Complaints we can and can't take

We can deal with most complaints from residential and small business customers about your landline telephone, mobile or internet service. You must have tried to resolve the issue with your provider before we will deal with your complaint.

Who we can help

We only deal with complaints from residential and small business customers.

To decide whether a business is small, we consider its turnover, employee numbers, structure, and nature, as well as what your complaint is about.

  • No more than 20 full-time employees. We will take into account if employees are permanent, casual, and if employment is seasonal or voluntary, and    
  • Up to $3,000,000 annual turnover.    

Please contact us if you’re unsure if we can help.

To make a complaint, you must be either an account holder or authorised by the account holder to deal with the matter. You can authorise someone to talk to us on your behalf using these forms:

The age of your complaint

We deal with complaints about things that happened, or that you became aware of, within the last two years. We may still be able to help with complaints that are up to six years old, depending on the reason for the delay. Contact us if you’re unsure if we can help.

The value of your complaint

We can help resolve complaints that involve more than $100,000. However, we can only make binding decisions about amounts up to $50,000 or recommendations about amounts up to $100,000. If your dispute is about larger amounts, you may wish to speak to a lawyer.

Issues we help with

Below are examples of issues we can and can’t deal with. If you’re not sure if we can deal with your complaint, contact us. If we can’t help, we’ll refer you to someone who can.

Landline, mobile and internet services

We can help with:

  • contracts
  • connecting or transferring services
  • SIM unlocking fees
  • faults, dropouts and poor coverage
  • mass service disruptions
  • billing mistakes
  • billing and supply of mobile premium services
  • debt collection
  • National Broadband Network (NBN) services
  • some issues with ‘bundled’ services
  • missed technician appointments
  • some issues involving financial hardship

We can’t help with:

  • what services a provider does or doesn’t offer
  • ADSL or NBN services not being available to you because there is no infrastructure
  • the rates a provider charges
  • the content of services including smartphone applications, premium services, all internet sites and TV
  • anti-competitive business practices

Payphones, phone cards, TV, domain names, public mobile radio, White and Yellow pages, operator services and directory assistance

We can help with:

  • some payphone issues
  • operator services
  • phone cards
  • internet Pay TV
  • public mobile radio network
  • White Pages listings
  • directory assistance

We can’t help with:

  • the number of payphones or where they are
  • technical problems with your TV
  • website domain names
  • Yellow Pages and other business directories

Land and property

We can look at:

  • carriers using your land
  • some damage to property or telecommunications infrastructure issues

We can’t look at:

  • complaints from contractors, unless they have exclusive rights to the land

Spam and telemarketing

We can look at:

  • spam and telemarketing from your provider

We can’t look at:

  • telemarketing and spam from a third party
  • the Do Not Call Register

Privacy

We can look at:

  • your provider or its representative interfering with your privacy

We can’t look at:

  • your provider monitoring calls for training purposes, to record verbal contracts, as part of network maintenance, or to protect a network from improper use

Compensation

We can look at:

  • some compensation claims for loss of small business profits

We can’t look at:

  • compensation for time spent resolving a complaint