The Scream Discussion Forum is reporting on their website that Oxygen8 Communications is a new company established to buy-out Opera Telecom. The BU family may recall that Opera Telecom (UK based) was a company which was allowed to operate freely a game of chance in Barbados despite having been fined for regulatory violations in the United Kingdom. BU family member Adrian Loveridge was proactive and persistent in his effort to expose the Opera Telecom issue to Barbadians. We should highlight that CBC TV and the Nation Newspaper participated in the Opera Telecom scam by not publishing results of draws in a timely manner. We appreciate Adrian Loveridge’s public spiritedness.
A search of BU using the key words Opera Telecom should throw-up several blogs about the Opera Telecom affair. Our sources tell us that the management buy-out of Opera Telecom by Oxygen 8 is probably “a name change exercise and a rearrangement of the deckchairs but you would have to make your own minds up about that.” The reason for the name change/buy-out is suspected to be as a result of the many CUSTOMER complaints during “2008/9 which forced the ‘Regulators’ to clamp down in the international markets where they operated e.g. UK, Ireland, Australia, US, Turkey etc.”
What we found unacceptable about the handling of the Opera Telecom affair in Barbados was the disinterest which the local Fair Trading Commission (FTC) exercised in the matter. Last time we checked the FTC is suppose to be a watchdog agency mandated by law to pursue customer complaints to ensure fair market practices are at play. It was only after repeated prodding by Adrian Loveridge that a response was received from that government department.
The BU household empathized at the time with Adrian. The single-handed approach by him to blow the whistle on the Opera Telecom scam in Barbados exposed a few glaring inadequacies. The FTC appears to be a bureaucratic monster unable to respond easily to consumer concerns. ALL the Barbados Consumer Organizations continue to fearlessly demonstrate a lack of appetite to pursue causes in the interest of the PEOPLE. It is always left to the Adrian Loveridges, Chris Halsalls, Roosevelt Kings, Douglas Skeetes, et al to step forward.
Barbados regulators, consumer organizations and citizens alike should take note of the following: “as a result of the acquisition, Oxygen8 Communications now operates international interactive services in 36 markets worldwide and is directly connected in 33 countries. It now has unprecedented access to the English speaking world (The English Caribbean alone adding 7.5 million people) and an increasing penetration of the Hispanic market.”
Given the history of Opera Telecom in the recent past to wantonly engage in non-compliance, and giving regard for the information received that Oxygen8 Communications may represent a name change only, Barbadians MUST exercise vigilance to ensure that their interest is protected. We hope that the agencies which have been established to protect the rights of citizens may start to do so with ZEAL in the not too distant future.
What else can we say about our consumer organizations?
Barbados Underground 
A boring topic we know but one which smacks at the root of our problem when dealing with our regulators of the Utility Companies, one of indifference?