Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman Reviews 47

A TIO which refuses to acknowledge that its own FOA documentation contains provable factual inaccuracies, misrepresents customer service experience / concerns and omits outstanding, evidence based concerns - is a TIO which as a result of its lack of integrity is by default an organisation which serves the very corporations we seek to hold accountable.

Telstra clearly says on their website that activating a SIM is just a few simple steps and you can keep your phone number. That is clearly false advertising and the ombudsman is clearly their ombudsman. They are giving Telstra two weeks to do what their website promised was a simple process. In the meantime, I have no phone and their ombudsman is turning a blind eye to what is a breach of advertising law. I bet they wouldnt sit on their hands if it was their own phone! Less woke nonsense, more doing your actual role!

TIO IS INCOMPETENT!

I submitted a complaint and they did not even read my complaint. They tried to resolve a complaint that had nothing to do what I said. When I explained the complaint to the TIO investigator (Brian) he did not want to understand it and made an excuse and closed the case in favour of Optus! Why does the TIO exist if they cannot resolve this complaint?

The TIO did not get around to dealing with my complaint due to a complaints backlog. The fact that there is a backlog indicates how poor the telecommunications industry is at customer service. The TPG group (TPG, iinet, Lebara, Vodafone) perform particularly badly as evidenced in the ACMA telco-complaints-handling-performance report (google it).

In the end my privacy complaint was resolved by "default" as iinet closed my NBN account without me having to provide photo id over the internet (the outcome I was looking for) as I had canceled my credit card so they couldn't continue to charge me. I had canceled in writing, but they wanted photo id to be provided over the internet for verification. I wouldn't provide it for cyber security reasons. In reality, iinet owed me just under a month's fee (paid in advance), but I let that go mainly to avoid giving them my bank details to facilitate a refund. Based on other customer reviews, I had reason not to trust iinet not to debit my account instead of crediting it.

Something I did not realize until reading other reviews on this site is that the TIO is not a government agency but has been setup and is funded by the telecommunications industry to avoid government oversight. I now realize, that the TIO would not have been interested in my complaint as it mainly involved a breach of the Privacy Act (the use of coercion through threats of on-going charges, damage to credit rating and the use of collection agencies in order to collect sensitive information - photo ID). There is no way they would have adjudicated against iinet as it would have forced iinet to update their cancellation process. I did wonder why the iinet personal showed zero concern when I mentioned the TIO. one iinet rep spate out "Do it, Do it" when I mentioned I would complain to the TIO - now I understand why - he knew nothing would happen.

I will look to take this up with the ACMA instead.

The actual People I have delt with here are good people working hard with no weapons to actually fight Evil Corp. They also have their hands tied behind their back for the most part. The office of the TIO itsself is a biased toothless tiger simply allowing Evil Corp to continue to lie and rip off the public. Not to mention TOTALLY UNDERSTAFFED. I have waited NINE WEEKS now and still have not had the TIO even look into my case. 9 weeks of being cheated and lied to without any action from the TIO should say it all.

Absolutely useless, justlike fair trading. They only thing theyre good for is stealing money from the hardworking taxpayer. Typical of anything to do with brain dead wasteful govts who couldnt even govern themselves.

Hopeless, scared when it comes to taking on the bigger companies, very bias towards the applicant, always sides with the big telcos because they pay there income

Waste of time, spent ages on the phone explaining the problems i had had with Virgin media only for the ombudsman to completely ignore two of the main issues namely the ongoing problem with misinformation by nearly every ’customer service’ employee and my request for how the original error (them disconnecting me in error) had been allowed to occur. Last time i bother using this ’service’, does not feel
Impartial in any sense of the word.

TIO don’t do anything for my complaints.
This organization not effective.

I recently left the deplorable Plusnet service. I joined Now. Plusnet tried every dirty trick to rip me off and bully me to stay with them. They tried to take £59.52 which I did not owe them, via direct debit. They held onto the telephone line for a full 14 days after it should have transferred to Now.

