Communications Ombudsman Reviews 

The whole experience has been a pleasure and restored my faith in human kindness. I honestly cannot thank them enough for all they're done.

Just poor all round

Waste of time. Left me distressed as I had to relive the way I’d been dealt with by the provider. Thought they’d be like a beacon of hope. Instead I felt helpless.

Always side with the company your complaining about. Biased. Stupid thresholds to uphold your complaint.
Didnt understand or wasnt bothered my mental health. Pointless waste of time

Everything about this process is awful. Template is dreadful, can only complain about their preconceived options and only one of them. A total waste of time, for example how can you load 25+ emails onto a template, they can be forwarded with 2 clicks as emails but not to Ombudsman. Then they tell you Openreach is exempt from the process so no phone signal no internet = fine by me!!!
Ombudsman is a waste of space.

Excellent advice, support and service.

Absolute waste of time. Did not address my concerns. Considering they are a ‘communication’ ombudsman they never communicate with you during your case.
It’s a ridiculous organisation that serves zero purpose ! Do not waste your time or effort.

This Ombudsman is obviously biased. They assume everything the company tells them is true even without evidence but they reject the customer's complaint on the basis there is no 'evidence' even though they had email chains where I referred to a key phone call took place and BT replied multiple times. They deliberatly ignored these emails so that they could side with BT.

BT also have recordings of my phone calls and they reviewed these when looking at my complaint. Then just because they withheld them from the regulator, the regulator said there was no evidence the call happened. Like someone else says on here they're worse than the company themselves!

When I provided evidence via a phone bill they said it was too late. I was wondering how BT had the nerve to changed the narrative as soon as I said I was going to the regulator - they previously admitted they were at fault but then said they didn't accept responsibility. Now that I know how the Ombudsman works, this all makes sense.

My case handler was Maria she was awful and so was her manager.

This organisation is not resourced to cope with complex or long term complaints. Do not waste your time.

UPDATE: 2 Feb 2026
Thank you for your reply:
My review isn’t about impartiality or whether the decision was explained — it was. The issue is that in my case a fault persisted for over five years, was accepted by all parties, and yet the outcome focused on whether the provider followed the same process each time, even though that process repeatedly failed.
As the saying goes, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” That’s exactly how this felt.
If a company can deliver the same poor outcome for years and still be judged to have acted reasonably because it followed process, then complex, long-term complaints are effectively unsolvable. That’s the limitation my review highlights.

Web site appalling, difficult to navigate, communication even worse - interpersonal skills of staff on the phone non existent, monosyllabic tone of voice.
Very quick to point out what they can't do and nothing positive about what they can do
This was an issue about a major communication company giving unhelpful, false information and expectations about planned maintenance to mobile services and the company concerned failing to provide adequate resilience in their service to ensure their customers suffered the minimum of outage
Abysmal experience

Superb communication and engagement with my case. I dealt with the same person throughout and he was knowledgeable and fair.

This ombudsman is worse than the company that I'm complaining about! Why bother!

My complaint was that Virgin Media, as a condition for reducing a substantial increase in my monthly TV & wi-fi contract, said that a SIM card would be included in the deal that 'Won't cost you anything'. And it didn't - for six months, until the bills started arriving from their sister-company O2. I had put the SIM card into the bin when it arrived, so it hadn't been used, but despite many calls to O2 explaining the mis-selling by Virgin and the SIM never having been used, the bills kept coming and eventually the threat of legal action and a black mark on my credit rating. So I went to the Ombudsman for help - and they did subsequently negotiate a settlement, but they did it through O2 and completely ignored the initial mis-selling aspect of the Virgin Media offer. So the problem was resolved, but with nothing to stop Virgin Media continuing to adopt this mis-selling procedure in the future.

I reported my dispute after 8wks of being stonewalled by the company & within weeks of my case being accepted had a resolution sorted.

Still in the process but I can't fault the Ombudsman. Professional & a friendly website where you can track your claim & you can actually speak to someone on the phone.

Three wouldn't acknowledge the issue regarding a return at the end of contract.
Demanding money and threatening collections for something we didn't have. Their communication with me and amongst themselves was awful.
The ombudsman got us the rightful outcome and saved me the £105 three was trying to take from me for no fault of my own.
All I will say is. If you do use the service then be prepared by collecting every peice of communication with your isp/phone provider as you'll need it.

Felt my experience as an autistic woman was completely minimised but sadly very used to this being the case.

My case worker was extremely helpful and the timeline for the process was met. This was a last resort as Virgin Media customer service had been uncommunicative and had refused to engage with their own procedures. As the facts of my case weren't disputed the claim went in my favour.

The initial call seemed positive but the process took a long time even though I supplied plenty of evidence.
The case was handled by 2 operatives, the second of which said I had to sort out the problem hiring an electrician. After weeks of waiting.
The final conclusion was for the company to pay me £30 for inconvenience. I am still waiting for the refund but they have not checked that I am satisfied. I still have another 12 months of my contract to run and feel very let down by both the ombudsman and Trooli.

Simple process to follow. Good initial call and feedback online. All completed within the expected timeframe.
I did feel I had a rock-solid case with evidence to support it. If you don't keep every shred of evidence (screenshots, emails, chat logs) then you could be very frustrated by this process as it will come down to "I said: they said" ... and you won't get a decent resolution