Marketing Communications Policy

This Marketing Communications Policy explains how we market our Services to you, how we obtain and record your consent, and how you can stop hearing from us. It forms part of your Agreement with us and applies to both Consumer Customers and Business Customers.

We may send you marketing about our nbn broadband and mobile Services — new plans, changes to existing plans, promotions, product releases and service improvements — by:

(a) email; (b) SMS or MMS; (c) telephone; (d) post; (e) messages inside your online account or on our website; and (f) advertising on our website and on third-party platforms.

We do this in line with the Spam Act 2003 (Cth), the Do Not Call Register Act 2006 (Cth), the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles, the Australian Consumer Law (Schedule 2 to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth)), and the applicable ACMA-registered industry code or standard for telecommunications consumer protection. We are registered with Communications Compliance, which monitors industry compliance with those consumer protection rules.

How we collect, use, store and disclose your Personal Information — including for marketing — is set out in our Privacy Policy in this Section D. This policy is about the marketing itself.

Under the Spam Act 2003 (Cth), we may only send you a commercial electronic message — an email, SMS or MMS that markets our Services — where we have your consent. Consent can be express or inferred.

We rely on express consent where you have clearly told us we can market to you — for example by ticking a marketing opt-in when you sign up, agreeing during a sales call, or subscribing to our updates on our website. We do not bundle marketing consent into an unrelated agreement or pre-tick opt-in boxes, and consenting to marketing is never a condition of getting a Service from us.

We rely on inferred consent, in the limited way the Spam Act 2003 (Cth) allows, where you are a current customer and it is reasonable to conclude from our existing relationship that you would expect to hear from us about Services of the kind you already have. We do not treat inferred consent as open-ended: if you tell us to stop, we stop, and we do not keep marketing to you indefinitely after your Services with us have ended.

We keep a record of the consent you have given — what you agreed to, when, and how — and we will tell you what that record shows if you ask. If you are not sure what you have consented to, call us on 1300 994 884.

Marketing consent is separate from the contact details we use to run your account. We will always contact you about your Service and your bills, whatever your marketing preferences are — see Opting out of marketing below.

Every commercial electronic message we send you will clearly and accurately identify us as the sender, and will include current contact details for us — as required by the Spam Act 2003 (Cth).

That means our marketing messages will state that they come from Lightning IP Pty Ltd (ABN 41 649 028 240) and give you a way to contact us — our phone number 1300 994 884, our website lightningip.com.au, or our address at Level 1, 561 Olive Street, Albury NSW 2640.

We do not send marketing from disguised, misleading or unattributed sender addresses or sender IDs, and we do not use another business's name or branding to make a message look like it came from someone else. If you receive a message claiming to be from us that you think is not, please tell us — see If you are unhappy with our marketing below.

You can opt out of our marketing at any time, and you do not have to give us a reason. You can:

(a) use the unsubscribe link or reply instruction in any marketing email; (b) reply STOP (or as directed) to any marketing SMS; (c) change your marketing preferences in your online account; (d) tell us on a call, or ask the person calling you to record your preference; or (e) call us on 1300 994 884 or contact us through lightningip.com.au.

Every commercial electronic message we send will contain a functional, low-cost unsubscribe facility that stays working for at least 30 days after we send the message. We will action your opt-out promptly — our standard is within 5 business days of receiving it, and usually much sooner. If a message reaches you after you have opted out because it was already in a send queue, tell us and we will check that your preference has been applied.

Opting out of marketing does not stop the messages you need about your account and your Service. We will still contact you about:

(f) faults, outages and planned works affecting your Service; (g) bills, payments, overdue amounts and Charges; (h) changes to your plan, your Charges or this Agreement, including notice of a detrimental change; (i) your Critical Information Summary, and information we must give you under an industry code or standard; (j) service migration, appointment and installation matters; and (k) anything else we are required by law, a regulator or a court to tell you.

These are service messages, not marketing, and you cannot opt out of them while you hold a Service with us.

Where we make telemarketing calls, we comply with the Do Not Call Register Act 2006 (Cth) and the Telemarketing and Research Calls Industry Standard 2017.

