Telco customers continue to be crunched by the cost-of-living crisis with financial-based complaints to the ombudsman jumping by more than 70 percent in 12 months.
Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman Cynthia Gebert said the most recent data revealed a concerning upward trend in financial hardship complaints.
“Amid rising cost-of-living pressures, consumers with issues related to financial hardship or repayment arrangements have leapt 71.9 percent compared with the same period last year, but decreased by 8.1 percent against the previous quarter,” Ms Gebert said.
She said recurring themes within financial hardship complaints included telcos refusing payment plans or extensions, offering unsuitable or unaffordable payment arrangements and service disconnection or suspension.
“Financial hardship remains a real concern for consumers contacting the TIO and its impacts can be severe.
“What our data reveals is that telcos still have work to do in terms of providing tailored support and repayment options for people that reflect their individual circumstances – there’s no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution.
“Disconnection or suspension of essential telco services should absolutely be a last resort.”
Ms Gebert said overall complaint numbers remained steady with 15,385 telco complaints received from January to March 2025.
She said this was a slight increase of 0.6 percent compared with the previous quarter.
“Mobile service and internet complaints remain the highest proportion of all complaints at 43.9 percent and 40.6 percent respectively, although complaints about mobile have dropped 8.1 percent when compared with the previous quarter.”
Ms Gebert said complaints made by small businesses were up compared to the previous quarter by 6.9 percent with a total of 1767 complaints.
“The increase in small business complaints can be partly attributed to service issues following the 3G network shutdown, with the most significant increases in complaints related to poor mobile coverage and intermittent service or dropouts.”
Read the TIO Data Insights Q3 2025
