Optus tops Vodafone in complaints; S Central ex-CEO jailed; Pilots’ iPad errors caused mishap

Optus has overtaken Vodafone to become the most complained about telecoms service provider in Australia, according to the latest figures from the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO).

The numbers come from the April–June 2015 ‘Complaints in Context’ report, published jointly by the TIO and Communications Alliance. The figures include complaints from residential and small business customers (not large businesses) relating to their landline, mobile or internet services.

The report presents complaints made to the TIO as a proportion of the number of services a telco provides.

Take Optus for example. In the latest report, new complaints to the TIO about Optus climbed to 8.5 per 10,000 services in operation. That’s an increase of about 16% from the previous quarter.

“Optus has told the TIO that an increase in landline and internet fault complaints during April–June 2015 was a factor that contributed to this increase,” the report said.

The Comms Alliance commented: “Optus has implemented a number of initiatives to improve the experience for both mobile and fixed customers, including faster delivery of usage alerts, enhanced front-line education and additional field technicians. Optus reports that these initiatives have been well received by customers and that complaints decreased in the July–September 2015 quarter.”

As for Vodafone, the TIO received 6.3 new complaints per 10,000 services in operation. That’s about 27% less complaints about Vodafone than in the previous quarter, and 56% less than the same quarter in the previous year.

Optus’s increase and Vodafone’s decrease meant that Optus toppled Vodafone from the top spot in terms of new complaints to the TIO.

Complaints to the TIO about Telstra also dropped — by about 13% from the previous quarter, and about 17% from the same quarter in the previous year. According to the report, this was Telstra’s “best Complaints in Context result to date”.

The TIO noted that provider participation in these figures is voluntary.

737 tail hits tarmac after pilots’ iPad errors

Air safety investigators have found that a Qantas 737 jet scraped its tail on the tarmac at Sydney Airport last year after the pilots entered incorrect data into an iPad linked to the plane’s computer, the SMH has reported.

A flight attendant who had been sitting towards the rear of the plane apparently heard a “squeak” sound during takeoff.

According to the ABC, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) found the captain and his first officer had entered incorrect data into their onboard performance calculation tool, which was running on a company iPad.

“The tailstrike was the result of two independent and inadvertent data entry errors in calculating the takeoff performance data,” the ABC quoted a report from the ATSB as saying.

“As a result, the takeoff weight used was 10 tonnes lower than the actual weight… This resulted in the take-off speeds and engine thrust setting calculated and used for the takeoff being too low. As a result, when the aircraft was rotated, it overpitched and contacted the runway,” the report was said.

Former S Central boss Mavridis sentenced to jail

Peter Mavridis — former CEO of the S Central Group — has been sentenced to four years and 8 months in jail after being found guilty in relation to 33 charges of “obtaining financial advantage by deception and false accounting”, according to ASIC.

Mavridis’s sentence carries a non-parole period of three years.

“Between January and September 2009, Mr Mavridis directed the financial controller of the group to submit duplicated and/or falsely inflated invoices to National Australia Bank Ltd under a debtor factoring agreement, which led to credit totalling approximately $4.8 million being advanced to companies within the S Central Group,” ASIC said.

The S Central Group companies — S Central Pty Ltd, S Central (NSW) Pty Ltd, S Central Products Pty Ltd, Expressapps Pty Ltd and Infotronics Software Pty Ltd — provided IT services to customers in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, ASIC said.