Legal News & Analysis – Asia Pacific – Australia – TMT

Following an internal investigation, Optus has found that it wrongly charged private and corporate consumers for subscriptions to SurePage, a service which transcribes voicemail messages into text messages. Consumers were incorrectly charged for subscriptions, despite not having signed up to the service, over the period of July 2011 to September 2013. The investigation was instigated following a number of consumer complaints and found that the incorrect charges were a result of a software programming error.

Optus has informed the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) and the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman of this error. The ACMA has the power to investigate billing inaccuracies and issue warnings under the Telecommunications Consumer Protections Code (TCP Code).

Optus will be refunding more than $8.8 million to 235,000 consumers.

View the TCP Code on the Communications Alliance website here.

For further information, please contact:

Gordon Hughes, Partner, Ashurst
gordon.hughes@ashurst.com

Ashurst TMT Practice Profile in Australia