Aussie Broadband accused of facilitating millions of scam calls

Australia's telecommunications landscape has been marred by a surge in scam calls, with one major player pointing the finger at a rival. TPG Telecom, the parent company of Vodafone, has accused Aussie Broadband of being involved in almost all scam calls made to its customers over a one-year period.

An investigation by Vodafone found that 98 per cent of scam calls - more than 24 million - made to its customers between July 2025 and July 2026 originated from Symbio, a little-known internet phone company owned by Aussie Broadband.

Scam calls on the rise

“Every time we see this type of scam campaign we give the evidence and the data to Aussie Broadband for them to investigate and block the bad actors,” said Vanessa Hicks, an executive at TPG Telecom. “We want more urgent action to stop this activity closer to the source and stop these calls reaching Australians.”

Symbio sells Australian phone numbers in bulk to companies, allowing them to make calls via the internet. Aussie Broadband CEO Brian Maher said Symbio had about 500 customers on-selling those numbers, and each of those customers may on-sell numbers to thousands of other users.

“Where we find a persistent bad actor, then we will disconnect them,” Mr Maher said. “We've got plans to invest further into the future, and we'll continue to do that,” he said, but declined to say how many additional staff would be hired.

A real-life scam

Ian Odlum, a Perth-based resident, recently received a scam call from someone claiming to be from the Australian Federal Police. The caller told him that they had seized an individual and their laptop, which contained his personal information, and asked him to come to a police station.

“It was a very calm, very kind person explaining that they weren't going to ask for my information, but that they needed to speak to me and it was very important,” Mr Odlum said. He refused to travel to the police station, and the caller hung up.

Vodafone's fraud team investigated and found that police stations in Western Australia, Queensland, South Australia, and the AFP had all been impersonated by calls from Symbio's network.

Regulatory action

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) said it had checked on the scam and found that regulation was working, with the traffic identified, notifications passed upstream, and blocking occurred.

“The apparent sources were multiple overseas telcos, and the ACMA did not identify non-compliance by an Australian telco,” the regulator said in a statement.

Aussie Broadband has made “significant progress” in reducing scam calls over the past month, according to Mr Maher. However, TPG's Vanessa Hicks said it was disappointing that Symbio had faced no financial penalties.

“We are bringing this out because we're trying to protect Australians and we're trying to protect our customers,” Ms Hicks said.