Did you know you can cook bread with steam?
© 2026 Appliancenews. All Rights Reserved.
Australians complained more than ever about contracts with their Internet Service Providers (ISP) in the last financial year, according to the annual report issued by the telco industry Ombudsman.
According to the report contract complaint issues more than doubled in the landline and internet categories and declined slightly in mobile services.
“Many people are saying that the information provided when they sign a contract is not backed up when the products and services are delivered,” said Ombudsman John Pinnock.
“This is especially so in the internet category where most contract complaints relate to ADSL services.
“A new and disturbing trend is the increase in complaints about internet service providers varying the terms and conditions of contracts without the customer’s consent.”
Complaints to the Ombudsman increased by 11.0% to 87,593 over the previous year, with the fastest rate of increase among internet services, followed by mobile and landline services.
“One of the key reasons for this is the failure of providers to tell dissatisfied customers that they have a right to bring their complaint to us,” Mr Pinnock said.
Mr Pinnock said that apart from contracts and customer service, premium rate SMS messages were also one of consumers’ major complaints.
“A 231% rise in complaint issues about premium rate SMS messages was the leading cause of a 50% rise in mobile billing complaint issues.
“Premium rate SMS complaints most commonly relate to products such as horoscopes, jokes, ring-tones and chat services,” Mr Pinnock said. “They are characterised by numbers with the prefix 19 and are billed at rates much higher than a standard SMS message.”
