Dana is the manager of Legal Aid NSW's Consumer Law practice group. She helps the most vulnerable people in NSW access their consumer protection rights in credit, insurance and general consumer protection matters.
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Between 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2024, the TIO received 51,854 phone and internet complaints from consumers living in regional, rural and remote Australia about faults, poor service quality, poor mobile service coverage, outages and accessibility barriers.
Regional consumers told the TIO that faults and service problems can take longer to be resolved in regional locations. In some cases, a regional customer may report faults over several years without any lasting improvements to their services.
Our submission to the Joint Standing Committee’s Inquiry into the business case for the NBN and experiences of small businesses can be found here.
By Ombudsman Cynthia Gebert
In effect from 1 July 2025
The TIO expects providers to treat victim survivors of domestic and family violence with care and sensitivity.
Victim survivors may face more challenges than others navigating their safety, finances and essential services, including phone and internet. It is critical that providers meet the needs of each individual victim survivor.
When something goes wrong with your phone and internet services, it can disrupt your life or business and result in losing money.
The most common complaints involving compensation claims are about poor mobile coverage issues, phone or internet service quality issues or outages.
We look at compensation claims for:
- business loss
- loss of income
- costs of alternative services
- inconvenience.
When handling complaints involving claims for compensation, we may ask you or your provider for more information. This could include:
Between January and December 2018, residential consumers and small businesses made 1,729 complaints to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman about misleading conduct involving services delivered over the NBN.
The investigation into misleading telemarketing practices found high pressure sales tactics are being used to commit consumers and small businesses to phone and internet contracts they don’t want, don’t need, or can’t afford. The impact of these tactics is particularly felt by some older consumers who don’t use the internet at home.
Our submission to the ACMA's consultation Artificial Intelligence in communications and media is available to download here