Norwegian telecoms company Telenor has resolved to pay back around 1.36m kroner Norwegian viewers spent on voting for their favourites in last Saturday's Eurovision Song Contest final.
Information chief Elisabeth Evjen stated that the company did not want customers to have the burden of paying for votes that were not counted. Instead, the charges would either not be debited from customers' bills, or the costs would be credited back to them if already charged.
Telenor had suggested that the votes disappeared via a German operator, but consumer groups had put pressure on the company to take responsibility for the fault. Spokesperson for the Consumer Council, Hans Marius Graasvold, explained that "for the consumers, it is Telenor who they bought a service from", adding that consumers should not have to turn to sub-companies in the process. He also suggested that Telenor could be more liberal in its reparations, perhaps offering a 10% reduction from customers' next telephone bill.
In any case, customers will not lose out thanks to Telenor's announcement, although the biggest loser may be Bosnia-Herzegovina, who allegedly lost out on an eighth place due to the use of the jury vote and note the televoting results.
