ACCC accepts resolution from Optus over Fusion advertising

SingTel Optus Pty Ltd (Optus) has agreed to clarify a representation regarding their Optus Fusion bundled home phone and broadband cap advertising campaign following intervention by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

Between 15 July and 30 September 2007 Optus via a national wide television advertising campaign represented that Fusion customers could have access to 'unlimited' local, national and calls to Optus mobiles from their home phone service, when in fact the offer only included 'standard' local calls and did not include 'unlimited' calls to mobiles on the CDMA and MobileSat networks.

The ACCC expressed concerns that these limitations and exclusions were not adequately disclosed and had the potential to mislead consumers. Although Optus ceased making the representation prior to the ACCC raising its concerns with Optus and while the ACCC is not aware of significant consumer complaints, the ACCC sought to remedy any consumer detriment which may have been caused by the television advertising campaign.

In response to the ACCC's concerns Optus has agreed to:

• notify its existing customers who connected to the Fusion plan, during the period 15 July 2007 and 14 October 2007, that they may have been misled by the television advertisement
• provide for Fusion customers that were misled by the television advertisement to contact Optus and receive an account credit for:
  -those calls that each customer made that were not 'standard' local calls, being calls to 13/1300 numbers and Community Calls for which customers were charged, and
  -those calls that each customer made that were not calls to Optus GSM mobiles, being calls to Optus CDMA and Optus MobileSat
• provide for Fusion customers not satisfied by the account credit, to cancel their Optus Fusion plan without a cancellation fee
• examine their trade practices law compliance program, including the development of a training video, to ensure it clearly deals with words such as 'unlimited' and 'free' and the importance of clearly qualifying offers using these words.

"National advertising in the telecommunications industry has a significant impact on consumers' purchases and in respect of the penetration rates of fixed telephony, broadband, and telecommunications products as a whole this is an issue which affects the wider Australian community," ACCC Chairman, Mr Graeme Samuel, said today.

"The telecommunications industry is on notice that terms such as 'unlimited' and similar claims should be free of the potential to overstate what is being offered."