Australia - A dreadful year for complaints against telcos by customers, especially on innacurate advice

[it wire] The peak telecoms consumer body in Australia says the latest Telecomunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) report reveals another "dreadful year" for telco customers, with complaints still near all time highs. Of particular concern is a ballooning number of complaints from customers who have been given inaccurate advice.

Over the 2009/2010 period, complaints decreased marginally by about 5% but still hit a massive 167,955 complaints for the year, a far cry from the less than 100,000 achieved 2005.

Peak communications consumer body, the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN), described the number of complaints as unacceptably high and says that it's a long road back to the 2005 benchmark year.

According to the TIO report, issues remain with cases about incorrect or inadequate advice increasing more than 41% for internet services, 27% for landline services and 59% for mobile services. Complaints about telephone or internet companies failing to act on customer requests remain high.

Other areas of concern were financial over-commitment and credit management.

“Across every service type – landline, mobile and internet – we are seeing issues about financial over commitment increase,” Ombudsman Simon Cohen said. “Part of the reason for this is so-called “bill shock”, where consumers receiving unexpectedly high bills, often after large downloads to mobile devices such as smart phones or incurring unexpected global roaming charges.”

Issues about credit management have also increased in 2009-10. This includes disputes about disconnections of services, credit default listings and payment arrangements.

“Telecommunications are an essential service,” Mr Cohen said. “Complaints about financial over-commitment take on a real significance if they result in reduced or no access to a phone and internet. There are steps telephone and internet companies can take to help customers avoid unexpectedly high bills and debt problems.”

To make matters worse, ACCAN says these complaints represent just the tip of the iceberg, with recent Galaxy research finding just 7% of people who are dissatisfied with their telco’s response to a complaint go to the Ombudsman for help, with around a third unaware that the TIO exists.

ACCAN is calling for information about the TIO to be made mandatory on all telecommunications bills and for a complaint-handling standard to be introduced.

“These figures tell us that people are not happy with telcos’ customer service and complaint handling processes,” said ACCAN Chief Executive Teresa Corbin.

“We need to make people aware that the TIO is there to help and has a good track record in resolving disputes between telcos and customers.”

The consumer group says a 70.5% drop in TIO complaints about mobile premium services (MPS) is evidence that the decisive regulatory action taken by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) 12 months ago has worked.

But ACCAN says the next challenges for the regulator and the industry are bill shock and credit management issues, which are rapidly increasing, according to the report.

“Right now the fastest-growing problem area is bill shock from smart phones, in particular excess data and global roaming charges. Regulation has to keep pace with technological developments.”

“Consumers need the ACMA to act now to curb bill shock and credit management issues before they end up spiralling out of control in the same way mobile premium services did five years ago,” said Ms Corbin.

2010 a shocker for ill-advised telco consumers says TIO report