Premiums SMS Complaints Surge

Customer service, contracts, and premium rate SMS messages were some of the leading causes of complaint to Australia's Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman in the year to June 2006. 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.

Ombudsman John Pinnock said the customer service complaint category had increased dramatically across all three technology types. "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.

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."

Posted to the site on 2nd November 2006