Australians are increasingly escalating complaints about phone providers to the industry ombudsman when telcos can't solve them.
Analysis from the communications watchdog, released on Wednesday, highlighted a nearly sevenfold increase in the rate of complaints about the worst-performing company being escalated to the industry ombudsman.
Circles.Life racked up 152 complaints per 10,000 services — the most escalations out of the nation's 36 largest telcos in the March 2025 quarter.
But its former customers may receive a reprieve, after Circles.Life shut up shop.
Its customer accounts were acquired by larger provider Amaysim, which finished above the nation's big-three telcos Telstra, Optus and TPG in the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) complaints-handling performance table.
Amaysim was acquired by Optus in 2021 and uses the larger telco's network, as did Circles.Life.
Optus fared poorly in the analysis, taking the 31st spot out of 36 companies. Source: AAP
More broadly, the rate of customer complaints being referred to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) has risen for the third consecutive quarter.
The report from ACMA says 7.1 per cent of customer complaints were referred to the ombudsman, up from 6.9 per cent in the previous quarter.
Referring a complaint to the TIO means the issue was not able to be resolved between customers and their provider.
ACMA member Samantha Yorke said having to refer complaints to the ombudsman adds to consumers' frustrations about making a complaint in the first place.
"The data shows that some telcos need to do a lot more to address complaints so that customers don't have to escalate the matter to the TIO to have it fixed," she said.
A spokeswoman for the TIO said customer issues with financial hardship rose 71.9 per cent in the last quarter.
Two of the nation's biggest telcos fared particularly poorly in the analysis, with Optus (31st) and TPG (34th) occupying spots near the bottom of the 36-ranked companies for rate of referred complaints.
Telstra — Australia's biggest provider — was 18th, with 31 complaints per 10,000 services.
