By Emilia Terzon
Copyright abc
Optus has been ordered to pay a $100 million fine over “appalling” sales conduct with hundreds of vulnerable customers for several years until 2023.
The company is being fined as it deals with its second triple-0 outage crisis in several years.
Optus had already agreed to pay the fine with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which brought the case against Australia’s second biggest telco.
In enforcing the fine today, the Federal Court’s Justice Patrick O’Sullivan described the company’s conduct as “extremely serious” and “appalling”.
He added that the customers were people with mental disabilities, people suffering from financial hardship, those with low financial literacy, and people with limited English proficiency and/or learning difficulties.
Justice O’Sullivan said “inappropriate sales practices” occurred across 16 stores in South Australia, Queensland, the Northern Territory, Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania, between August 2019 and July 2023.
He noted that Optus’s conduct comprised three categories of unconscionable conduct, including inappropriate debt collection practices, misleading or deceptive conduct, and systemic failure to explain the terms and conditions of contracts and to conduct coverage checks.
“Optus senior management knew or ought to have known of the system failures that allowed the unconscionable conduct, which may rightly be described as predatory, to occur, yet failed to act with any sense of urgency,” Justice O’Sullivan said.
“In failing to act notwithstanding knowledge, senior management abrogated their management responsibilities and consequently Optus abrogated any semblance of responsible corporate behaviour.”
The case was brought by the ACCC after financial counsellors tipped them off.
Financial Counselling Australia’s director of First Nations policy, Lynda Edwards, said a $100 million fine was “not a lot of money” to big companies like Optus.
“What is it going to take for these companies to actually look after vulnerable people in our communities?” she asked.
“You know, our telcos in Australia, they’re given free rein on how they self-regulate their business.”
