Unauthorised access of telco accounts

Providers have a responsibility to protect your telco account and personal information from unauthorised access and use.

Types of complaints about unauthorised or fraudulent account access

We deal with complaints about providers:

allowing unauthorised access to your telco account or personal information without taking proper care
allowing unauthorised purchases or swapping SIM cards without taking proper care

What you should expect from your provider: the law and industry practice

Providers should take reasonable steps to protect personal information

Providers should take reasonable steps to protect customer personal information from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification, or disclosure. If you believe your telco account and personal information has been accessed by a third party without your authorisation, you should contact your provider as soon as possible.

Providers should take proper care in processing purchases

Providers should take proper care to ensure that they are dealing with the account holder or their authorised representative. If you become aware of any orders or purchases that you did not authorise, you should contact your provider immediately. Your provider should act quickly to cancel the order or purchase.

Getting help

If you realise that your personal information has been stolen, or that you have been the victim of a scam or fraud, you should contact:

Your local police
IDCARE
Your provider

For information about unauthorised SIM swaps, see our SIM swaps guidance note for further advice.

Other guides for Privacy and safety

Tips to help consumers protect their telco account from fraudsters

Help for phone and internet consumers experiencing family violence

Threats, harassment and scams

We deal with complaints about providers not following the correct process to respond when their service was used to contact you with a bomb threat, a threat of serious injury or kidnapping, a threat to public safety or an extortion demand, and unwelcome calls. We also deal with complaints about providers granting third parties’ access to telecommunications accounts without authority. We cannot deal with complaints about fraudsters or scammers and their behaviour.

Privacy

We can help with your complaints about problems with a silent line. We also deal with complaints about how a provider has managed your personal information, such as your contact details or credit information.

We worked with Sparrow Net to improve its account security process

Complaint

Existing account security process was not always suitable for consumers who were experiencing family violence

Outcome

Improvement of account security processes to prevent consumer’s personal information being accessed or disclosed without authority

Internet

Mobile phone

Systemic investigation – Consumers could not report urgent complaints

Complaint

We identified an increase in urgent complaints from consumers who could not contact Mode Telco to report service issues

Outcome

Mode Telco redeployed staff from its retail outlets to contact centres and recruited new staff, after which, we observed a significant decrease in urgent complaints

Home phone

Internet

Mobile phone

This page was last updated on

23rd Nov 2021