Hallon's chatbot said phone support didn't exist — a Swedish court fined the answer

Hallon, the budget mobile operator owned by Tre, routes customers to an AI chatbot for help. Asked about contact options, the bot told customers that Hallon 'does not offer customer service via telephone'. That was wrong — a phone number was listed in the company's own general terms and conditions.

The Consumer Ombudsman took the case to court, and on 1 April 2026 the Patent and Market Court (PMT 13029-25) found the chatbot's statement misleading. The harm was not just a wrong answer: told that phone support did not exist, consumers might refrain from exercising their rights — cancelling a subscription, for instance, or disputing an invoice.

The court prohibited Hallon from using the statement or similar wording, backed by a conditional fine of SEK 500,000. It dismissed the Ombudsman's further demand — an order to display the phone number on the website — ruling that was not essential information. The shape of the judgment is the point: the operator answers for what its chatbot tells customers.