Record number of RTR conciliation proceedings: 50% increase brings total to 5.226 proceedings in 2008

Press release dated 28 April 2009

“In 2008, the RTR conciliation board recorded, with 5.226 proceedings, an about 50% plus as compared with 2007, an all time high,” Dr. Georg Serentschy, managing director of the RTR-GmbH communications department, presents figures from the most recent litigation conciliation report. “Adding another 2.273 inquiries received in writing and 6.953 telephone requests for advice answered, we dealt with almost 15.000 customer queries during the past year.

Complaints regarding problems with contracts rose beyond proportions

An increased number of complaints was addressed to almost all operators, and the major part of the proceedings concerned mobile telecommunication operators. Litigations regarding fees dominated in the year under review. “Our statistics on complaints also reflect the booming demand for mobile internet. Close to 700 proceedings were complaints regarding mobile internet access because the download volume had been exceeded", explains the managing director further figures of the litigation conciliation report. “There were also sporadic complaints on so-called “shocking bills', resulting from the use of data roaming - which may result in extremely high billing within very short periods of time. We were able to notice that the mobile communication operators are already taking countermeasures in this regard. A number of operators for example block roaming or require customers to deliberately activate any use of such services.

The highest increase of 180% was registered for proceedings concerning contract problems – this bracket included a total of 1.335 proceedings. In these cases, the dispute mostly was as to whether a legally binding contract had come into existence at all.

In the year under review, the regulatory authority’s conciliation board finalized a total of 4.744 proceedings, in more than 47% of the cases it was possible to arrive at an agreement among the parties. In 2008, the conciliation panel secured rights in an amount of EUR 270,000.- EUR.

The RTR conciliation panel is in charge of handling final customer claims. The conciliation of litigations report can be downloaded from the web site of RTR-GmbH under the following link: