Complaints Handing Policy

Leaptel is committed to providing excellent service. We listen to our customers when they are dissatisfied, respond to concerns in a timely manner, and work to provide quality resolutions to issues. 

If we haven’t met this standard, we want you to tell us.  

Below are the details of our complaints handling policy which outlines how we classify a complaint, how we will keep your informed during the process, how long it may take to resolve a complaint and your options for escalation if you are not satisfied.

A complaint is when you contact us to express dissatisfaction with a Leaptel product or service, an interaction you had with our staff, or the way we handled a query or complaint, and a response from Leaptel is expected. You have the right to make a complaint and there are no costs to you for making a complaint. 

The initial reporting of a fault or service difficulty, or a request for information or support, is not considered a complaint unless you tell us you want it to be treated as a complaint. If our staff are unsure, we may ask you to confirm if your query should be treated as a complaint. 

You can make a complaint to us by:

• Phoning 1300 205 327
• Talking to us via live chat
• Emailing complaints@leaptel.com.au
• Mailing PO Box 120, Camberwell VIC 3124

If you would like to be represented by someone else during the complaints process, let us know when lodging your complaint. Please also tell us if you are experiencing financial hardship or have other special needs so that we can provide right type of assistance for you. 

The below Australian Government services are available if you require accessibility assistance to make a complaint, follow-up the progress of a complaint, or to understand our complaints handling policy. 

When you make a complaint, we will provide a unique reference number that you can quote when discussing the complaint with us. For complaints made by: 

• phone or live chat, we will provide the reference number when you make the complaint.  
• email, online form or postal mail, we will provide a reference number within 2 business days of receiving your complaint.  

When we receive your complaint, our staff will conduct an initial assessment to determine if it is a standard or urgent complaint. Urgent complaints include issues with service loss, service disconnection or a priority assistance service, or requiring financial hardship support or domestic and family violence support.

When investigating your complaint, our team may ask you for additional information to help us resolve your complaint.

We always aim to achieve a resolution of your issue at the first point of contact. However, it can sometimes take longer to achieve a resolution that provides a fair and reasonable outcome to all parties. If your complaint cannot be resolved immediately, it may take up to 10 business days to propose a resolution, or 2 business days where the complaint is urgent. If you request written confirmation of the proposed resolution, we will provide written confirmation within 5 business days.  

Complaints related to billing issues will be resolved no later than the end of the billing period immediately following your current billing period, or within 30 calendar days, whichever is sooner. 

Once you’ve accepted a proposed resolution, we will implement the resolution within 5 business days of acceptance and provide confirmation of the resolution in writing within 5 days of implementation. This may take longer than 5 business days if during discussion of the complaint you agreed to a different timeline for resolution, or we are waiting for you to take an agreed action that is required for the resolution. 

If more time is required to provide a satisfactory resolution to your complaint, we will keep you informed as to why the resolution is delayed and provide an estimate of the additional time required. If at any time you are dissatisfied with our handling of your complaint, you can contact the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO).  

We won’t close your complaint without your agreement, and we will let you know when we close the complaint.  

If, after careful consideration and appropriate internal escalation of your complaint we reasonably conclude: 

• we can do nothing more to resolve your complaint or assist you; and 
• we reasonably believe that your complaint or behaviour is frivolous or vexatious, 

we may decide to not deal, or to deal further with your complaint. If we reach this determination we will: 

• within 5 business days of deciding to not deal with a frivolous or vexatious complaint, advise you of the reason for our decision and your options for external dispute resolution, including the TIO. 
• advise you if we will no longer accept further complaints from you on the same or similar issues, except as part of our requirements and responsibilities for any external dispute resolution process.  
• if requested by you, provide you with our reasons for the determination in writing within 5 working days of receiving your request. 

If you are not satisfied with the outcome or resolution of your complaint after Leaptel has provided you with a response to your complaint, you are entitled to refer your complaint to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) for independent advice. The TIO is an office of last resort and deals with complaints that consumers have not been able to resolve with their telephone or Internet company after exhausting all possible avenues directly with the company. 

Leaptel asks that if you do have a complaint, you allow us the opportunity to exhaust all possible internal resources before going to the TIO, as in our experience complaints dealt with internally are resolved much quicker than complaints mediated via the TIO.

