Complaints for phone and internet services have jumped by almost 10 per cent as the fallout from Optus’ September breach inflates complaint numbers.
According to the latest Complaints Report from the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, complaints jumped 9.9 per cent across the board, with 17,903 complaints for the period.
Gripes about the unauthorised release of personal information made up 11 per cent of complaints, with stress over the possible disclosure of sensitive data adding an extra 6 per cent to that total.
Complaints about Optus jumped 39.3 per cent to 6,436 grievances, making up 36 per cent of the total.
“Privacy and the unauthorised disclosure of personal information are not the only issues for consumers,” said TIO’s Cynthia Gebert.
“We’re also handling an increased number of complaints from Optus customers about disputed termination fees, customer service problems and failing to cancel a mobile service.”
Despite the massive breach, Telstra still copped more gripes for the quarter, with 6,819 – or 38 per cent of the total.
iiNet also saw a huge leap in complaint, up 20.8 per cent for the quarter, as did Vodafone (5.8 per cent) and TPG (4.2 per cent).
In a sign of a shifting population, landline complaints dropped by more than 20 per cent, to just 974.
“We began to see the impact of the Optus data breach on our mobile complaint issues at the end of the previous quarter, but the complaints from this period of October to December really highlight the problems people are experiencing because of the breach,” said Gebert.
“We’re continuing to work closely with Optus to ensure consistent approaches are being taken to resolving complaints so that people can get a fair and reasonable outcome and we have adapted how we work to handle the higher volume of complaints we received.”
