For many Australians, experiences with Optus in recent years have ranged from frustrating to deeply concerning, with persistent negative feedback and serious systemic issues emerging from both customer accounts and official reports. At the heart of the complaints are repeated network outages, including a major incident that left more than ten million customers without mobile or internet service for up to 14 hours, triggering a large surge in complaints from individuals and small businesses over lost productivity, unexpected costs, and inadequate responses from the company. Worse still, several incidents involving failure to connect emergency calls during outages have had tragic consequences – independent investigations and official accounts link network failures and upgrade errors to multiple deaths when customers could not reach emergency services, highlighting not just inconvenience but potential threats to safety. These severe service disruptions are consistently echoed in everyday reports of poor mobile reception, frequent dropouts, and slow or unstable internet, issues that leave subscribers unable to rely on basic connectivity even when they are paying for it. The customer service experience is another major source of dissatisfaction : customers describe long hold times, repeated transfers between departments, conflicting information from support staff, and failures to properly resolve issues, leading many to feel ignored, worn down, or forced to escalate problems externally through industry watchdogs. Complaints also commonly involve billing discrepancies and contract disputes, where customers report unexpected charges, overbilling after cancellation, difficulty exiting plans, and delays in processing changes, all of which contribute to stress and financial inconvenience. Compounding these patterns of operational problems are concerns about data protection and security; Optus still faces legal scrutiny over a large 2022 data breach that exposed the personal information of millions of Australians, drawing regulatory action and criticism over privacy safeguards. Regulatory and legal actions further underscore deeper governance issues – in 2025 the company was ordered to pay substantial penalties for unconscionable conduct in the sale of products and services to vulnerable customers, in some cases involving misleading practices and inappropriate credit approvals. Another serious problem came from weaknesses in Optus’s identity verification systems, where scammers exploited flaws to perform unauthorized SIM swaps, resulting in significant financial loss for several customers and a formal penalty against the company for failing to meet anti-scam protections. Everyday complaints also reflect frustration with service delivery processes – delayed technician appointments, repeated cancellations of scheduled visits, unclear communication, and slow follow-ups – leaving many customers feeling they must invest excessive time just to get basic support or correction of errors. Across social discussions and individual accounts, themes such as lack of transparency, poor escalation procedures, over-reliance on offshore support, and ineffective front-line responsiveness are frequently highlighted, suggesting not isolated incidents but recurring weaknesses in how the company handles customer needs. These operational and cultural shortcomings are not just anecdotes; they align with patterns of complaint spikes following outages and ongoing disputes over compensation, illustrating how service failures cascade into financial, emotional, and safety issues for customers. Taken together, the range of problems with Optus – from critical system failures and emergency call breakdowns to everyday customer experience frustrations and regulatory sanctions – paints a picture of a major telecom provider struggling to deliver reliable service, fair practices, and effective support, leaving many Australians feeling underserved and uncertain about the value they receive for the prices they pay.