VULNERABLE children are being slugged up to $100 by Telstra each time they call the nation's biggest counselling helpline from their mobile phone.
The company is charging $1-a-minute for calls to Kids Helpline, which provides telephone and online counselling for people aged five to 25. Boystown, the charity which runs the line, said 70 per cent of the 99,133 calls made to the service's 1800 number last year by troubled children and youth in NSW were from mobile phones.
Kids Helpline chief executive Tracy Adams said children were unknowingly being billed up to $100 for calls because federal government funding of adult counselling services does not apply to those offered for children.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy last year provided $18.2 million to the suicide prevention service, Lifeline, to help charities remove additional charges for people calling from mobile phones. But the legislation did not offer any funding to Kids Helpline, which takes 50 per cent more calls than Lifeline.
Optus and Vodafone removed the additional charges for calling from mobiles following requests from the charity.
A Telstra spokeswoman said the company was investigating ways to reduce the cost of the calls: "We are aware of this issue.
