Optus buyer fumes after she is charged $1600 in simply two minutes – and she or he did not even use her telephone

A high-profile Optus buyer has been left livid after discovering a large telephone invoice whereas on an abroad journey. 

Melbourne-based LGBTIQ activist and campaigner, Sally Rugg, claims she was charged $1,600 by Optus inside two minutes of touchdown in London just a few weeks in the past. 

The embattled telco firm is dealing with an enormous fallout following a serious outage on November 8 which crippled tens of millions of shoppers, leaving them with out cell phone or web reception for hours.

Hundreds of companies had been additionally impacted – some shedding hundreds of {dollars} when fee methods reliant on Optus connections crashed.

 Ms Rugg shared the shock information to social media platform X on Saturday. 

‘Wanna hear one other @Optus horror story?’ she wrote. 

‘I landed in London 2wks in the past & inside 2 MN I’d been charged $1600… didn’t use my telephone in any respect, it was in my pocket (pinging w texts about insane costs).

‘@Optus tells me the costs are “legitimate” so received’t waive them.’

Ms Rugg added: ‘This isn’t even a kind of old-timey Returning From Abroad To A $1600 Invoice bc You Didn’t Realise Roaming Was On conditions — this occurred inside 2 minutes with out me even touching my telephone!’

An Optus consultant shortly responded to Ms Rugg’s public submit. 

‘Hello Sally, sorry to listen to about your roaming costs concern. You may lodge your criticism right here adopted by a hyperlink,’ they stated, adopted by a hyperlink to an internet site.  

An organization spokesperson additionally replied: ‘It will likely be referred to our Buyer Relations Group who’re the very best level of escalation inside our organisation they usually deal with each inside and exterior complaints’.

Ms Rugg, who was the artistic and campaigns director of left-wing activist organisation GetUP between 2013 and 2018, stated she had already spoken to Optus workers who had knowledgeable her that ‘the costs had been legitimate’. 

One commentor, who claimed to be an ex-telco regulator, urged Ms Rugg to formally make a criticism in opposition to Optus. 

‘Make sure that they provide you a criticism quantity after which register that with the ombudsman. These costs are unacceptable,’ they stated. 

‘That is loopy! They completely have to refund you!,’ one other stated, to which Ms Rugg replied: ‘Oh I positively haven’t paid it (and have switched off my direct debit so @Optus can’t take it from me earlier than I can the costs to Shopper Affairs)’. 

Some sympathised with Ms Rugg’s plight, sharing tales of comparable experiences.

‘This additionally occurred to me at present!’ one wrote. 

‘Inside 5 minutes of touchdown in Dubai I had three emails and messages in succession telling me I had spent $150 on roaming (which I’ve switched off on my telephone). Ticked off? You wager.’

Others labelled the costs as ‘outrageous’. 

Day by day Mail Australia contacted Optus for remark. 

Till her extremely publicised dismissal in 2022, Ms Rugg additionally served because the chief of workers for Impartial MP Monique Ryan.

In Could, Ms Rugg settled her office regulation case in opposition to the impartial MP and the commonwealth for $100,000. 

The nationwide Optus fail despatched public transport in Melbourne into chaos, with Metro Trains revealing the outage prevented the management centre from speaking with trains.

Hospitals and emergency providers throughout the nation had been additionally affected. 

Ramsay Well being Care stated telephone providers to its 70 hospitals and clinics had been impacted. Emergency triple zero calls weren’t working from Optus landlines.

The Optus outage was the second main disaster for the telco within the final 12 months after a cybersecurity breach final 12 months compromised the non-public information of tens of millions of shoppers. 

On Monday, Optus revealed the outage was attributable to adjustments to ‘routing data’ following a software program improve on the telco.

Some 10.2 million prospects had no web or cellular entry for about 13.5 hours.

Companies went down about 4.05am and weren’t totally restored till 5.35pm.

In a press release, Optus stated their community ‘obtained adjustments to routing data from a global peering community following a routine software program improve’.

‘These routing data adjustments propagated via a number of layers in our community and exceeded preset security ranges on key routers which couldn’t deal with these,’ their assertion stated.

‘This resulted in these routers disconnecting from the Optus IP Core community to guard themselves.’

Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin did not converse publicly on the day of the disaster for a number of hours, calling ABC Radio by way of WhatsApp shortly after 10.30am for a brief interview concerning the matter.

She confronted intense backlash for showing to go lacking throughout these essential early hours, however this week informed an inquiry she had good cause for the choice.

‘I wished to make sure earlier than I spoke that we might not less than rule out the opportunity of malicious exercise,’ she stated.

‘As quickly as our cyber specialists dominated this out, I started publicly fronting the problem on behalf of my staff.’

The Australian Enterprise Community has reported that Optus could possibly be compelled to pay as much as $400m in compensation if it enters an settlement with the regulator.

Hundreds of shoppers have additionally joined a class-action lawsuit in opposition to the telco after their private data was hacked in 2022.

As much as 9 million Aussies had been stung within the information breach, which uncovered their names, dates of delivery, telephone numbers, electronic mail addresses, and, for a subset of shoppers, addresses and ID doc numbers resembling a driver’s licence or passport quantity.