Mount Isa locals put on Optus payment plans without knowing, ACCC says

Optus is being taken to court by the ACCC for allegedly signing unemployed, disabled and ‘vulnerable’ Mount Isa customers onto excessive and incorrect payment plans.

Optus chased 42 Mount Isa customers for debts, despite senior management knowing the loans had been fraudulently created by a staff member, ACCC alleges. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

Optus is being taken to court by the ACCC for allegedly signing unemployed, disabled and ‘vulnerable’ Mount Isa customers onto excessive and incorrect payment plans.

The consumer watchdog filed a 347-page statement of claims against Optus on Tuesday, December 10, detailing behaviour which mainly occured at two licensee-operated stores in Darwin and an Optus store in Mount Isa.

This behaviour includes Darwin staff selling phones to people without checking if they had Optus coverage where they lived - despite many of the 363 affected Darwin customers being Indigenous Australians from “remote and very remote” parts of the NT which had no Optus coverage.

In regards to the Mount Isa store, the ACCC alleges Optus chased 42 customers for debts that were fraudulently created by a staff member.

“Optus acted unconscionably by pursuing debts for at least 42 consumers from Mount Isa,” an ACCC spokesperson said.

“(This is) despite some senior executives knowing that those debts related to contracts for goods and services were fraudulently created by a staff member... without the knowledge of the affected customers.”

LIFELINE: The ACCC has taken Optus to court for inappropriate sales conduct and debt collection conduct towards customers from 2018 to 2023 - the majority of which were Indigenous Australians. Picture: Brendan Radke

The Mount Isa store has since closed.

According to the ACCC, an additional 24 customers from other Optus stores across Australia were also affected by inappropriate sales conduct.

The ACCC alleges Optus sales staff manipulated credit check results so they could put customers on payment plans they could not afford, failed to explain the terms and conditions of contracts, and applied “undue pressure” on customers to buy more than they needed.

ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said this behaviour among Optus staff was incentivised by the commission-based remuneration wage system.

Lawyers for Optus and the ACCC will reappear on May 5, 2025, for a case management hearing in Adelaide.

The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman welcomed the court proceedings after their investigations in 2022 and 2024 identified the concerning sales practices

Originally published as Mount Isa locals put on Optus payment plans without knowing, ACCC says