www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Telecom New Zealand has admitted that it breached the Fair Trading Act as it mislead more than 130,000 broadband customers. The admission was made in a settlement with the Commerce Commission.

A broadband internet service was launched by Telecom NZ in 1999, offering its existing dial-up customers the opportunity to migrate to broadband, although these customers would continue to have a dial-up connection, but would not be charged. But customers who took up the offer between 1999 and 2006 continued to be billed monthly account charges for dial-up due to some administrative errors.

After admitting the breach of Fair Trading Act, from March 2007 Telecom began refunding the affected customers and writing to all those customers to advise them of the error. The company extended full co-operation in the investigation carried out by Commission. It also undertook a costly internal exercise to refund all affected customers.

It is not for the first time that the company has been acted in breach of the Fair Trading Act. Since 2003 Telecom has been the subject of Fair Trading Act convictions, settlements or warnings on at least eight occasions. The Commission encouraged Telecom to make compliance with the Act a top priority.