00:00Telcos are meant to proactively look and see whether consumers are experiencing difficulty
00:07and then offer things like a payment extension, but a tailored response that works for the
00:13human. There's opportunities and there's obligations around looking at waiving bills,
00:17connecting in with financial counsellors and things like that, but we saw terrible examples
00:21of people who were proactively reaching out for help, knowing that they had an upcoming
00:25expense and they just needed a short-term extension, being told, no, you need to get
00:29into more trouble before we can help you. And then other people who did reach out, reached
00:34an agreement with their telco and still had full direct debited, amounts direct debited,
00:39which meant that they were then, their dollars had to stretch much, much further when there
00:44were unexpected expenses like cars and then you're balancing rent, you're balancing food,
00:48those sorts of things, when you're trying to just exercise your right to get some help.
00:52A lot of the telcos are doing the right thing and trying hard to work with customers, but
00:57we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg. And that's what makes us a bit concerned. We are only
01:01seeing such a small volume of people who need help and we really are calling on the telco
01:07industry to make sure they're working really effectively with their consumers because there
01:12will be marginalised or vulnerable communities who don't know of their right to get help.
01:16And if they hit barriers as soon as they try and reach out for help, they're not going to get a
01:20trusted ongoing relationship with their telco.
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