Optus Fined $100 Million for Exploiting Vulnerable Customers

Court finds the telco pressured vulnerable people into contracts they could not afford or understand.

9/24/2025|Updated: 9/24/2025

Optus has been hit with a record $100 million penalty after the Federal Court found the telco engaged in “predatory” and “appalling” sales practices that targeted hundreds of vulnerable Australians over a four-year period.

The judgment comes as the company reels from its second Triple Zero outage in recent years, and subsequent revelations that four people may have died during that blackout.

Naziya Alvi Rahman is a Canberra-based journalist who covers political issues in Australia. She can be reached at [email protected].