The Federal Court has ordered Optus pay a $10 million penalty for its treatment of customers who unknowingly purchased games, ringtones and other digital content through its third-party billing service, following action by the ACCC. ACCC chair Rod Sims said that the $10 million penalty is one of the highest imposed by the Court after ACCC action on a consumer matter, and equals the penalty paid by Telstra last year after it admitted to similar conduct.
Optus admitted that it misled consumers and breached the ASIC Act when it billed customers for third party-produced content which they mistakenly bought or subscribed to through its “direct carrier billing” (DCB) service. Optus also admitted that it did not properly inform customers that the DCB service was a default setting on their accounts, and that they would be billed directly by Optus for any content bought through the service, even unintentionally. Optus, which earned commissions on items sold through the DCB service, also admitted that it knew from at least April 2014 that many customers were being billed for DCB content they had mistakenly or unknowingly signed up for.

Mr Sims explained that The DCB service allowed a purchase or subscription to be confirmed and charged to a customer’s bill after just one or two clicks on a web browser. Despite receiving over 600,000 enquiries about the service, Optus failed to put in place appropriate identity verification safeguards and referred customers who sought to query DCB service charges to third parties. Many customers then encountered significant difficulties in cancelling the purchases and obtain refunds from the third parties.

“In many cases, Optus customers had no idea they were buying anything, and certainly did not need or want the content for which they were being charged,” Mr Sims commented “Optus failed to take appropriate action, choosing instead to continue to charge customers and collect commissions on these sales, even after numerous complaints. We are pleased that the Court agreed that this conduct is simply unacceptable, and deserves a significant penalty,”.
Mr Sims went on to explain that about 240,000 Optus customers have so far been refunded. The ACCC understands Optus has paid about $8 million in refunds and third-party providers another $13 million. Optus has committed to contacting potentially impacted customers who complained about the services and have not already received a refund, as well as those customers who Optus identifies as having been incorrectly charged. Optus will also review any future complaints in light of this action and deal with those customers in good faith. Given the volume of enquiries to Optus about the service there are likely to be many affected customers that have not yet received a refund.

Mr Sims said that customers are encouraged to check their Optus mobile account and, if they believe unauthorised charges have been applied under the DCB service, they should contact Optus on 13 39 37.