Telstra fined by watchdog for overcharging Aussies

Thousands of Telstra customers have been reimbursed after the telco giant was fined by the communications watchdog for wrongly overcharging Aussies over a 11-year period.

An Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) investigation found that 6,532 customers were charged an average $2,600 for inactive internet services between April 2012 and August 2023.

Telstra has since forked out a whopping $24m in penalties and refunds for the 'significant' billing error. 

The figure included a $3,010,320 fine and more than $17million in refunds to customers wrongly overcharged.

A further $3.4m will be refunded by the end of the year.

It's the third time in three years Telstra has been found wrongly overcharging customers. 

In a scathing statement issued on Wednesday, ACMA Chair Nerida O'Loughlin said the media watchdog had 'lost patience' with Telstra after the latest billing debacle.

In September 2020, the ACMA found that Telstra had overcharged more than 10,000 customers almost $2.5 million over a 12-year period. 

A separate investigation in 2022 found Telstra overcharged more than 11,000 customers around $1.7 million.

'It's just not good enough,' Ms O'Loughlin said.  

'At a time when many small businesses are facing economic pressures, unaccounted costs can create very real stress and financial hardship.

'All telcos must have robust billing systems in place to ensure that consumers, including small businesses, are only paying for agreed and active services.

'Telstra is a major player in the Australian telco sector and it needs to continue to prioritise its billing compliance and get its systems in order.

Telstra has blamed the billing issues on the company's failure to follow the steps in its ADSL internet service deactivation process after customers switched to the NBN.

In a statement to Daily Mail Australia, Telstra says it self-reported the issue to ACMA and has refunded the majority of customers, along with interest.

The telco is getting in contact with the remaining customers.

'Getting something as important as billing wrong isn’t acceptable, and this is clearly not the experience we want to be providing our customers,' group executive for global business services Dean Salter said.

We’ve let these customers down. We apologise for this, and it’s clear we need to do better. 

'We’ve reached out to our customers to explain what went wrong and what we’re doing to fix it, including refunding them for the incorrect charges with interest.

New processes have been put in place to stop this happening again.

'These ADSL billing errors occurred because we didn’t follow the proper deactivation process, including when some customers migrated to the NBN, which resulted in some customers being charged for inactive services,' Mr Salter added.

'We have put new controls in place to prevent this issue from happening again, including monthly checks if ADSL services are being used by customers before they’re billed. 

The company will report back to the ACMA in six months about the effectiveness of the new controls.

ACMA has threatened further action, including commencing proceedings in the Federal Court if further breaches of the billing accuracy rules occur.

Customers who suspect they've been wrongly billed are urged to address the issue with the provider and to contact the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman if it can't be resolved.