Spark, Vodafone top complaints
Telecommunications companies generated the highest number of complaints from consumers about misleading conduct last year, with Spark New Zealand leading the list, the country’s competition watchdog says.
Spark was the subject of 128 complaints, followed by Vodafone with 112 complaints, and Auckland Academy of Learning with 106.
There will be more bad publicity for telecoms firms next week, when Telecommunications Dispute Resolution (TDR) publishes its annual report showing a steep rise in complaints.
TDR is a disputes scheme set up by the telecommunications industry in 2007 after encouragement from the Government. Most major telecoms firms and internet companies belong and agree to abide by its rulings.
Scheme director Derek Pullen said its report would show that the number of complaints it received jumped from 1646 to about 1900 in the year to June.
The Commerce Commission said 9 per cent of complaints it received about possible breaches of the Fair Trading Act were levelled against telcos. Complaints came in at a rate of more than one a day, up 62 per cent from 2013.
Forty-six of the 381 complaints related to Spark and Vodafone introducing a $1.50 fee for paper invoices, a practice the commission has not ruled to be unfair.
‘‘Quality of service, misrepresentations on availability of service, and general pricing’’ were the main themes, it said.
Pullen said TDR had come to ‘‘a different conclusion’’ than the commission on paper-invoicing charges.
It had ruled it was unfair for telcos to bring in the charge while customers were locked into fixedterm contracts, during which time they could not switch to another provider without incurring a financial penalty.
But Pullen said complaints to TDR about paper-invoicing fees had now dropped off and there seemed to be no single reason for the rise in complaints it received in the year to June.
‘‘We haven’t been able to identify any really specific cause.’’
TDR was not allowed by its scheme members to say which telcos generated the most complaints, Pullen said.
But it occasionally publishes case studies on complaints and how they have been resolved.
Its 2014 report shows it ordered a scheme member to refund a family whose son had upgraded his smartphone and bought a mobile internet device on his mother’s account without her permission.
The unnamed telco had given the boy ‘‘account authority’’ when he was aged 11, without her know- ledge, after his mother had asked him to call the company on her behalf to resolve a technical issue with her smartphone. TDR ruled the company should not have done that as he was a minor.
The Commerce Commission noted a Consumer NZ survey of its 10,000 members, published in February, had found satisfaction with telecommunications companies had dropped.