Excess data charges complaints up by 27.2 per cent

IMAGINE being faced with a $36,225 bill for excess data you couldn’t possibly have downloaded. It happened to this Australian.

WE MAY be complaining less about our telcos but we’re certainly complaining with increased ferocity over different issues.

New figures show complaints to the telco ombudsman dropped by 12.4 per cent in the 2014 financial year to reach their lowest figure in six years. But that’s of little comfort to consumers who have wrung their hands over excess data charges — those complaints increased by a whopping 27.2 per cent in the 12 month period.

With smartphone ownership in Australia at 81 per cent, according to Deloitte, it’s easy to go data-happy. The ombudsman received 14,534 complaints in this area.

The ombudsman said it handled 56 cases where customers had disputed charges between $10,000 and $50,000. Seven complaints were about charges over $50,000 while the highest excess data charge disputed was for $76,103.

According to the ombudsman, one such case was a small-business owner named Celia who got hit with a $36,225 bill after she supposedly went over her 300 gigabyte allowance. Celia disputed the charges and was able to prove that no one was in the office on the weekends when the excess charges were accrued. The charges were waived.

The telco ombudsman still receives 550 new complaints every day.

Complaints related to global roaming were down by 35 per cent, with the median amount in dispute also decreasing to $800 from the $1200 of the previous period. However, according to the ombudsman, 53 cases involved disputes over $10,000. The largest dispute was a case in which a consumer’s phone was stolen while he was in Europe and got smacked with a $571,000 bill when he got home. Ouch.

There is some good news. Protests about mobile phone faults and poor coverage both roughly halved, global roaming complaints dropped by a third and customer service issues fell by a fifth.

It reflects the money telcos have poured into boosting infrastructure and the increasing focus on good customer service, said the Ombudsman, Simon Cohen.

But he said the telcos should boost data allowances to accommodate the rising demand for mobile internet.

“Consumers are using more data, they’re on faster networks, and they’re using speedier mobile devices,” Mr Cohen said, “So there’s a real risk of a gap between how much data consumers are using and how much data’s included in their plans.” Optus and Vodafone were the star performers, with overall new complaints dropping by about 47 per cent and 19 per cent, respectively.

Yet despite dropping complaint numbers, Mr Cohen said his office of 200 staff still fields an average of 550 new complaints each day, about half of which involve gripes about customer service. “We are still Australia’s busiest ombudsman.”

Originally published as Excess data charges complaints up by 27.2 per cent