Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman
Having trouble paying your telephone or internet account?
General information and advice
Are you experiencing temporary or ongoing financial difficulties?
Consumers often contact the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) with questions about how to pay their telecommunications bills. Sometimes they ask us for help to negotiate an affordable and sustainable payment arrangement with their telephone or internet company.
The information on this page can help you to take these steps:
- First, contact your telephone or internet company and tell them that you are having difficulty paying your bill.
- Ask the company what your options are, e.g. an extension of time to pay the bill or a payment arrangement.
- Ask the company to place a hold on debt collection activity while you both work out a way to pay off the debt. If you do not do this, your service might be disconnected and your credit record could be affected.
- Payment arrangements only apply to debts that you are not disputing and you agree you need to pay. If some of the debt includes charges you are disputing, please ask the company to investigate and resolve that matter with you first.
If there is still a debt that you cannot pay after that matter is resolved, tell the company and ask about your options.
- If you cannot reach an agreement with company representatives and you are not able to take the matter further within the company, you can lodge a complaint with the TIO.
Do you need a short term extension to pay your bill?
Most companies will give their customers an extension of time to pay a bill. This will allow a customer to pay off their debt in a small number of instalments by an agreed date. The customer may also have to pay a late payment fee.
If you are sure that you only need a short time to pay a debt, you can ask the company for an extension of time to pay your bill.
If the company does not agree to this, you can lodge a complaint with them about this. If your complaint is not resolved, you can contact the TIO about the matter.
Do you need a long term payment arrangement?
Sometimes people need more than just an extension of time to pay off a bill. They may need a longer period because they are experiencing financial hardship.
Financial hardship may exist where an individual or household is experiencing a situation that means they cannot pay a debt by the due date.
The customer cannot pay the debt because of these circumstances, but they believe that they could do this over time if they had an arrangement with their telephone or internet company to pay the debt in instalments that they can afford.
Circumstances that may lead to financial hardship include:
- change or loss of employment experienced by the customer or family member
- family breakdown
- serious or chronic illness or an accident experienced by the customer or family member (which may have involved a hospital stay)
- a death in the family
- natural disaster
- various conditions and circumstances that equate to a state of disadvantage or vulnerability, e.g. poor reading, writing and numerical skills, disability, homelessness, residence in a remote area, an indigenous background, a non-English speaking background, relatively recent arrival in Australia, e.g. migrant, asylum-seeker or refugee status, and
- receiving a bill that is unusually high because the customer or a third party has used services that are charged at high rates, e.g. a bill that contains charges for excess data usage, premium mobile services or calls to national and international locations.
Note that financial hardship does not cover situations where a customer does not want to pay a bill or wants to pay it later just because it is more convenient.
Evidence to support a long-term payment arrangement
The company may ask you for evidence that shows you have a good reason to ask for a payment arrangement on the grounds of financial hardship. This would be evidence that shows you are experiencing financial hardship for one of the reasons above or because of other circumstances.
Working out an affordable payment arrangement
The amount of your regular payment instalment will depend on your income and your other expenses.
Before you finalise a payment arrangement with the company, it is important that you think carefully about how much you can pay. You need to be sure that you can afford to pay an instalment consistently, e.g. every fortnight.
If you need help to work out what you can afford to pay, you can contact a financial counsellor.
The Australian Financial Counselling & Credit Reform Association keeps a list of financial counselling contacts in each State and Territory: http://www.afccra.org/counselling.htm.
How your telephone or internet company should help you to pay your debt
The telecommunications industry has rules for companies about what they should do for their customers who may be experiencing financial hardship.
These rules are:
- The company must give you a summary of its financial hardship policy
if you ask for one (or if what you tell the company indicates that you
are experiencing financial hardship or are eligible for the policy).
The summary should contain options for managing financial hardship.
It should also have contact details so you can get more information
about the policy.
- The company must assess your eligibility for its financial hardship
policy when you ask it to do this. This is when the company can ask
you for evidence of your situation.
- The company must make sure that any financial hardship arrangements
it agrees on (with you) are sufficiently flexible to take account of
your individual circumstances.
- The company must tell you the agreed terms of the arrangement
(e.g. the amount and frequency
of the repayments) and make sure you
know your rights and obligations under the arrangement.
- The company must tell you to contact it if your circumstances change
during the term of the arrangement, and be willing and able to review
arrangements if your circumstances change, and
- With some exceptions, the company must not undertake credit management
action in relation to the debt:
- while a financial hardship arrangement is being actively discussed with a customer, or
- during the course of the arrangement, unless you breach the terms (and only then after the company takes reasonable steps to contact you).
The rules are published in Chapter 7 of the Telecommunications Consumer Protections (TCP) Code.
There is also a Guideline that accompanies the TCP Code, which helps companies to interpret the code rules and has examples of how they may choose to comply with the rules.
How the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman can help you
The TIO can help if you have a complaint about not being able to agree on a payment arrangement with your telephone or internet company.
Before you come to us with your complaint, it is important that you make it clear to the company that you are not satisfied with how it has responded to your request for a payment arrangement.
We can also investigate complaints about the company's approach to the requirements of the Telecommunications Consumer Protections Code.
How to lodge a complaint with the TIO
You can lodge a complaint:
- by calling us on 1800 062 058 - free from a landline
- by completing the online complaint form on our website, or
- in these other ways.
How we handle complaints
For information on how the TIO handles unresolved complaints about payment issues, see our position statement Hardship and payment difficulties.
The TIO resolves complaints by Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). For general information on ADR and how we handle complaints, see our Frequently Asked Questions.
More information on managing your bills
The Australian Communications & Media Authority (ACMA) factsheet Telecommunications options if you're experiencing financial hardship, includes:
- basic tips for managing phone use and expenditure
- information about Telstra-only products for managing usage and spending (plus see Telstra's Access for Everyone Program)
- information about Government or charitable assistance if you're experiencing financial hardship.
Last updated: 24 February 2009
