Complaints Handling Policy

Complaints Policy

We, at MyRepublic take your feedback seriously. If you are dissatisfied in any way, it’s important we hear about it.

Anyone has the right to complain to MyRepublic. If you are dissatisfied about any aspect of our services, please contact us. We’ll work with you to address your complaint quickly, in an objective, fair and transparent way. If we are unclear whether you want your concern handled as a complaint, we will ask you. Your complaints will be handled in accordance with this policy.

How Do I Make a Complaint?

If you have a dispute arising from how we have handled your initial request, or you are dissatisfied with a product or the customer service we have provided, you can request any staff member to lodge a complaint. We have trained our customer facing staff on this complaints policy, our obligations to you, how to recognise complaints and how to resolve issues quickly. You can contact us to make a complaint in the following ways:

Get in Touch

Chat With Us Online (9AM – 5PM, Mon – Fri, excluding public holidays)

Need Help to Make and Manage Your Complaints?

After Submitting a Complaint

Acknowledgment of Complaint

We will acknowledge your complaint immediately if you have contacted us by phone, online chat or by completing a feedback form on our website. If you have contacted us via email or post, we will acknowledge your complaint in writing within two business days of receipt.

We will provide you with a unique complaint reference number, so you can track and monitor your complaint. We will provide you with regular updates on the status of your complaint. You may contact us directly quoting your complaint reference number at anytime.

Accessing Your Complaint

Where we are unable to resolve a complaint on first contact, we will first assess your complaint, categorise it and assign a priority. MyRepublic complaint categories are aligned to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman framework and include:z

Establishing a service
Issues related to activating a new service, number portability or service relocations.
Service Delivery and faults
Issues related to service quality, service interruptions, reliability and performance.
Charges and fees
Issues related to your bill and the fees and charges for your service.
Billing and payments
Issues related to the clarity and accuracy of your bill and payments to your account.
Customer service and complaints handling
Issues related to the customer service, support or advice we have given you.
Contracts
Issues related to an aspect of our contract or standard terms and conditions.
Financial hardship
Issues related to our obligations to protect your personal data and privacy.
Privacy and data protection
Issues related to our obligations to protect your personal data and privacy.
Property
Issues related to damage or work carried out on your home or place of business.

Prioritising Your Complaint

We investigate all complaints on an individual basis and will inform you in writing of the steps and expected time to resolve depending on the complexity and seriousness of the complaint.

Our Priorities Are Classified As:

Frivolous/Vexatious

Complaints that are deemed by us to be vexatious or frivolous will be closed within five business days from the date we informed you about our decision. You will be advised of the reasons why we classified your complaint this way and offered options for external dispute resolution.

Non-urgent

For non-urgent complaints we will provide you with a proposed resolution plan within fifteen days of receipt of the complaint.

Escalated

If at any point you are not satisfied with the way in which MyRepublic are handling your complaint, you can request for your complaint to be escalated to a manager through any contact channel. Once your complaint has been escalated, we will provide you with a resolution plan within five business days. At this time, if you are still not satisfied with how your complaint is being handled, you may wish to discuss your complaint with the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman.

Urgent

We will consider your complaint as urgent if any of the following situation applies:

Customers in financial hardship

We’ll treat your complaint as urgent if you have applied for, or have been accepted a being in a status of Financial Hardship under the MyRepublic Financial Hardship Policy, and where the nature of your complaint would directly contribute to or aggravate your financial situation.

Imminent Disconnection

We’ll treat your complaint as urgent if disconnection of your service has occurred or is imminent and where due process has not been followed.

Priority Assistance

We’ll treat any complaint relating to service performance or a fault related issue from a Priority Assistance customer as an urgent complaint.

We immediately escalate urgent complaints to our dedicated solutions team, who are responsible for resolving the urgent aspects of the complaint within two business days of MyRepublic receiving your complaint.

If we can’t resolve an urgent complaint within two business days, we will inform you of the cause and advise you of a new time-frame to resolve your complaint. You can request this information in writing, which we will provide to you within five working days.

Where clear and reasonable cause exists (for example, imminent disconnection of your service) you can request that your complaint is assessed and treated as urgent. We will respond to your request for urgent prioritisation within two business days.

Resolving Your Complaint

We will not implement a proposed resolution plan to your complaint until we have discussed it with you, and you accept it. Once you have agreed on the resolution plan, we will confirm it in writing and implement that agreed resolution steps within two business days. If your complaint is related to your bill, we will implement agreed steps no later than the end of the next billing period.

Occasionally, resolution may take longer than ten business days when there are factors outside of the direct control of MyRepublic. If a delay occurs, we will contact you, let you know the cause and provide you with a new time-frame. If that time-frame will be longer than an additional ten business days, we will also provide you with information on how to take your case to the TIO.

After implementing the resolution steps, we have agreed with you, we will confirm with you that the complaint has been resolved. If you want this in writing, we will write to you within five business days.

If we are unable to make contact with you, we will write to you and request that you contact us to resolve the complaint. If we don’t hear from you within ten business days of writing to you, we will classify your complaint as closed.

Taking Your Complaint Further

In the unlikely event that we cannot resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, or within the agreed time-frames, you then have the option to forward your complaint to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO). Please note that TIO will only accept cases where you have first tried to resolve your issue with us directly.

How Can I Complain to the TIO?

1800 062 058

Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman

PO BOX 276

Collins Street, West Melbourne, VIC 8007

[email protected]

www.tio.com.au/making-a-complaint

Other External Organisations

Below are several other organisations that may be able to help if your complaint falls outside the jurisdiction of the TIO :

The Australian Communications & Media Authority
The ACMA governs issues related to industry code and the telecommunications act 1997: www.acma.gov.au

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission
The ACCC can accept complaints related to trade practices, advertising and communications: www.accc.gov.au

The Office for the Australian Information Commissioner
The OAIC can accept complaints related to privacy, as determined by the Privacy Act 1998: www.oaic.gov.au

Download the Complaints Handling Policy
Last updated: 10 July 2019