Ms O'Donnell said it was crucial telcos clearly and simply spelt out their terms and conditions. (The Epoch Times)
Or as Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) Deirdre O'Donnell dubs it—"bill shock".
"We are finding examples of parents whose children use the trip home (from school) on the train to update their social networking page and chat with a friend that can result in quite a big bill," Ms O'Donnell told reporters on Friday.
"Quite" may be an understatement, with the industry watchdog admitting some monthly bills had inadvertently topped $10,000 thanks to teenagers failing to realise the consequences of exceeding their monthly cap.
Massive bills like this were revealed as Ms O'Donnell released the TIO's annual report into complaints within the telco industry.
The report found 230,065 complaints—up a whopping 54 per cent—had been lodged by consumers and small business in the 2008/09 financial year.
Billing and payment of telephone and internet services was the main area of concern but the highest increase in complaints was among mobile phone users (79 per cent rise), internet (57 per cent), landline (40 per cent) and mobile premium services (13 per cent).
But Ms O'Donnell said 90 per cent of complaints were resolved after a referral back to the service provider.
Of particular concern for the ombudsman was the growing rate of complaints about so-called smart mobile phones.
While some customers who complained about being misled about their contracts had bills initially in the thousands of dollars reduced to just covering administrative fees, others weren't so lucky.
Ms O'Donnell said it was crucial telcos clearly and simply spelt out their terms and conditions, while consumers were implored to read the fine print.
"We have seen it happen before in relation to new services, for example 1900 services of 10 years ago, premium rate services, then we saw it with premium SMS text messages, now we are seeing it with data," she said.
"The message back to the industry - give your customers clear information."
That message was obvious for Telstra, with the market leader recording 80,983 complaints involving 174,123 issues - by far the most of any carrier.
Of these "issues", almost 105,000 involved landlines.
A Telstra spokesman admitted the company needed to improve.
"We want to deliver improved customer service and we recognise that we need to do much better," he said in a statement.
Telstra's competitors also had their problems, with Optus Mobile (16,926), Hutchison 3G (13,876), Vodafone (9,459) and Soul (9,244) causing customer angst.
Ms O'Donnell said one reason for the explosion in complaints had been the global financial crisis, with customers "scrutinising their bills far more because money is tight and they are asking questions about their services".
