Telstra fined $626K for spamming customers – fines a way of life for this Telco
Telstra fined $626K. What for this time? For spamming its and Belong customers with unsolicited and unwelcome texts and not providing an easy unsubscribe option.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) investigation found that Telstra sent 10,433,812 texts with unsubscribe arrangements in breach of the law over 21 months from 2022 to 2024, including over 10.3 million that required recipients to provide personal information to opt-out.
Under Australian law, businesses cannot require consumers to log in to accounts or provide personal information to unsubscribe from receiving further commercial messages unless they have agreed to such arrangements.
ACMA member Samantha Yorke said that given the age of the matter, the ACMA infringement notice was the maximum amount of time that could be applied in this instance.
The spam consent rules have been in force for over 20 years, and Telstra, as a mature and established company, has no excuse for this type of non-compliance. Consumers must be able to unsubscribe without giving businesses more personal information than is required.
Telstra persisted with the practice despite ACMA issuing a compliance alert in October 2023.
The ACMA judgement is here.
It is easier to ask forgiveness and pay a fine
Telstra is a big company. A $620,000 fine for 10,433,812 equals 5 cents per spam SMS—mere petty cash and probably a fraction of the revenue the illegal texts generated.
It is very similar to the Kogan case, where it was fined $310,800 in 2021 for violating Australian spam laws. The ACMA found that Kogan sent consumers over 42 million marketing emails from which they could not easily unsubscribe. Instead, consumers were required to create a Kogan account and log in. Come in, sucker!
Telstra is no stranger to the ACMA’s enforcement.
In 2020 Telstra screwed Belong NBN customers after moving 9000 of them to its broadband and never delivering the speeds they were contracted for. The fine is yet to be determined.
In 2024, Telstra paid a $394,000 fine for NBN Migration failures. It failed to undertake more than 3,800 tests to confirm whether the speed of a customer’s new NBN connection could provide the speed specified in the contracted plan.
It was fined $1,555,000 million for failing to perform required customer ID authentication processes, leaving thousands of Australians vulnerable to SIM-swap scams and other types of mobile fraud.
In 2022, it had to pay a $5,406,160 fine and $1.73m in restitution as it had overcharged over 10,000 customers, almost $2.5 million over 12 years.
Also, in 2022, Telstra had to pay $15 million for making false or misleading representations to consumers when promoting certain NBN internet plans.
We could fill pages with ACMA actions against Telstra, but I think you get the drift.
Telstra fined $626K, Telstra fined $626K
Brought to you by CyberShack.com.au
