SpinTel Pays A$653,400 Spam Penalty for Emailing Former Customers

Australian telco SpinTel has paid a A$653,400 penalty after the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) found it sent more than 32,000 marketing emails to former customers without consent. Some of the recipients had left SpinTel up to 13 years earlier.

The case turns on a question many senders get wrong: does a past customer relationship give you permission to keep emailing someone? SpinTel argued it could infer consent because the recipients had done business with it before. The regulator did not accept that argument, and the penalty comes with a three-year court-enforceable undertaking.

What the ACMA found

Between July and September 2025, SpinTel sent marketing emails to people who were no longer its customers. The messages urged them to come back and promoted the company's NBN and mobile plans. According to the ACMA, more than 32,000 of these emails were sent without the consent the Spam Act 2003 requires for commercial electronic messages.

The investigation also found that five messages reached recipients more than five business days after they had unsubscribed. Five emails is a small number next to 32,000, but it shows the regulator checks unsubscribe processing as a separate obligation, not only the consent question.

Why "they used to be a customer" was not enough

Australian law allows consent to be express (the person actively agreed) or, in some circumstances, inferred from an existing relationship. SpinTel relied on inferred consent, on the basis that the recipients had previously done business with it.

The ACMA rejected that reading. ACMA member Samantha Yorke said a prior business relationship does not automatically permit marketing messages. Whether consent can be inferred depends on three things she listed:

• the nature of the relationship between the sender and the recipient;
• how relevant the messages are to that relationship;
• what the recipient would reasonably expect to receive.

A person who cancelled a service many years ago has little reason to expect promotional email from that provider today. The age of the relationship, up to 13 years for some recipients, is what made the inferred consent argument fail here.

The ACMA also said it generally encourages businesses to obtain express consent, with clear terms agreed in advance, including how long that consent lasts. That last point matters for list management: consent with a stated duration gives you a clear date after which a contact should leave your marketing audience.

The undertaking: three years of oversight

Beyond the penalty, the ACMA accepted a court-enforceable undertaking from SpinTel that runs for three years. Under it, SpinTel must:

• appoint an independent consultant to review its compliance with spam laws;
• undergo regular audits;
• report to the ACMA.

For a sender, this part of the outcome is often more costly than the fine. External audits reach into list sources, consent records, suppression handling and campaign targeting for years after the original breach.

Part of a wider enforcement pattern

The SpinTel case is not isolated. According to the ACMA, businesses have paid more than A$11 million in spam penalties over the last 18 months. Recent ACMA spam actions have involved retailers, finance companies and telcos, and several of them concerned the same basic issues: consent that could not be shown, and unsubscribe requests that were not honoured in time.

Action checklist

• Separate former customers from active ones in your marketing audiences, and record the date each relationship ended.
• Check the consent basis of every win-back segment: express consent with a record, or an inferred basis you can justify for that specific relationship and message.
• Set a consent expiry for lapsed customers instead of keeping them on lists indefinitely, and state its duration when you collect consent.
• Prefer express consent at sign-up and at cancellation, for example an opt-in to keep receiving offers after the service ends. A double opt-in flow gives you the strongest record.
• Measure unsubscribe processing time end to end, including exports to other tools, and keep it well inside 5 business days.
• Keep a working unsubscribe link in every commercial message; our unsubscribe link guide covers the setup by platform.
• Keep consent evidence (source, timestamp, wording shown) where you can retrieve it if a regulator asks.

Sources

1. ACMA: SpinTel pays $653K penalty for spamming former customers, November 2026 (primary source)
2. Mirage News: SpinTel Fined $653K for Spamming Former Customers, 4 November 2026
3. ACMA: Telemarketing and spam compliance and investigations

Related on SMTPedia

• Double opt-in: compliance, implementation and deliverability impact
• How to add an unsubscribe link: the complete guide
• Cold email outreach: domain strategy, warmup, tools and compliance