180,000 Telstra customers could be owed a refund

Posted by langegroup on November 22nd, 2019

Telstra, Australia's largest mobile network are set to review the performance of over 180,000 of their NBN connections to see if their consumers are paying more than they should be. In 2017, the Australian competition and Consumer commission won an appeal in the courts that forced Telstra to perform checks on their consumer’s maximum internet speeds.

If the speed, which consumers were receiving did not match what was promised to them, then the customer has the right to be able to exit from their existing contract or downgrade to a cheaper plan with no fines. However the consumer watchdog announced on Thursday that Telstra failed to perform the check for 180,000 of their broadband customers that were moved to a higher speed plan.

The affected customers were under contract from both Telstra and its “budget” label Belong, and were connected to Telstra’s NBN via fibre-to-the-node or fibre-to-the-basement technologies. The ACCC released a statement regarding Telstra saying “Telstra has since committed to contacting all affected customers and refunding those who have been paying for the higher speeds but not receiving them, It will also pro-actively move consumers to a lower speed NBN plan if they are not receiving any benefit from being on a higher speed tier NBN plan."

In response a spokesperson for the company issued a report saying that some customers who moved to a new NBN plan did not receive a report on actual speed, and were paying for a level of service that they could not physically receive.  “We’re disappointed that we’ve let some customers down and we know this isn’t good enough,” said the spokesperson. “We let the ACCC know and started contacting customers as soon as we found out. Depending on the speed customers were receiving and the plan they’re on, we’re updating their speeds, offering credits or contract termination with no exit fees.”

Chair of the ACCC stated to every Telstra customers, that they should take note of the maximum speed they are currently receiving to be sure that they are not overpaying for the speeds they are getting, and if they feel as if they are, they should move to a different provider. "Your maximum speed stays the same no matter which provider you’re with, so once you know your maximum speed, make sure you are getting the best deal available for you." Sims said the ACCC is also examining other telcos that also promised to proactively check broadband speeds.

Eryu Aoi  – Lange group
info@langegroup.com