Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman Reviews 

Disappointing. Very very very slow. Given extremely inappropriate advice by conciliator including legal advice. Very judgemental. Very tight timframes given when so many delays on her part. No accommodation given for work or child rearing commitments when she set up telephone calls - i was unable to pick a 12 year old up from school and had made her aware of these issues. She got others to ring me and they did not know what was happening. As so much time went by I think settlement had all but occuref before involvement. When I asked an email be forwarded upwards she contacted me aggressively. Outcome would have been same and easier without this persp s involvement. I do not want any more contact by the person who managed the case

Toothless tiger,
Spent nearly a year with a complaint
They found in my favor eventually
Red Telecom ignored the binding resolution because they knew nothing would happen
End of story
It was a waste of time the tio does nothing

Made 6 complaints online and they failed to get back to me. When I rang they referred me back to Telstra and then sent me a form getting my small business details, I’m not a small business. Then told me I could go in a queue and it would be a long wait because my complaint wasn’t that serious and again referred me back to Telstra. A complete waste of time.

They totally solved my issue! I got a $260 bill from Optus for canceling a contract which I never made the cancellation and more than 10 times call them couldn't solve any problem. I contacted with TIO and made a complain, a week after, Optus called me and waved the amount as it was their fault.
Thanks TIO team! Great job, sooooo happy!

So, I tried to get an issue resolved... didn't get a result.
I tried to call them again to see if they can help me again thinking I may have made a mistake in the previous request, or something, and in doing so I asked the lady on the phone "in your opinion, what would be the best way to go about getting this resolved" her response, I need to remain independent. So I asked, yea but in your opinion, how can I get the result I need, she got upset. So I asked her why shes getting upset, I apologised, and decided that my Tax dollars are paying for her wages yet I can't fire her.

Incompetent staff & service that seems to support the companies rather than the consumer. Waste of public money.TIO office should be closed. Feedback provided and Independent review refused. TPG ripped me off by cancelling my service and refused to give refund of the credit balance I had. TIO did not do anything to get it back and believed all the lies TPG told them and ignored my evidence provided.

DO NOT PLACE YOUR FAITH IN THE TIO TO ACTUALLY ACT IN YOUR INTEREST or ADHERE TO AUSTRALIAN CONSUMER LAW.
The TIO go to lengths to promote themselves as an industry body that protects consumers. There is even suggestion they are sanctioned by or in some way connected to the Government. The truth is simply that they are an industry body, not a government body, set up by the telco industry so as to avoid government oversight and is entirely paid by their members. Their members are the telco companies.

My Company was recently ripped off by RED telecom due to RED telecom not providing any of the services they had been contracted to supply. After 5 weeks of no telephones and internet despite daily phone calls and false promises from the extremely rude managers at RED, no one from RED ever tried actually came out to fix the connection problems. As a business, we could no longer afford to be stuck with a company like RED telecom. We went to another carrier and have not had a single telephone or internet problem since.

That was the beginning of our saga, Red telecom then alleged a breach of contract against us for leaving their nonexistent service and tried to steal $5600 from our bank accounts using their direct debit authority. Note. Never sign a direct debit authority with RED. It's also worth noting that we never had internet or phones and therefore never made a single call or used a single MB of data from their never provided service and they killed our business for 5 weeks with no view to a resolution in sight and a trail of broken promises. Did I mention they refused to return our business number of over 10 years forcing us to start again with a new number?

We then took our complaint to the TIO believing they were a proper legal authority to oversee matters such as this.

Last week we were advised that the TIO found in favor of RED telecom based on the fact we had a signed agreement for them to provide services and in the event we break that agreement, we must pay them restitution. None of the facts was taken into consideration, nor was any assistance or guidance provided by the TIO as to what information they required..the process is not interactive, they just make a decision and then tell you and the telco about it.
RED's conduct in the process was not remotely considered. We simply got the TIO's legal opinion as to why RED was entitled to the money they were claiming under their contract.

The TIO had summarily ignored all of the facts in the matter, the fact that RED broke our contract for supply leaving our business without phones or internet for 5 weeks leading to significant damage to our business, the fact that RED telecom did not supply any of the equipment they had contractually guaranteed to supply which was a core component of their offer and the fact that not a single service was ever actually provided. Furthermore, the damage to our business was not remotely considered along with the fact that if we had remained tied to RED, we would have gone out of business..according to the the TIO assessment, we would still owe RED the money claimed for ending our contract.

We are now in discussion with our lawyers who as specialist commercial lawyers are of the district and firm opinion that the TIO has erred in their assessment and in their legal opinion. Red did breach their contract to supply with resulting damages and are not entitled to the money they have since stolen from our accounts.

I failed to mention previously since the being advised by the TIO they are supposedly in the right. RED telecom used that information to lie to our bank who had revoked their authority to withdraw funds into believing they were legally entitled to do so. That happened 1 day after RED was notified by the TIO.

It is my firm personal opinion that the TIO is an inadequate industry body protection mechanism that does not serve the needs of the public and has a vested interest to protect its members.

I sincerely hope this review is of assistance to those who are experiencing legitimate trouble with a telco and have expectations of the TIO to provide legitimate assistance. I would seek help elsewhere knowing what I know now.

Lodged a complaint to the TIO asking for their involvement but the TIO's response is, not our responsibility if you cannot lodge a complaint with the NBN Co.
TIO (Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman) staff response seems incorrect and unhelpful.
1) Advised TIO that the touch tone function of the NBN Co helpline was not functioning which makes it impossible to lodge a complaint or request assistance from the NBN Co as their phone system requires touch tone input from the caller to be accepted.
2. Advised the TIO that an email was provided to the NBN Co on several occasions but each time the same standard template reply by email was received with no updates and the NBN Co touch tone problem persisted for over 10 days. This should have been a CRITICAL situation for the NBN Co to resolve and have asked for the TIO to intervene.
3. TIO's response by three different staff members is that they will not investigate but to try and contact the NBN Co Pty Ltd directly to resolve it BUT how do I do this when, a) No-one can call them because their (NBN Co) touch tone function does not work so you cannot actually progress the call or have it accepted and b) Email responses by the BNB Co are identical standard template responses with no updates so they are not being actioned / reviewed / updated? The TIO's response suggests that they have not reviewed all the facts, otherwise the TIO would not suggest calling the NBN Co directly when that is exactly what the problem is because no -one can make any direct contact with the NBN Co becuase the phone system is down (no touch tone functions work though this forms an integral part of the NBN CO's phone communication system).
4) I would have assumed that the TIO would provide assistance so that Australians can actually communicate with the NBN Co Pty Ltd and lodge complaints, escalations and feedback so as to enable the NBN Co to properly and professionally resolve these issues rather than having the potential of every disgruntled customer not being able to contact the NBN Co Pty Ltd. I suspect this current lack of involvement by the TIO would not pass the public scrutiny test.
5. Regardless if the touch tone issue of the NBN Co's phone communication system has been resolved or not, the NBN Co Pty Ltd should have a process in place to prevent this critical situation lasting over 10 days, despite emails from disgruntled customers and from occurring again. It needs to receive such feedback from the TIO, otherwise the TIO is not preventing the risk of such issues from reoccurring but only currently seems to avoid the issue altogether as per your identical three responses received to date (not our responsibility).
6. This is not what the public would expect nor accept from the TIO.