As a consumer you have the right to make a complaint to the TIO at anytime if you believe you have given Leaptel adequate opportunity to resolve your complaint. Your service cannot be cancelled by Leaptel for the sole reason that you were unable resolve your complaint directly with Leaptel and pursed external options for complaint resolution.  

The TIO can be contacted via the following means: 

• Telephone: 1800 062 058 or 03 8600 8700 
• Fax: 1800 630 614 or 03 8600 8797 
• Post: Post PO Box 276, Collins Street West, VIC 8007 
• Email: tio@tio.com.au 
• Online: tio.com.au/complaints 

Accessibility options for the TIO are available online at tio.com.au/accessibility.  

Alternatively, you can contact the Office of Fair Trading in your state or territory. 

A network outage complaint is when you report a service outage to us, and we determine it is caused by a Major Outage or Significant Local Outage. You have the right to make a network outage complaint and there are no costs to you for making a network outage complaint. 

While we work to respond as quickly as possible to all complaints, during a Major Outage or Significant Local Outage event our support team may experience a high volume of contacts. During these times we aim to keep you informed of the scope, cause and estimated timeframe for restoration as outlined by our Outage Handling Policy. 

The network outage complaints policy does not apply when an outage is the result of a natural disaster.  

You can make a network outage complaint to us by: 

• Phoning 1300 205 327 
• Talking to us via live chat 
• Emailing complaints@leaptel.com.au 
• Mailing PO Box 120, Camberwell VIC 3124 

If you would like to be represented by someone else during the network outage complaints process, let us know when lodging your complaint. Please also tell us if you are experiencing financial hardship or have other special needs so that we can provide right type of assistance for you. 

The below Australian Government services are available if you require accessibility assistance to make a complaint, follow-up the progress of a complaint, or to understand our network outage complaints handling policy. 

When you make a service outage report, we will provide verbal or written acknowledgement when it is determined to be a network outage complaint and is being managed under our network outage complaints handling process. We will provide a unique reference number that you can quote when discussing the network outage complaint with us.  

For complaints made by: 

• phone or live chat, we will provide the reference number when you make the complaint.  
• email, online form or postal mail, we will provide a reference number within 2 business days of receiving your complaint.  

When we receive your network outage complaint, our staff will conduct an initial assessment to determine if it is a standard or urgent complaint. A network outage complaint is classified as urgent when the outage impacts your priority assistance service, when you indicate there is a risk to your personal safety, or when there is a serious health risk. If your network outage complaint is urgent, we will make all reasonable efforts to assist you to stay connected to an internet service during the network outage, including by considering alternative or interim options where available.

When investigating your complaint, our team may ask you for additional information to help us resolve your complaint. This may include the details of your service, the time and duration of your outage, and any other information that may help us determine the cause of your outage. 

Our default resolution for a network outage complaint is to restore access to your Leaptel services that are impacted by a network outage. To do so, Leaptel will take all necessary actions within our capacity to restore access to services as soon as reasonably practicable. 

A network outage complaint is considered to be resolved when your impacted Leaptel services are restored and we have notified you of the resolution in writing. This written confirmation will include information on how you can seek a tailored resolution if you are not satisfied with the default resolution, what steps to take if you believe your services impacted by a network outage have not been not restored; including how you can easily and accessibly request further assistance from Leaptel. If a bulk resolution offer is made by Leaptel, the written resolution confirmation will also detail the nature of the bulk resolution offer and the timeframes for accepting that offer.  

The closure of network outage complaints will be handled as follows: 

• For urgent network outage complaints, within 2 calendar days of sending the written notification of network outage complaint resolution, Leaptel will seek confirmation from you of whether the resolution was successful for your services. If you indicate that your services have not yet been restored, Leaptel will take further steps to restore your services no later than 2 working days after receiving your response. Urgent network complaints will not be closed until your services have been restored.
• For non-urgent network outage complaints, Leaptel will not close your network outage complaint unless you contact us to confirm your services are restored, or until 3 working days after sending written notification of the network outage complaint resolution.

If you are not satisfied with the resolution of your network outage complaint or how your network outage complaint was handled by Leaptel, please contact us by one of the network outage complaint contact methods above.

You may also opt for an external dispute resolution process as outlined here.