More than 1.45 million NBN users have 50Mbps connections per a report released by the ACCC yesterday. That accounts for 35 per cent of all NBN users and is an almost tenfold increase from December 2017.

The dramatic uptake in that tier of service is credited to the NBN's 'Focus on 50' promotion that encourages retailers to move their customers to 50Mbps plans through wholesale discounts and credits.

The ACCC's second Measuring Broadband Australia is out and there's some damning news for a large slab of customers. 7.4% of customers are only receiving speeds that are half of what they're paying for. And just seven in ten NBN customers received 90% of their maximum plan speed.

One of my pet hates when I shop is that little notice next to the counter that says the use of credit cards and debit cards will incur extra fees. In many cases, the charges have been far in excess of what the stores actually pay for the transactions and the ACCC has had enough. They are now going after companies and taking them to court for adding what they deem excessive fees. Today, they've announced they're going after car rental firm Europcar after Cruisin Motorhomes was forced to pay $12,600 in fines earlier this month. If you're taking payments by credit card, or feel you're being slugged excessively, there are steps you can take.

NBN provider MyRepublic has been ordered by the ACCC to pay penalties totalling $25,200 for alleged false or misleading representations about its NBN service performance. The ACCC said MyRepublic marketed its NBN services using statements such as “up to nbn100 Speed Tier” and “nbn50 Speed Tier” but that fine print disclaimers were ineffective as they were not prominent and did not provide clear information.

For the last 16 months, the ACCC has been looking into the electricity industry, searching for the root causes of our high energy prices. That review has come up with 56 recommendations on how to "fix" the National Electricity Market. In their view, the reforms they're proposing could cut power bills down by as much as a quarter, depending on where you live.

This year, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) released its first performance report for the Monitoring Broadband Australia program. Against many critics' expectations, the results paint a reasonably positive picture of our National Broadband Network (NBN), although there obviously remains lots of room for improvement. This infographic from the ACCC breaks down the chief findings from the final report.

The ACCC says that about 2,600 Australians receive hospital treatment for injuries caused by toppling furniture and televisions each year. That's approximately 50 people per week getting clobbered in their own homes by inanimate objects. Tragically, at least 22 children under the age of nine have died in Australia from toppling furniture or televisions since 2001 with children under 3 years of age at greatest risk. So, what can you do about this risk?

The Australian Competition and Comnsumer Commission (ACCC) has put the smack down on Fitbit after the company made representations to buyers about their rights that were contrary to Australian consumer law. From November 2016 to March 2017, Fitbit told customers that its warranty was only available for one year and that faulty products would be only replaced for the remainder of the calendar year or 30 days, whichever was longer.

The list of vehicles requiring replacement of defective Takata airbags continues to grow, with the ACCC adding a further million vehicles to a future recall list. With two in seven vehicles on Australian roads requiring replacement, there's a decent chance your vehicle is on the list. We have all the information on the recall here.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has released their annual Targeting scams report as they kick off Scam Awareness Week. They found that more people than ever are being scammed and that the amount of money we're losing is up on previous years with the average loss pegged at $6500.

Google is being investigated by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission following revelations, that came to light through research by Oracle, that the company has been using mobile plan phone data to track the movements of Android phone users. And that is costing users a pretty penny as the data being collected adds about 1GB to the monthly use of many users.

HP sold about 220,000 printers in Australia with the euphemistically named “Dynamic Security Feature” (DSF). And while anything called a "security feature" sounds like a good thing, its purpose was to stop people from installing non-HP ink cartridges. As a result, the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) has told HP, through a court-enforceable undertaking to compensate customers who were unable to use non-HP ink cartridges due to an undisclosed technology in their printers.

Last week, the ACCC released its first monthly report looking at the state of broadband in Australia, with a particular focus on whether the NBN is delivering on the promises made by RSPs, as well as how ISPs delivering pre-NBN services are faring. The data, collected with SamKnows under the "Measuring Broadband Australia" project paints a positive picture although there is room for improvement.

Uh-oh. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) have today announced it has commenced proceedings against Telstra after the telco misled consumers and charged them for content they didn't even know they'd purchased. Now, more than 100,000 Telstra customers are eligible for a refund - here's how you can get it.

Aside from all the deployment challenges that NBNCo has faced, one of the other big issues has been customers have not received connections that run at the expected speeds. Many people that signed up for 50MBps plans, for example, have not seen those kinds of speeds and, in many cases, performance drops significantly in peak periods. In response, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has proposed a new "labelling" system to clarify what customers can expect.

The Australian Government has today announced a compulsory recall of all Takata airbags installed in Australian vehicles. The recall will affect two in seven cars on Australian roads and features a diverse list of manufacturers including Ford, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Mazda, BMW, Jeep and Toyota.

Here's how you can check if you car is affected by the recall.

Over the last few months, the ACCC has been telling RSPs to ensure that their ads accurately represent what sorts of speeds customers can realistically expect from their NBN connection. But this isn't a new problem - anyone with an ADSL connection knows it's a game of roulette guessing what sorts of networks speeds to you'll get depending on proximity to an exchange, the quality of the copper and time of day. However, the ACCC has put RSPs on notice, telling them that misleading ads will see them come down hard.

Fresh on the heels of a similar declaration from Telstra, Optus has announced it will be compensating customers for slow NBN speeds. Here are the details.

Telstra is offering compensation to 42,000 customers after the telco promoted and offered NBN speeds that couldn't actually be achieved in the real world.