ACN Pacific Financial Hardship Policy

Definition of Hardship

The ACIF Credit Management Code defines financial hardship as:

a situation where a Customer is unable, reasonably, because of illness, unemployment or other reasonable cause, to discharge their financial obligations under their contract with the Supplier and the Customer reasonably expects to be able to discharge those obligations if payment and/or Service arrangements were changed.  Financial hardship can be of limited or long term duration.

In times of genuine Hardship, customers and/or their financial counsellor deserve easy access to empathetic and skilled staff who can promptly address their circumstance or concerns.  ACN Pacific will provide this service by training all staff in the general credit area to identify financial hardship customers.

ACN Pacific expects its credit team members to act with compassion and sympathy, yet still manage the situation within business requirements.  Credit staff are required to accept reasonable payment arrangements, taking into account each customer’s individual circumstances.

ACN Pacific considers financial hardship a state that involves an inability of the customer to pay bills, rather than an unwillingness to do so. Customer hardship can arise from a variety of situations. Hardship can be either of limited duration or long term.  To illustrate, several of the common causes are listed below.  

Hardship can result from a number of factors including:

• Loss of employment by the consumer or family member. 
• Family breakdown. 
• Illness including physical incapacity, hospitalisation, or mental illness of the consumer or family member. 
• A death in the family. 
• Abuse of the service by customer (eg. from use of 190X numbers, GPRS). 
• Abuse of the service by a third party leaving the customer unable to pay the account. 
• Natural Disaster. 

The basic principle of any agreed financial arrangement is that the repayment should be sufficient to cover expected future use of the service (as adjusted to ensure the customer’s financial position does not worsen over a reasonable period of time) as well as providing continued reduction of debt at a reasonable level (i.e. the customer should not be going into further debt under the arrangement). 

How to find out more 

By phone:

Hardship Inquiries: 1300 881 778

Hours of Operation: Monday - Friday 9.00am - 5.00pm EST

By Mail:

ACN Pacific Credit Team

Locked Bag 2045

North Sydney, NSW 2059