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ACCAN has welcomed the transparency of data released this week by the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman which highlights a small year-on-year jump in complaints as well as the telling figure of 30% of consumers not being able to reach a resolution after it is referred to their telco.
ACCAN CEO Carol Bennett said, “consumers rely on mobile, internet and landline services for essential connectivity and the transparency provided by this report highlights much room for improvement in the management of consumer telco complaints.”
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The opinion piece below was written by ACCAN CEO Carol Bennett for the Canberra Times. It was originally published on 13 November 2024.
Australian consumers can be forgiven for feeling angry and disgusted at the behaviour of Australia's second-largest telco - Optus - for mis-selling products to vulnerable consumers.
Australia's consumer watchdog has launched court action alleging that Optus rorted consumers by pushing the sale of products they did not want, need or understand, and pursued many for debts resulting from these sales.
Read more: Internet and phone access can be a matter of life and death
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ACCAN has today welcomed the decisive action by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) in holding Optus to account and issuing a $12 million fine for risking the welfare of hundreds of consumers during the widespread outage of November 2023. This latest fine signals the need for the company and its new CEO, Steven Rue, to put consumers first in its business practices.
The ACMA has found that 2145 people attempted to reach Triple Zero services during the outage, which it described as ‘preventable’. Optus failed to follow up on the welfare of nearly 370 customers once the outage was resolved, as they are required to do.
ACCAN CEO Carol Bennett said, “We know that new rules which set standards for telco practices during outages are soon to come into effect. Thankfully, this may serve to prevent this occurring in future.”
Read more: Optus cops major Triple Zero fine, must now put consumers first