Ombudsman's workload boosted by Internet users - News - Communications

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Ombudsman's workload boosted by Internet users

By Stephen Withers, 0
October 25, 2001
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Ombudsman-s-workload-boosted-by-Internet-users/0,130061791,120261460,00.htm

Complaints to the Australian Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) concerning ISPs soared by 85 percent to 7965 cases in 2000-2001, according to figures just released.

Billing complaints were still the most common, accounting for 39.4 percent of cases (down from 49 percent), although the breakdown within this category (disputed time and volume charges, unauthorised credit card debits, non-receipt of discounts or credits) remained fairly static.

Access issues represented 32 percent of Internet complaints, and predominantly involved denial of access (busy signals).

The big growth area was in customer service complaints, which rose from 282 cases in 1999-2000 to 1181 in 2000-2001 (almost 15 percent of ISP complaints). Telephone service complaints in this category also saw a steep rise: the corresponding figures are 3882 and 11,486 complaints.

"I'm unhappy about the level of customer service complaints," said Ombudsman John Pinnock, suggesting two possible reasons for the situation. A shortage of trained staff could mean that company representatives are having as much trouble dealing with the choices available as their customers do, and because representatives often work from prepared scripts, a customer with an unusual complaint might not get it resolved. Secondly, there is evidence of refusal to internally escalate customer complaints as required by the industry code.

The good news: "the vast majority of ISPs do not have complaints against them," said Pinnock. There are around 900 ISPs, but no complaints were received concerning over 800 of them.

"Internet dumping took us by surprise," said Pinnock, referring to the situation where a web site disconnects the user's modem from their usual ISP and reconnects via a 190 or international number.

Although complainants claimed ignorance of the higher call charges incurred, all the sites investigated by the TIO provided a warning of the charges involved.

An ongoing area of concern for the Ombudsman is acceptable use policies (AUPs) that are not fully disclosed or which seek to modify terms such as 'free' or 'unlimited.' Pinnock said customers must also have some way of seeing their usage in relation to an AUP.

Mobile phone complaints rose from 5667 to 6715, but represented a slightly smaller proportion of telephone service complaints (9.2 percent versus 10 percent). Almost 60 percent of mobile complaints related to contracts, up from 54.4 percent in 1999-2000.

For the first time, the TIO report includes member-specific statistics where more than 25 complaints were received involving the carrier or ISP, but since not all of those companies were prepared to divulge the size of their customer base, the TIO could not provide standardised statistics showing relative performance.