In the ACMA Compliance priorities for 2020-2021, ACMA has provided that its first priority will be to target responsible approaches towards selling, credit assessment and consumer financial hardship. This includes examining how telecommunication carriage service providers who supply telecommunications products to customers in Australia (CSPs) that are the subject of the C628:2019 Telecommunications Consumer Protections (Code) sell to and interact with its consumers, including its disadvantaged and vulnerable consumers and whether such consumers are assisted and protected by the CSP’s policies and practices. If you are a CSP, there are numerous obligations and best practices that you should comply with under the Code in relation to your interactions with your customers.

Here are 2 key areas for compliance that CSPs should review:

Authorised Representatives and Advocates

CSPs should ensure that they have appropriate authorised representative and advocate policies that enable their customers to appoint authorised representatives and/or advocates to deal with the CSP on their behalf. This includes having internal systems and processes to appoint, remove, replace and/or limit the authority of authorised representatives and/or advocates and to have training sessions for staff members to be aware of these policies. CSPs should ensure that they have written policies and procedures for its staff and/or customers for the appointment of and permissions for an authorised representative and/or advocate, procedures if a customer has a trustee, power of attorney, or other similar circumstance; and procedure and requirements for bereavement (passing of a customer). These policies should be easily understandable and available to all customer facing staff members as customers may wish to appoint authorised representatives and/or advocates at point during the transaction from the time of sale to any general inquiry. We recommend that CSPs have authorised representative and/or advocate forms to ensure that all appointments, revocations and access control authorised by their customers are clearly documented.

Financial Hardship

CSPs must ensure that they have a financial hardship policy that complies with the requirements set out in Chapter 7 of the Code. For customers who are experiencing or may experience financial hardship, CSPs should ensure that communications with such customers comply with the applicable timeframes set out in the Code in relation to financial hardship requests, assessments or arrangements. Additionally, CSPs should review its financial hardship assessment procedures to ensure that it is fair and timely and that it does not seek documentation from its customers that are unduly onerous.

When restricting, suspending or disconnecting a telecommunications service due to credit and/or debt management reasons, it is crucial that adequate notice is provided within the specified timeframes set out in clause 6.7 of the TCP Code. Additionally, CSPs should review their restriction, suspension or disconnection notices to ensure that the content of the notices and credit management process are compliant.

If you are a CSP and you would like to obtain more information about how you can be compliant with the TCP Code or if you would like for us to provide training materials or prepare compliant documents for your organisation, please contact Arnotts Technology Lawyers.