How to make a customer complaint with us
At Queensland Public Trustee, we take your feedback seriously as part of our ongoing commitment to always providing professional and customer-focused service.
We manage all customer complaints in line with our Customer complaints management policy and Customer complaints management procedure, which all staff must understand and follow.
If you have a complaint or other feedback, there are some things that you can do to help us to help you.
- Tell us about any problems or concerns as soon as possible. The earlier you tell us, the sooner we can act.
- Describe your complaint as clearly as you can and include all relevant information, including details of any action that has already been taken.
- Make sure you tell us what outcome you’re seeking or the action you want us to take.
- Cooperate and treat staff with courtesy and respect.
- Provide us with your contact details if you would like a response. You don’t have to provide your details, however we will not be able to contact you for further information if we need to or tell you about the outcome of your complaint.
The quickest way to make a customer complaint is to contact a staff member who will help you. You can find the contact details of our offices on our office locations page.
You can also provide your feedback by:
- using our complaints form
- calling our complaints line on 1800 014 536 (Monday to Friday, from 9am to 4pm)
- emailing us at [email protected]
- writing to us at:
Complaints Office
Queensland Public Trustee
GPO Box 1449
BRISBANE QLD 4001
This information is also available for download
The Your Complaint's Journey brochure is available in the following languages to support the diversity of our customers.
If you need an interpreter, call the Translating and Interpreting Service (TIS National) on 131 450 and request to be transferred to the Public Trustee on 1800 014 536.
If you need help to speak or listen on the phone, contact the National Relay Service (NRS) Helpdesk. Options for contacting the NRS Helpdesk can be found on the NRS website.
How will we handle your complaint?
All customer complaints are treated confidentially and will be recorded in our complaints management system.
If you've provided us with your contact details, a member of our team will acknowledge your complaint within three working days and let you know when you should receive a response.
Our team will then assess your complaint to ensure we have all the information we need and that we are the right people to handle your complaint. To do this, we will review the information you provided, any file notes we have, and any policies or procedures and legislation to help us understand the situation. Our team may contact you to ask for more information if required.
If the complaint can’t be dealt with by us, we may refer you to another organisation who may be able to help you.
Every case is different, however, we normally require up to 30 working days to respond to your complaint. This allows us the time to make sure we collect all the required information and can carefully consider what you have told us.
If your complaint is about a privacy issue, we normally respond within 45 working days.
If we think it might take us longer to respond to your complaint, we will contact you to let you know.
When you are not happy with the response to your complaint
Internal review
If you are unhappy with our response to your customer complaint, you can request an internal review of the decision or response to your complaint.
When requesting an internal review, you must:
- submit it within 20 working days of receiving our decision or response
- state why you think the original decision or response was unreasonable or the way we handled your complaint was not appropriate
- tell us what action you would like taken to resolve the issue.
It may take up to 5 working days for us to decide and notify you whether the review will go ahead. We will let you know if it will take longer than 20 working days to finalise the internal review.
Queensland Ombudsman
If you are not happy with the outcome of the internal review, you can contact the Queensland Ombudsman for an independent external review.
- Phone the Ombudsman on 1800 068 908
- Visit the Queensland Ombudsman.
Human Rights Commission
If you have made a human rights complaint to us and you think our response is inadequate, or you haven’t received a response from us within 45 working days, you can contact the Queensland Human Rights Commission on 1300 130 670 or via its website.
Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT)
You may be able to ask the QCAT for advice, directions or recommendations to the Public Trustee, or ask for a review of our appointment as administrator.
You can find more information about QCAT.
We follow the Queensland Government Complaints process
The Queensland Public Trustee’s customer complaints management process is consistent with the Queensland Public Service Customer Complaint Management Framework and the Queensland Government Guidelines for public service customer complaints.