Triple-zero outages and changes trigger more complaints
Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson |
Complaints about being cut off from emergency services have surged in Australia following the Optus triple-zero outage and the discovery of faulty mobile phone hardware.
The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman revealed the growing number of mobile phone complaints on Wednesday in a report that also showed a spike in concerns about internet outages and rising claims for compensation.
Social networks were also attracting more grievances from consumers, even though the ombudsman was not equipped to address them.
The findings come after Optus suffered an outage that affected triple-zero calls in four states and territories for almost 14 hours in September 2025, during which hundreds of emergency calls failed.
The spotlight on access to emergency services triggered a rise in complaints between October and December, ombudsman Cynthia Gebert said, both from consumers who experienced failures and those concerned about access to triple-zero.
Complaints to the ombudsman rose 3.6 per cent during the three months to more than 14,000, the report found, and more than 6000 of the complaints involved mobile services.
“The spotlight on triple-zero liability did encourage people to reach out and chat to us about their concerns,” she told AAP.
“Some of them were specifically from people who said they had attempted to call triple-zero but couldn’t get through and, because there was a focus on it, people reported failed calls that happened in months gone by.”
The discovery of a hardware problem in some older Samsung phones that prevented them from connecting to emergency services also caused confusion for consumers, Ms Gebert said, many of whom did not understand why their phones were being disconnected.
Almost 200 people lodged complaints about the issue and the report cites the example of an elderly man who sought help after his telco notified him it would disconnect his service.
After an intervention, the provider agreed to waive fees for six months.
The biggest rise in complaints involved faulty phone or internet services (up 41.6 per cent), and more than 1100 people sought compensation from providers for non-financial losses (up 13.8 per cent).
The top concern remained a lack of action or delayed fixes from providers, although complaints about financial hardship measures fell 19.2 per cent.
Digital platforms also inspired 20 per cent more reports to the ombudsman, even though the organisation was not equipped to handle disputes, Ms Gebert said.
Consumers and businesses lodged more than 700 complaints about online services during the three-month period, many of them about social media and email accounts that had been hacked or suspended.
“(Consumers) are hitting brick walls or they’re not actually get to speak with a human to explain why something’s happening, like an account ban,” she said.
“We’re calling on the government to fill that consumer protection gap.”
An Online Safety Act review recommended the creation of a digital ombudsman scheme to cover digital platform complaints, and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission issued a similar recommendation in its final Digital Platform Services report.
AAP