More elderly customers asked to pay for help installing the COVIDSafe app at Telstra stores

Yesterday the Rumour File revealed an elderly man who visited a Telstra store for help downloading the COVIDSafe app was asked to pay $30 for assistance.

Today, it has emerged the case was not an isolated incident.

Another woman, 80-year-old Jan, visited a Telstra store in Albury for help downloading the tracing app and was told it would cost her $25.

“I said ‘No thanks’,” she told Neil Mitchell.

“I wasn’t going to pay that!”

Telstra has “apologised unreservedly” for multiple cases of elderly customers being asked to pay for help to download the app.

Telstra Group Executive of Consumer and Small Business, Michael Ackland, said he knows of seven or eight cases where customers have been asked to pay for help downloading the COVIDSafe app.

“We’re really disappointed that happened,” he said.

Mr Ackland explained the mix up that resulted in some people being asked to pay steep fees for assistance.

“We do have a standard product, a tech bar product, where many customers come in and we’ll help them set up their email and their laptop and everything, and charge $25 or $30 so I think some of our staff have assumed that this looked like a tech bar support,” he said.

“We sent out some communications to all of our stores to say ‘this is not appropriate’.

“I encourage any Telstra customer who is having trouble getting the COVID app to … come in for help and they won’t be charged for that at all.”

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Telstra management steps in after elderly man was quoted $30 to install COVIDSafe