In practice:

(a) we wash our calling lists against the Do Not Call Register before we call, and we keep that washing current — we do not rely on a stale list; (b) we only call a number on the Register where an exemption applies or where you have given us consent to call it; (c) we call only within the permitted hours — generally 9am to 8pm on weekdays and 9am to 5pm on Saturdays, and not at all on Sundays or national public holidays, in your local time; (d) at the start of the call, our caller will identify themselves by name, say that they are calling on behalf of Lightning IP, and explain the purpose of the call; (e) we allow our calling line identification to be presented, so you can see who is calling; (f) if you ask us not to call you again, we record that request and honour it — across all our calling lists, not just the campaign you were called about; and (g) if you ask, we will tell you where we got your contact details.

If we call you and you do not want to talk then, you can simply say so and ask us to call back later or not at all. If you receive a telemarketing call that you believe breaches these rules, please tell us so we can investigate — see If you are unhappy with our marketing below. You can also register your number free of charge at donotcall.gov.au.

When we sell to you — on the phone, online, or in person — we commit to the following:

(a) no pressure selling. We will not use high-pressure tactics, artificial urgency, repeated approaches after you have said no, or scripts designed to wear you down. "No" is a complete answer; (b) we check the plan suits you before we sell it. We will ask about how you expect to use the Service, tell you honestly whether the access technology at your address can support what you need, and not sell you a plan we know is unsuitable — including a speed tier your connection cannot deliver, or a data allowance well beyond what you need; (c) we give you the Critical Information Summary before you commit, not after. It sets out the Charges, inclusions, Minimum Term, early termination Charges and other key details in a standard form so you can compare it with other offers. Prices always live in the Critical Information Summary or our published price list, never in this policy; (d) we tell you clearly what is a promotion and what happens when it ends — including what your Charges will be afterwards; (e) we make it clear what you are agreeing to, and we do not add Services or add-ons to your account that you have not asked for; and (f) we record what we agreed, and we will send you written confirmation of the key details of the sale.

Where a cooling-off right applies to the way your Service was sold to you, we will tell you about it at the point of sale and we will honour it — see the Your right to change your mind clause of Section A.

If you feel any of this did not happen, tell us. We would rather unwind a sale that should not have been made than hold you to it.

We show restraint in marketing to customers we know are in financial hardship, or whom we have identified as being in vulnerable circumstances — for example because of ill health, disability, family violence, bereavement, language or literacy barriers, or a recent natural disaster.

Specifically:

(a) we do not upsell or cross-sell during a financial hardship interaction. If you contact us for hardship assistance, that conversation is about assistance; (b) while you are in an active arrangement under our Financial Hardship Policy in this Section D, we will not market to you a plan or add-on that would increase your Charges. We may still talk to you about a lower-cost plan, a plan better suited to your circumstances, or a spend control — that is part of helping; (c) we do not use hardship, credit or vulnerability information as a targeting signal to sell more expensive Services; and (d) where a customer tells us they have a support person, an authorised representative or an advocate acting for them, we will direct marketing conversations appropriately and respect any limits they set — see the Letting someone else deal with us about your account clause of Section A.

Our staff are trained to recognise when a sales conversation should stop and a support conversation should start. If that did not happen for you, we want to know — see If you are unhappy with our marketing below.

We are a carriage service provider, not a network owner. Our mobile Services are supplied over a mobile network we resell through an upstream wholesale Supplier, and our nbn Services are supplied over the nbn access network.

Because we do not own the mobile network, we do not make up what we say about it. Before we publish any marketing material, website content, coverage map, advertisement or sales script that refers to the mobile network we resell, its coverage, its technology or its performance, we submit that material to our upstream network Supplier for compliance approval, and we do not publish it until that approval is given. This applies to any required network statement or form of words the network operator specifies, and to changes we make to material that was previously approved.

