Telcos face criticism for not assisting customers facing hardship

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The nation's telcos are being called out for failing customers who are doing it tough. Some users have told the industry watchdog they're skipping essentials to stay connected, or they've been turned away when asking for help with their phone and internet bills. Telco industry ombudsman, Cynthia Gebert says customers need to be better informed of their rights.

Transcript

00:00Telcos are meant to proactively look and see whether consumers are experiencing difficulty

00:07and then offer things like a payment extension, but a tailored response that works for the

00:13human. There's opportunities and there's obligations around looking at waiving bills,

00:17connecting in with financial counsellors and things like that, but we saw terrible examples

00:21of people who were proactively reaching out for help, knowing that they had an upcoming

00:25expense and they just needed a short-term extension, being told, no, you need to get

00:29into more trouble before we can help you. And then other people who did reach out, reached

00:34an agreement with their telco and still had full direct debited, amounts direct debited,

00:39which meant that they were then, their dollars had to stretch much, much further when there

00:44were unexpected expenses like cars and then you're balancing rent, you're balancing food,

00:48those sorts of things, when you're trying to just exercise your right to get some help.

00:52A lot of the telcos are doing the right thing and trying hard to work with customers, but

00:57we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg. And that's what makes us a bit concerned. We are only

01:01seeing such a small volume of people who need help and we really are calling on the telco

01:07industry to make sure they're working really effectively with their consumers because there

01:12will be marginalised or vulnerable communities who don't know of their right to get help.

01:16And if they hit barriers as soon as they try and reach out for help, they're not going to get a

01:20trusted ongoing relationship with their telco.

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