This is the consumer watchdog’s biggest fine yet, and cheers to that. Seriously, is misleading customers standard practice at Optus? They’ve already been spanked over cap plans and the misuse of “unlimited”, and now they’ve been taken to task over those “Supersonic” and “Think Bigger” Ads.
Optus launched these campaigns in April and August 2010, respectively. However, a Federal Court previously found that Optus hadn’t clearly explained that those who went over the peak (or off-peak) data allowances would have their connections shaped to 64kbps. Not exactly supersonic.
ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel sums the matter up nicely:
This decision sends the clear message that misleading consumers is not a legitimate business strategy… The entire telecommunications industry needs to sit up and take notice.”
[ACCC]
Birdman
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 3:03 PMHA HA!
Rastus Oxide
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 3:11 PMSupersonic speed is actually pretty slow, when you think about it, compared to light/electricity. Imagine if the net travelled at the speed of sound!
Effluvium Boy
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 4:35 PMSupersonic, by definition, is faster than the speed of sound.
Wardski
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 6:17 PMLOL at this shit.. Man there are some dummies out there. Try Wiki before posting
Rastus Oxide
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 8:25 PMSorry DAD!
olearymo
Friday, July 8, 2011 at 9:01 AMhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic:
“Supersonic speed is a rate of travel of an object that exceeds the speed of sound (Mach 1)”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypersonic_speed:
“…hypersonic speed is one that is highly supersonic. Since the 1970s, the term has generally been assumed to refer to speeds of Mach 5 (5 times the speed of sound) and above.”
By the information provided, the argument could be made that supersonic, particularly in the venacular, refers to a speed breaking the sound barrier but not necessarily luminal.
Rastus Oxide’s comment still stands and has value, unless you want to define everything literally, in which case when you say ‘this shit’ you mean you’re actually standing in excrement.
BurnCommissioner
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 3:42 PMBurn
Flame
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 3:14 PMBoom!
BurnCommissioner
Monday, July 25, 2011 at 3:41 PMBurn!
Anonymouse
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 3:15 PMSeriously. I hate that Optus keep getting fined, because I’ve got them for my home phone, broadband, and internet. I want them to spend their cash improving their services (which are all pretty top notch) and not be paying fines because the general public is too caught up in buzz words as opposed to reading the 24 month contracts they sign
Greg
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 3:28 PMMaybe you’d be better off with a less dodgy provider?
Keegan
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 3:36 PM“which are all pretty top notch”
What alternate reality do you live in where optus is actually above average?
Nate
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 7:40 PMSounds like the ads worked on someone lol.
Bjorn
Friday, July 8, 2011 at 2:37 PMFTW what a comment man that is awesome
Normandy
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 3:31 PMwhy not fine TELSTRA for giving us the most crap monopoly of broadband services with us rural users having no choice, and NO ADSL2 , AND RIMS etc etc.. this is a joke!
boo
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 3:32 PMI thought this was common knowledge with the misuse of the term “unlimited” . Dodo started this trend and if you read the fineprint, it said that you would get shaped if you have an excess of 60gb of downloads, regardless of peak.
Kazmiester
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 3:33 PM@ Anonymouse.
Misrepresentation is a crime when it comes to consumer laws. Moreover, the telecom industries are so full of multi-level bureaucracies that when they do get caught (1 in a million chances where the consumer puts the metal to the pedal to have his ‘say’), telecomies gotta get punished good
Lasty7
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 3:43 PMRegardless of how hopeless telcos are, it does baffle me how often people won’t read the conditions of what they are signing…
Morris
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 4:08 PMWhen are they going to move onto sorting out this “cap” rubbish on mobiles?
That’s the real crime – $40 for $400 and all the rates are 20x. You have no genuine idea of what you are spending.
Keegan
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 5:06 PMI agree. Thats why I love telstra prepaid. (talk + text deal). I get a certain number of txts and mins depending on how much i recharge. and i’m not sure if they still do it but vodafone business were billed based on minutes and txts too.
Lolwut
Friday, July 8, 2011 at 6:57 AMWith the plethora of smartphones out there, which i assume most of giz readers have at least one, and 75% chnace that is an iphone, 400 bucks credit is really really a lot now, i ditch sms for IM or whatsapp, sometimes i ditch the phone with calling using viber
Dago
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 5:50 PMOptus suck s*** you deserve it!..
Louis
Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 9:54 PMWell my net is awesome I’m on the 500gb 100Mb supersonic conneciton, my dl speed rarely drops below 8MB/s 5GB takes me 10-15 mins max.
So I don’t know bout you but I’m happy. :)
ezcool4141
Saturday, July 9, 2011 at 12:16 AMI’m currently with Optus on their 129 dollar home phone + broadband bundle. i quite like this bundle as it give me a huge 1Tb of usage each month and well unlimited calls to most mobile and landlines in Australia.
As for my internet speed well…. that’s a different story, because of my house location (being behind somebody else house). I’m only on Optus DSL with extremely slow download speed (dl under 500kb/sec) – (partially because of the old telephone wires installed some couple of decade ago.) I’m just wondering is it possible to get a newer line installed? and if so how much would it cost?