We also commit that:

(a) we do not use the network operator's name, brand, logos or trade marks as if they were our own, or in a way that suggests you are contracting with them rather than with us. Your Agreement is with Lightning IP, and we are the one accountable to you for the Service; (b) we reproduce coverage information only in the form our Supplier has approved, and we include the coverage disclaimer required with it — coverage maps are predictive, coverage depends on your device, your location, terrain, buildings and network conditions, and coverage at a particular place cannot be guaranteed; (c) where we describe the network by its capability rather than by name — for example the population coverage or the technologies available — we use the approved figures current at the time of publication; and (d) we do not represent that we own, operate or control the network, or that we can change or extend its coverage.

What this means for you is simple: coverage and network claims you see from us have been checked with the people who actually run the network before we put them in front of you.

We only make claims about our Services that we reasonably believe to be accurate and that we can substantiate. Under the Australian Consumer Law we must not mislead or deceive you, or make false or misleading representations about our Services or their price — and we take that as a floor, not a target.

In practice:

(a) speed claims for nbn Services are based on the typical busy-period speeds we publish as required by the Telecommunications (NBN Consumer Information) Industry Standard 2018, and we make clear that the speed you actually get depends on the access technology at your premises, your in-premises equipment and cabling, and network conditions. We do not advertise a speed as achievable on an access technology that cannot deliver it; (b) mobile speed and coverage claims are described as typical or predicted, never guaranteed, and are subject to the approvals in Network and coverage claims are checked with our upstream supplier first above; (c) price claims state the total minimum cost, what is included, what is extra, how long a promotional price lasts, and what the Charges become afterwards. The authoritative figures are always in your Critical Information Summary and our published price list; and (d) we say plainly when an offer is conditional, limited, or available only at certain addresses.

If a claim we have published becomes inaccurate — because a plan, a price, a coverage footprint or an upstream input has changed — we will correct or withdraw the material as soon as reasonably practicable after we become aware of it. Where the inaccurate claim may have affected a decision you have already made, we will contact the affected customers and put it right, including by releasing you from a Minimum Term where that is the fair outcome. Nothing in this policy limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law, including the consumer guarantees.

We may engage third parties to market or sell our Services — for example dealers, agents, contact centres, comparison or switching services, and digital marketing providers.

Where we do:

(a) they must comply with this policy, with our sales conduct standards, and with the Spam Act 2003 (Cth), the Do Not Call Register Act 2006 (Cth), the Australian Consumer Law and the applicable ACMA-registered industry code or standard; (b) they must identify themselves and say clearly that they are calling or writing on behalf of Lightning IP; (c) they must pass consent, opt-out and do-not-call requests through to us promptly so we can record and honour them; (d) they must not make claims about the mobile network we resell, or about coverage, beyond the material we have had approved by our upstream network Supplier; and (e) we monitor how they perform, and we will stop working with a party that does not meet these standards.

We remain accountable to you for the conduct of anyone marketing or selling our Services on our behalf. If a third party sold you a Lightning IP Service and something went wrong, come to us — do not let anyone tell you it is not our problem.

We do not sell your Personal Information, and we do not disclose it to a third party for that party's own marketing. Where we share information with a service provider so they can market on our behalf, they may use it only for that purpose and subject to the obligations described in our Privacy Policy in this Section D.

If you are unhappy with a marketing message, a call, a sales interaction, or a claim we have made, please tell us. Call us on 1300 994 884 or use the contact details on lightningip.com.au. We will treat it as a complaint and handle it under our Complaints Handling Policy in this Section D — which sets out how we acknowledge, investigate and resolve complaints, and the timeframes we work to.

If we have contacted you when we should not have, we will stop, check how it happened, correct our records, and tell you what we found. If a Service was sold to you in a way that did not meet the standards in this policy, we will look at unwinding or adjusting it.

You can also raise the matter externally at any time, and you do not need our permission to do so:

(a) the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) — a free and independent dispute resolution service for telecommunications complaints, at tio.com.au or 1800 062 058. We are a member of the TIO scheme as required under section 128 of the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999; (b) the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), which enforces the Spam Act 2003 (Cth) and the Do Not Call Register Act 2006 (Cth), at acma.gov.au; (c) the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for misleading advertising, at accc.gov.au; and (d) the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) for privacy concerns, at oaic.gov.au.

Going to any of these bodies does not affect your other rights, including your rights under the Australian Consumer Law.