Phone and internet complaints increase

THE AUSSIE Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman is upset that so many complaints against telcos are ending up in her office.

The ombudsman, Deirdre O'Donnell, said many of the disputes could easily have been resolved by the companies but they were deciding to be tossers about problems instead.

O'Donnell said that the big increase could be attributed in part to the growth and corresponding complexity of new technology. However most of the complaints are over basic customer care.

Punters are being given the runaround through multiple transfers and hold queues, or failing to respond to simple inquiries, she said.

One of the telcos, Telstra had more than 50,000 complaints against it in the past year. Its rival Optus had less than half that.

Telstra said that the comparison was not fair because it had a huge pendulous market share which means that it would get most of the complaints anyway. Of course, if it was good to its punters, market share should not make a blind bit of difference.

A much smaller company, Dodo, was also notable for its high number of complaints, almost 6,000 disputes recorded over the past year.

Dodo was also fined a record $147,400 by the Australian Communications and Media Authority for ringing people up and annoying them.

O’Donnell said that more than 150,000 disputes were handled in 2007-08, a 50 per cent increase on the previous year.

More than 17,000 consumers entering into disputes with their provider over threatened or completed disconnections.

She was particularly miffed about an increase of more than 60 per cent in the number of complaints involving landline services. It seems that while landline use was falling the number of complaints was rocketing. µ

L'Inq
Sydney Morning Herald