Optus fined $66 million for ‘appalling’ conduct in sales to telecom’s customers in Australia
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — An Australian judge fined telecommunications giant Optus 100 million Australian dollars ($66 million) Wednesday for unconscionable conduct selling services to hundreds of vulnerable customers including in Indigenous communities outside the range of its coverage.
The subsidiary of Singapore government-owned Singtel is separately facing multimillion-dollar fines over its failure last week to connect hundreds of emergency calls due to an outage that’s been linked to four deaths.
Federal Court Justice Patrick O’Sullivan approved a plea agreement struck between Optus, Australia’s second-largest telecom, and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission over unconscionable conduct and inappropriate sales practices spanning four years until July 2023.
He said Optus’ conduct was “extremely serious and can only be described as appalling.”
“Optus senior management knew, or ought to have known, of the system failures that allowed the unconscionable conduct which may rightly be described as predatory,” O’Sullivan told the court.
“Of particular concern is the fact that Optus’ conduct predominantly affected vulnerable consumers including people with mental disabilities, people suffering from financial hardship, those with low financial literacy and people with limited English proficiency and/or learning difficulties,” he added.
Many victims were vulnerable Indigenous people from regional and remote communities, some of whom lived outside the range of Optus mobile coverage.