TPG Internet ordered to repay 8,000 customers over misleading NBN advertising
Telecommunications provider TPG is the third telco to be found guilty of misleading its customers by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission about the speeds available on the National Broadband Network.
TPG Internet joins competitors Telstra and Optus in having to compensate customers who were given misleading information about the maximum internet speeds which could be reached by the telco’s NBN services.
Between September 2015 and June 2017, TPG advertised its NBN plans as “seriously fast internet up to 100Mbps.”
TPG has since said it promoted and offered maximum speeds which were not able to be delivered to customers.
As a result, TPG has been ordered to compensate almost 8,000 customers who were mislead about the maximum speeds they would be able to achieve with the provider.
The telco said it had likely breached the Australian Consumer Law “by engaging in misleading or deceptive conduct and making false or misleading representations”.
Rod Sims, chairman of the ACCC said some customers weren’t even able to get half of the speed advertised by the internet provider.
“TPG charged customers higher prices for the promise of faster speeds, misleading many customers into paying a premium price for a service they could not get.”
“This is the third major internet provider we have taken action against in the past few weeks. Internet service providers must take responsibility to ensure that their customers get the promised speeds that they pay for,” the chairman said.
Last week, the consumer watchdog issued court proceedings in the Federal Court against Optus alleging it made “false and misleading” claims to 20,000 customers.
Meanwhile earlier in December Optus had to compensate more than 8,700 of its customers who were also mislead about the maximum speeds they could achieve with Optus NBN plans.
In November, Telstra offered to compensate 42,000 customers for the same reason.
Linkedin