As if Wednesday’s mass outage wasn’t enough for Optus customers, they are now being targeted by scammers.
Optus has revealed its compensation package for the millions of customers who were impacted by the mass outage, but that hasn’t stopped scammers trying to take advantage.
Scamwatch has warned Aussies about a new scam text message, which claims to be sent by the telco giant, offering compensation.
Did you suffer a financial blow in the Optus outage? Contact tamika.seeto@yahooinc.com
“Hi there, we apologise for yesterday’s network outage,” the fake text message reads.
“We are offering compensation for all customers impacted. Apply now.”
Scamwatch warned recipients not to click the malicious link and said people should ignore and delete the message and .
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Optus said it was aware of the scam being sent to Aussies about the outage – which affected the phone and internet connections of 10 million customers, as well as businesses, hospitals and public transport systems.
“To help address this and for your peace of mind, we will not be sending communications (email or SMS) about this outage with links,” Optus said.
“If you have any concerns, message us anytime in My Optus app – which remains the easiest way to contact Optus – or call us on 133 937.”
Optus compensation slammed
Optus announced that customers would receive compensation for the outage, which left some without access for more than 12 hours.
But Aussies won’t be getting payouts, with Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin saying most customers would get “less than $2” for their troubles.
Instead, the telco giant said customers on eligible plans would receive 200GB of extra data to say “thank you” for their “patience”.
Aussies quickly took to social media to slam the compensation package, with one saying a “kick in the balls” would have been better.
“They’d know a huge percentage of customers have data left over each month. This is a token gesture that really is an insult,” one person wrote.
“It’s a joke that they think anyone would be happy with this offer and to exclude certain plans but not say which, as everyone is saying, is a slap in the face of a longtime customer,” another said.
“I have a small business account with Optus. It has 13 services on it. We are an IT company. The most data we have used on it is around 120GB in a month across all services. 200GB for a whole day’s outage is a slap in the face,” another wrote.
The federal government has announced an investigation into the outage, while some customers have threatened to take legal action.
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