A tech expert has revealed a sneaky hack for frustrated Optus customers to turn their data compensation into a cash boost following the telco giant’s nationwide outage last week.
The 12-hour outage left 10 million individuals and businesses without connection last Wednesday, unable to make or receive calls, or complete transactions.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Cause of mass Optus outage revealed.
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The company offered extra data packages for affected customers, sparking backlash from critics who say it should have awarded monetary compensation for the blunder.
Instead, Optus made postpaid users eligible for at least 200GB of extra data and prepaid users able to access free unlimited data on weekends until the end of the year.
Tech reviewer and podcaster Trevor Long has shared a way Australians can make a buck from their data offer.
He suggested before activating the additional data, customers downgrade their plans to save themselves $20.
“The average user is by my estimates on the $69 Optus plan … That offers 220GB of data,” he wrote on tech blog EFTM.
“But if you were to call Optus today, ask to move down to the $49 plan which offers 30GB of data, they would lose $20 in revenue this month … 100,000 people do that they’re down $2 million dollars.”
Concerned 30GB of data is not enough? That’s where the extra data comes in, Long said.
As of Monday, customers have been able to activate at least 200GB of extra data, which will be delivered as 100GB for each payment cycle for three months.
“You will be able to activate a 200GB additional data — thanks to the outage, so, from the $69 down to the $49 you’re actually back to square one: same amount of data to use (or a touch more), and $20 extra in your pocket for Christmas,” Long said.
Long tested the hack with one customer, boasting it took less than 10 minutes to complete on the My Optus app.
The customer moved from an $89 per month plan to $49, saving them $40 this month while reaping the data benefits.
Optus has repeatedly apologised for the outage, which it this week revealed was caused by a software upgrade.
Steps have been taken to ensure it won’t happen again, the company said on Monday.
The company said about 4.05am on the Wednesday, “the Optus network received changes to routing information from an international peering network following a routine software upgrade”.
“These routing information changes propagated through multiple layers in our network and exceeded preset safety levels on key routers which could not handle these,” it said.
“This resulted in those routers disconnecting from the Optus IP Core network to protect themselves.”
Optus will co-operate with reviews launched by the government and the Senate.