Singtel-owned Optus to pay A$100 M penalty over allegations of unconscionable sale misconduct

Australia’s competition watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), announced on 18 June 2025 that Optus, a subsidiary of Singtel, has entered into a negotiated settlement over allegations of “unconscionable conduct” in the sale of telecommunications goods and services to hundreds of customers.

Under the terms of the proposed settlement, Optus has agreed to pay a A$100 million (S$83.4 million) penalty to be imposed by the Federal Court following approval of the arrangement.

The company has fully provided for the fine in the financial year ending 31 March 2025, pending court confirmation .

The legal proceedings, initiated by the ACCC in October 2024, concern sales to around 429 consumers across 16 Optus stores from August 2019 to July 2023.

Many of those affected were vulnerable individuals—including those with diminished cognitive capacity, learning disabilities, financial hardship or language barriers—who were sold contracts they could not understand, afford or use.

The ACCC outlined that Optus sales staff had pressured customers into acquiring multiple devices and expensive accessories, omitted crucial information, misrepresented products as “free” and failed to check for network coverage where buyers lived.

At least one consumer residing in a remote area with no Optus service was given expensive plans resulting in over A$4,000 debt, later handed over to debt collectors.

ACCC Deputy Chair Catriona Lowe emphasised the “significant financial harm” experienced by many customers, stating they “accrued thousands of dollars of unexpected debt” and were sometimes pursued by collectors for years, triggering profound emotional stress.

Optus has admitted to the unconscionable conduct and entered an enforceable undertaking to compensate affected consumers and reform internal systems and sales incentives.

The company has also apologised publicly, issued refunds, waived debts and allowed impacted customers to retain their devices.

Sales staff responsible have been terminated, and changes include revising incentives, enhancing staff training, upgrading processes and improving complaint handling .

This settlement follows two earlier regulatory actions against Optus.

In November 2024, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) fined Optus A$12 million for failing to maintain emergency call services during a major network outage in November 2023, which lasted nearly 14 hours and prevented over 2,100 customers from reaching triple‑zero.

ACMA further imposed a A$1.5 million fine in March 2024 after discovering that Optus had failed to upload vital customer data for emergency services between January 2021 and September 2023, putting around 200,000 users at risk .

Following the November 2023 network failure, Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin resigned, with CFO Michael Venter stepping in as acting CEO at the time.

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