With up to 9.8 million Australians having their personal details stolen in the massive Optus hack, customers have started voting with their feet – 10 per cent of those using their mobile service have left the company since the breach.
The country’s second-largest telecommunications provider is facing 56 per cent of current customers “considering changing telcos as a direct result of the Optus cyber attack”, while 10 per cent had already done so, according to the annual EFTM Mobile Phone Survey.
It found that Telstra boasts a 30 per cent share of the market, while Optus currently has 24 per cent of the market and TPG/Vodafone is responsible for a 15 per cent share.
“Like many people I expected there to be a lot of upset customers, but I didn’t expect to see as many people actively saying they have made the change … 10 per cent is a huge amount,” EFTM chief executive Trevor Long told The Australian.
“What this tells me is that it’s a real groundswell, and Optus will lose a lot of customers. For Optus to win back consumers it needs to change its approach to customers.
“The comments that came through were highly critical of Optus and its communication. In fact, they were less critical of the hack and more concerned about the fact that Optus had poorly communicated with them.”
Some of the comments in the survey slammed Optus for the way it handled the breach, describing it as “abysmal”.
“Optus’s explanation left me with more questions than answers. I am going to pay my phone off so I can switch telcos,” one wrote.
“There has been no direct contact in the form of an email, or text or phone call about the cyber attack,” another said. “Their handling has been appalling. I’m on a month-to-month plan so the only cost is the handset which is preventing me to move back to Telstra. I’m only just halfway through the 24 months.”
One person lamented: “I was frustrated that they went to the media first and didn’t contact their customer base first.”
“Secondly, cancelling my contract was difficult because they shutdown both the online and phone service cancellation team and forced customers into stores with a 100-point ID check. Lastly, I feel there was no sincere apology or legit onus of the situation. Anyway, I’ve had my data leaked and I certainly won’t be a customer again (any time soon anyway).”
Optus published a grovelling full-page ad apologising for the “devastating” cyberattack that saw personal details of millions of customers exposed to hackers at the start of October.
“We’re deeply sorry,” the message from the telco read.
“We’re deeply sorry that a cyberattack has happened on our watch. We know this is devastating and that we’ll need to work hard to regain your trust. The attack was quickly shut down, and we are working closely with authorities to understand how this attack on your privacy occurred.
“Our priority is preventing harm to customers. We are here to assist and support you through any personal concern that you may be feeling.
“We know there’s a lot of information and misinformation out there, and we’ve heard your message that we need to communicate more clearly. That’s why we’ve now put together easily accessible materials for you to stay informed on the actions you can take at optus.com.au/support/cyberattack.”
The survey also revealed that most people could save over $120 per year on their mobile costs without even changing telcos.
It showed that the average monthly spend on mobile plans is $50 and the amount of data people pay for on their plans is close to double what they are using.
On average Australians have 47GB of data available to use each month, while only actually using 24GB.
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