Ofcom fined Tismi £437,500 and marked its own case page 'Closed' on 21 October. The separate page meant to track the investigation still calls it ongoing.
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
In short. On 21 October 2026, Ofcom issued telecoms wholesaler Tismi a Confirmation Decision under section 96C of the Communications Act 2003 and a £437,500 fine, after finding it left roughly 366,000 sub-allocated numbers exposed to scammers for over two years [[1]][[2]]. Tismi's own case page now reads "Closed", case closed 21 October 2026 [[2]]. Ofcom's enforcement programme page, the single page built to list every case the programme has opened, was last updated 17 October 2025 and still says: "we have opened two investigations, into Tismi and Primo Dialler... these investigations are ongoing" [[3]]. The same fine announcement opened a fifth case, into Xtra Phones UK, the same day [[1]]; none of the programme's three most recent cases, opened across the past thirteen months, appears on the page meant to track them. Two documented mistakes: four stars.
Ofcom's enforcement programme into phone and text scams exists for one reason: to stop telecoms providers letting criminals buy up blocks of numbers and use them to run scam calls and texts. It is a real programme with real teeth, and on 21 October 2026 it produced a genuine result. Tismi, a wholesale number provider, was fined £437,500 for two years of letting that happen. The problem is not the enforcement. It is the page Ofcom itself built to let the public follow it.
A case Ofcom's own file calls closed
Tismi's dedicated case page, opened 18 October 2024 under the title "Investigation into Tismi's compliance with its obligations under the General Conditions of Entitlement (GCs)", now carries the status "Closed", with "Case opened 16 October 2024" and "Case closed 21 October 2026" stated directly beneath it [[2]]. The page's Confirmation Decision text is specific: Ofcom found Tismi "contravening General Conditions B1.6, B1.8 and B1.9(c) between at least 15 November 2022 and 1 January 2025", for failing to run due diligence checks on the customers it sub-allocated numbers to, failing to monitor for misuse afterwards, and having no formal process for handling misuse reports at all [[2]]. The separate announcement of the fine adds the scale: "approximately 366,000 sub-allocated numbers" exposed "to potential misuse... for over two years", and a £437,500 penalty that already includes "a 30% discount... given Tismi's admission of liability" [[1]]. Ofcom's Director of Enforcement, George Lusty, is quoted on the record: "There's no excuse for communications providers failing to put in the proper checks and balances to prevent numbers being misused" [[1]]. Ofcom had already issued Tismi a blocking direction in June 2025, which Tismi complied with, before this final decision closed the file [[1]]. None of this is disputed or unclear. The case-specific page was updated the same day to say so.
The page that is supposed to say the same thing does not
The enforcement programme's own summary page, case reference CW/01280/01/24, exists specifically to answer "how many cases has this programme opened, and where do they stand". Its most recent update, dated 17 October 2025, reads in full: "To date, we have opened two investigations, into Tismi and Primo Dialler, relating to the potential misuse of numbers. These investigations are ongoing and we will be updating our bulletin pages in due course" [[3]]. That sentence has not changed since 17 October 2025. It was already true that the page had not been updated when this site tested it on 10 October 2026 and found the programme's own tally undercounting the regulator's current enforcement activity. Twelve days after that, Ofcom closed one of the two cases this exact sentence names as "ongoing", with a published decision and a published fine. The programme page still says ongoing.
Primo Dialler is still open. A fifth case has joined the gap
Checked directly against Primo Dialler's own case page: it remains genuinely open, "Case opened 14 April 2025", no closure date given [[4]]. Half of the programme page's "two investigations, into Tismi and Primo Dialler" sentence is still accurate. The other half is not. And the same 21 October 2026 announcement that closed Tismi's case opened a new one: "Ofcom has also today opened a new investigation into Xtra Phones UK, relating to concerns that telephone numbers held by this company are being misused" [[1]], stated to fall "under our enforcement programme looking specifically at phone and text scams" [[1]]. That makes three cases opened since the programme page's last update that the page itself does not mention at all: Vonage Business Limited and Voxbone SA, both opened 24 September 2026 and already found missing from this page by this site's earlier teardown, and now Xtra Phones UK, opened the same day the page's only other factual claim about Tismi became false.
The claims, tested
| The programme page's own words (CW/01280/01/24, last updated 17 October 2025) | What the record shows | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| "To date, we have opened two investigations, into Tismi and Primo Dialler, relating to the potential misuse of numbers. These investigations are ongoing" [[3]] | Tismi's own case page: status "Closed", "Case closed 21 October 2026", following "a Confirmation Decision... for contravening General Conditions B1.6, B1.8 and B1.9(c)" and a £437,500 fine [[2]][[1]] | One of the two cases this page names as "ongoing" has in fact been closed with a published enforcement decision; the summary page has not been updated to reflect it |
| Same sentence: "we have opened two investigations" | The 21 October 2026 fine announcement itself opens a fifth case, Xtra Phones UK [[1]], on top of Vonage Business Limited and Voxbone SA, both opened 24 September 2026, already found absent from this page [[1]] | Three cases have opened since this page's last update, and it still names only the original two, one of which is now also wrong |
Credit where due
Primo Dialler's half of the sentence checks out: that case genuinely is still open, and the programme page is right about it. Tismi's own case-specific page, unlike the programme summary, was updated the same day the decision was made, correctly recording the closure, the legal basis and the fine. The enforcement action itself is substantial: a two-year pattern of exposing nearly 370,000 numbers to misuse, met with a blocking direction in 2025 and a published fine in 2026, is the programme doing what it says it exists to do. The fault documented here is entirely in how one summary page keeps up with the regulator's own case files, not in the underlying casework.
Verdict
Two documented mistakes, four stars. Ofcom ran a real investigation, found real failings and issued a real fine, and its own case-specific record shows every bit of that clearly. But the single page built to give the public a running count of this enforcement programme has not been updated in more than a year, and the one thing it still asserts about a named company is now provably false: Tismi's case is not ongoing. It was closed on 21 October 2026, with a decision the regulator published itself.
The star score counts two documented mistakes: (1) the enforcement programme page's claim that the Tismi investigation is "ongoing" is contradicted by Tismi's own case page, which records the case closed on 21 October 2026 with a Confirmation Decision and a £437,500 fine; (2) the same programme page's count of "two investigations" omits three cases opened since its last update (Vonage Business Limited and Voxbone SA, 24 September 2026, and Xtra Phones UK, 21 October 2026), none of which has been added to the page. Two falls in the 1 to 3 band: four stars; the bands are on the ratings page. This piece makes no finding about the competence of any named Ofcom official; the criticism is of how the regulator's own summary page does, and does not, keep pace with its own case files, not of any person's conduct. Checked directly against all four Ofcom pages cited below, each fetched 2 November 2026.
Sources
- Telecoms provider fined £437,500 for failing to prevent misuse of its phone numbers by scammers, Ofcom, published 21 October 2026
- Investigation into Tismi's compliance with its obligations under the General Conditions of Entitlement (GCs), Ofcom, published 18 October 2024, last updated 21 October 2026
- Enforcement programme into phone and text scams, Ofcom, case reference CW/01280/01/24, published 1 February 2024, last updated 17 October 2025
- Investigation into communications provider Primo Dialler on whether they have failed to comply with obligations under General Condition B1, Ofcom, published 14 April 2025