DIGICEL Accuses LIME Of Unfairly Charging Consumers

ROSEAU, Dominica CMC – The Irish-based telecommunications company, Digicel, has called on the National Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (NTRC) to investigation allegations that consumers were being unfairly charged for calls to certain numbers on the network operated by the British telecommunications giant, LIME.

In a statement, Digicel said, in November last year, it had detected unusual calling patterns to LIME numbers across 12 of the network’s Caribbean markets and launched an investigation, which discovered that consumers may be improperly charged for calls to certain LIME numbers.

“Despite persistent efforts to work with LIME to rectify the situation and multiple assurances from LIME that the situation has been corrected, Digicel continues to find intermittent examples of the issue continuing in various LIME markets in the Caribbean.

“As such, Digicel has lost confidence in LIME’s assurances that the issue has been resolved and customer’s credit is no longer being taken in error,” the Irish company said in the statement.

Digicel said it was now turning to the regulator here “in order to protect the rights and purse strings of mobile customers” and that it is requesting NTRC “launch an investigation into the matter and move to ensure the problem is solved and bring an end to the improper charging for calls to certain LIME numbers”.

Digicel said it was also requesting NTRC to ensure a mechanism is established whereby LIME is required to compensate consumers that have been affected by LIME.

“As a customer champion, we are duty bound to ensure that the rights of consumers are protected,” Digicel Dominica chief executive officer Richard Stanton said.

“We have tried over the course of many months to work with LIME to rectify this issue, but our requests have largely fallen on deaf ears. As such, we have no other choice but to ask the regulator to intervene as quickly as possible so that we can ensure that customers’ credit is safe,” Stanton added.

LIME has said it would issue a statement in response to the accusations.