The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman has found that complaints it receives can generally be split into four categories, including advertising and point-of-sale information not always covering key terms.
Telco complaints figures are not always a good indicator of how widespread a problem can be, a new report released by the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) has said. In the TIO’s latest report, it revealed there were instances where a certain telco’s selling practice during a promotion had less than 100 complaints, but after conducting an investigation, it was recognised that the issue was actually widespread. In that instance, there were consumers who signed up with the telco during a promotion but they were not provided with credits that were promised to their account. Despite the TIO receiving less than 100 complaints about this problem, it was later found that this problem affected over 10,000 consumers — the credits owed totalled more than AU$1.4 million. Of the complaints it received over the past year, the TIO said most of the complaints could be split into four categories. The complaints were primarily about: Advertising and point-of-sale information that did not always cover key terms; online information about telco products and services being difficult to find and understand; telcos not always responsibly promoting or selling their products and services; and consumers sometimes unknowingly signing up for products or services they do not need. An example provided in the report of telcos’ point-of-sale information not covering key terms was a telco had advertised a « risk-free » trial period on its website despite use of telco’s equipment for the trial not being free. Several complaints were sent to the TIO regarding this trial as many consumers were left out of pocket for the cost of the equipment as the telco did not accept equipment returns.
