we have seen with water companies. Until the wages and bonuses of the CEO is hit and hit hard then ofcom is just a waste of space as are all regulators. Governments allowing providers to do what they want ,when they want with no punishment. Consumers will always pay for the service providers crime aided by ombudsmen and regulators . UPDATE. In response to your copy and pasted reply. You didn't help before so why would you help now? This response is evidence that this service really doesn't care doesn't even read the post. They set a system to pick reviews up and standard copy and paste response. Contemept towards consumers.

The overall process was not explained clearly. I gave all the factual information required, and then Focus Group decided to raise that there were more than ten employees in the care company, the Ombudsman decided that they could not help and suggested I go through the small claims court. I was acting as an advocate for my brother, who has learning difficulties and lives in supported living with 24 hour carers. They had been without a working phoneline for approx eight weeks, with staff having to use their own mobiles when ringing GP's or 999, so that people could ring them back. People with LD thrive on communication and Focus Group were denying them this. Eventually I did get a formal written apology and the residents received a £200 refund. This all took three months.

Despite seeking guidance multiple times on how to use the online Ombudsman submission system I got nothing. I was given less than 10 working days to the deadline for submission of evidence as it all occurred over the Christmas period. The handler I was allocated was unresponsive and I was still getting his “on leave until 5th Jan” message in the middle of Feb. I finally accepted the ombudsman’s decision not because I thought it was right but to put an end to the process and draw a line under what turned out to be a totally pointless waste of time.

They ordered O2 to refund charges as they continued charging after cancellation. They also ordered £100 compensation to be paid. I never received the compensation and O2 continued damaging my credit file and never refunded the charges. Essentially O2 just ignored the communication ombudsman. The worst part is the ombudsman did nothing about it! It's a complete waste of time if companies can completely ignore them with ZERO consequences. The Communication Ombudsman is a toothless waste of taxpayer money. I wasted hours of time going through everything while receiving sloppy AI generated responses from O2. Businesses are laughing at this place. Shut it down and stop wasting public money on it.