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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.

 

How we've helped other customers

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
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
This page was last updated on
23rd Nov 2021