Beverley xxxx of the Communication Ombudsman given irrefutable evidence of the skullduggery of Plusnet. They even admit it on emails I have provided to the Ombudsman. Yet this Person at the Ombudsman say no case to answer.

In my view this is a black and white case. So either Beverley xxxx is incompetent or worse. I see clearly with all the other people on this review site the Ombudsman is a waste of time. Smells of incompetence and corruption.

Jerome Chapman, Dan McCormack and Robert should all be fired from their positions.

Lodged a complaint against Optus and Dan McCormack refused to acknowledge the supplied evidence of a phone contract and a screenshot of Optus admitting I was involved in the data breach last year. He provided a recommended outcome which denied I had been charged incorrectly for a phone plan and that I had my account flagged in the data breach. Emails back and forth show he refused to acknowledge this and his ‘outcome’ was final. It was then escalated to Jerome Chapman who also refused to acknowledge the supplied evidence and sided with Dan that Optus had done nothing wrong.

I have followed up with several complaints of which none have been acknowledged or responded to which just shows us this is a rodeo ran by a bunch of clowns.

So let’s ask the TIO to release their financial statements and see how much these companies are paying to be favoured with.

Total waste of time, they are useless. An upgrade was carried out on 86 Yr old mother's mobile phone contract fraudulently. Contacted ombudsman and they did not look.into the fraud and blatantly ignored our requests to investigate . No correspondence was sent to my mother regarding an upgrade , no terms and conditions no notification of upgrade so she didn't have an opportunity to cancel it as she didn't know anything about it but the ombudsman decided that there was no case to answer. Would give them 0 stars . Total waste of time.

A toothless tiger that doesn't seem interested in issues within the telecommunications industry.
We need an ombudsman that actually works for the consumer rather than accepting the telco's operating model.

What a useless waste of money.

Everyone is under the illusion that the TIO Ombudsman is independent well they are not. They are paid by the providers of the services which you complain about. Don't expect any service. They request evidence regarding your complaint after you cease dealing with a provider. It is highly unlikely you would keep logs of calls and chats and speed tests etc. which now they are asking for. Therefore it is a waste of time going to the TIO Ombudsman.

You cannot trust the TIO, they are funded by the Telcos and are too close to them. ACMA who should be managing, refuse to.



They mislead you and do not follow their own guidelines on harassment and promise to investigate & do not.

"Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman Cynthia Gebert said Telstra's treatment of Ms Moncur was unacceptable."

I had the same problem but TIO would not investigate Harassment, after promising they would.

They are a joke.

Australians in hardship deserve better

Vodafone was taken over by TPG since July 2021 and I lost service in August 2021. One year Broadband was to end in August 2022. TIO would DO Nothing to get a REFUND from Vodafone. I bought a Dongle with Optus in March 2022 with guarantee that it would work with Windows 8 and lower, but it didn't. TIO gave me a contact to deal with who promsied to refund the money and never did. TIO dropped the ball again! TIO are a waste of Tax payer's funds.

I tried to transfer my phone number of 20 yrs to Optus from Dodo after I'd cancelled it (as Dodo wouldn't give it back).
Ended up with three complaints with the TIO and they participated in harassing, bullying and abusing me.
I stated that the process was harming my mental health and they insisted that I continue to engage in the process after I'd cancelled my complaints.
6 weeks of deliberate abuse. No resolution.
I now have lost my phone number of 20 yrs and it was for my work.
The TIO made up a complaint that I never wrote about Optus just to try and abuse me further. To keep the crazyness going.
The TIO have been calling me and harassing me despite my complaints being cancelled. Bullies, harassers and abusers.

Did not want to hear about optus you would think optus was paying them

TIO left us for 5 months with some quite serious teleco Optus complaints, gave alot of leniency to the teleco and left our complaint for months providing no adequate action, resolve or outcome leaving customer to deal with ongoing service, billing and transferring issues. Sub-standard care.