Financial Hardship

Leaptel understands that there may be times you have trouble paying your bills for several reasons. This could be a short-term or long-term situation.

You have the right to apply for financial hardship assistance and it will be provided free of charge.

If you are experiencing financial hardship, we will only suspend or disconnect your service as a matter of last resort.

Further information is provided in our Payment Assistance Policy.

Financial hardship is when you are experiencing circumstances where you are unable to meet your payment obligations to Leaptel but believe that you will be able to meet these obligations if an arrangement for payment assistance is made.

Circumstances that may affect your ability to pay include (but are not limited to); illness, unemployment, a reduction in income, experiencing domestic or family violence, a death in the family, natural disasters or any other unexpected events that change income or expenses.

We can provide a range of options to help you stay online with Leaptel when you are experiencing financial hardship. The options we provide may include:

• A payment plan tailored to your ability to pay.
• Temporarily postponing, extending, or deferring the time for paying a bill.
• Discounting a bill charge.
• Applying a credit to your account.
• Waiving a debt.
• Controls on how you can incur charges, such as spend controls.
• Transferring you to a plan better suited to your circumstances.
• Removing non-essential features of a service at no cost.
• Applying a restriction on part of your service or specific services.

You can apply by contacting us on:

Our financial hardship team can be spoken to directly by calling 1300 205 327 (Option 3) between 9am – 5pm, Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays.

All times are Australian Eastern time.

You can contact a financial counsellor anywhere in Australia through the National Debt Helpline:

• Phone on 1800 007 007 – Free hotline – 9:30am to 4:30pm Monday to Friday
• Live Chat at ndh.org.au – 9.00am to 8.00pm Monday to Friday

Local services can be found at ndh.org.au/financial-counselling/find-a-financial-counsellor/

If you have a complaint about the handling of your financial hardship assessment, you can contact us using the details above and advising that you wish to make a complaint.

Our Complaints Handling Process details how we will handle your complaint.

If you remain unhappy about the outcome of your complaint after following our dispute resolution process, you can contact the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) for external dispute resolution. You can contact the TIO at:

• Calling 1800 062 058
• Contacting them at tio.com.au

Making a complaint will not affect your ability to agree to an arrangement for financial hardship assistance.