Telstra Sux

[the evil twin]

I mean it... they really do...
Telstra sux even more than when your Ice Cream falls off it's stick at the beach or when the car door closes before your fingers are out, even more, than stepping in Dog shit first time out in your new thongs.

True story as follows.
Since May last year I would now have spent at least, conservatively, without a lie or any exaggeration a minimum of 200 hours on the phone to these cretinuos, moronic, brain dead #$&#tards

It started like this;
ring ring... ring ring... ring ring...
ET - Hullo this is ET (not my real name)
Telstra outbound sales rep - Hullo my name is Geoffrey (not his real name which was probably Rajasammyrajnishee)
ET - Not interested Guptar
CSR - Im from Telstra and my name isn't Guptar
ET - Yeah, whatever
CSR - we have checked your Telstra accounts and useage patterns and identified a way to save you money
ET - now i KNOW your shitting me
CSR - No not at all sir
ET - OK, spill it
(Do you ever have moments in your life where your out of body self is screeching at you "Stop, Stop, You fool, you fool")
CSR - We have a new package for you that is exactly the same as the one you are on now but cheaper
ET - whats the catch?
CSR - Oh most assuredly sir there is being no catch.
ET - You slipped out of character there Guptar either that or your watching the pommy Cricket team fielding
CSR - (water buffalo poo) blah blah blah blah for about 15 minutes
ET - Ok OK sign me up
start of 20 minutes of Boring Robot unintelligible recorded message of all the mandatory consumer totally meaningless rubbish
ET hangs up

Now he was right about one thing, I didn't notice any changes to my services and it was cheaper... I think.
You see even a CPA couldn't tell because now instead of 1 bill on the 23 rd of the month I would get random bills as close together as 2 weeks and as far apart as 7 weeks for amounts between $50 and $400 but on average it was cheaper.

By mid August I had a meltdown with the billing dipshits and they promised that the billing issues would be fixed and that as of October the bills would be one every month and 100% accurate

And so it was... (you know where this is leading don't you)

Anyhoooooooowwwwww in early December

... ring ring... ring ring... ring ring...
ET - Hullo this is ET (not my real name)
Telstra outbound sales rep - Hullo my name is Michael (not his real name which was probably Guptar or Rajasammyrajnishee)
ET - Not interested Guptar
CSR - Im from Telstra and my name isn't Guptar
ET - Yeah, whatever
CSR - we have checked your Telstra accounts and useage patterns and identified a way to save you money
ET - You've got to be shitting me...
CSR - Oh most assuredly sir we know absolutely every detail of your most impeccable Telstra services
ET - Guptar, are lies like that any way to establish rapport with customers?
CSR - (turns down sitar music) No, no Mr ET, I promise you that if you like Foxtel and take it out with us we can save you an extra $20
ET - I've already got Foxtel and I'm already bundled with Telstra and have been since 2006
CSR - No your not
ET - Yes I am
CSR - No your not
ET - Yes I am
(I was actually enjoying this so let it go on for 5 minutes to see who would crack... I won)
CSR - YOU ARE NOT PAYING FOR FOXTEL THROUGH TELSTRA
ET - Awesome, then my Platinum package plus two extra rooms that I am sitting here watching must be free then and WHY ARE YOU BILLING ME for the movies I buy each month thru someone else.
CSR - Ummmm... Errrrr... Ummmm... choke... splutter
ET - Hey, you OK dude, can someone get you a drink of water, an ambulance, a defibrillator, park your elephant somewhere else?
CSR - Oh dear this is terrible
ET - Nope, I LOVE this package and I'm not changing, free Foxtel, yippee for me
CSR - but you should be able to tell from your bill your not paying
ET - Dude, the CIA and two Cray Computers can't decipher a telstra Bill and neither can you wankers so what chance have I got
CSR - then you could have rung our freecall number
ET - I did... six weeks ago... I'm still on hold (Ok so a little white lie, it was only about 10 days ago)

As an aside... Does anyone else think the bloke saying "your call is important to us" has OCD?

Dude promises someone will call me when they sort out the billing cluster#$&#

... ring ring... ring ring... ring ring...
ET - Hullo this is ET (not my real name)
Ominous Voice - Hullo this is Telstra and you owe me a lot of money
ET - Two words dude... Fffff (oops wrong words) I mean "Telecommunications Ombudsman" now insert the first two words
OV - Jeez, go easy
ET - Holy shit, is that an Aussie?
OV - kiwi actually Bro
ET - close enough, how the hell are ya
OV - not bad, but you owe us some money
ET - we are back to those two words again
OV - Thought we might be... so I have a deal
ET - If it involves free Foxtel I'm listening, cause this is waaay easier than when I used to pirate it in the 90's
OV - (laughing - I don't know why because I was deadly serious) No, we are going to start charging you for Foxtel again but we have a better deal to save you money
ET - (laughing - he can't be serious) Dude have you looked at my account and the number of customer contacts
OV - (pause, long pause, even longer pause) Jeez Bro, I need to send this up to a team leader
ET - better idea mate, print it off and stick it on the smoko room wall, then everyone gets a laugh

The remainder is deleted in the interests of brevity except to say that they had too totally reformat my billing and services over the last couple of weeks

Lunchtime yesterday I rec'd two Sim cards, one for the family mobile (an Iphone) and one for my Telstra NextG Sierra Wireless USB dongle

We got the mobile working after 9 hours, 11 seperate calls to and from Telstra, 3 Itunes downloads and 7 Iphone upgrades, resets, downgrades. It wasn't even an Iphone Sim, i had to chop it myself
aaaandddddddd............
We haven't got a NextG internet service anymore... THEY FREAKIN" KILLED IT.
The old sim card for the dongle was a Bigpond sim card, the one they sent out as part of the bundle is a Telstra sim card... THEY AREN"T INTERCHANGEABLE AND THEY CAN"T REBOOT THE OLD SIM.

Telstra convened a 4 way conference call today...

Morons - "Oh we didn't know"
ET - What do you mean "You didn't know" read off my services from my old bill
Morons - Landline, Foxtel, ADSL, Mobile Phone... errr...
ET - Yes...
ET - Waiting...
Morons - a 400 MB next G $19 internet plan and telstra wireless usb modem
ET - I need you to now picture the angriest customer visage you can.
Morons - but this plan is better it has 500 Meg free, your old plan was 400 Meg aqnd cost $19
ET - OK apart from up your rrse where do I put this new sim card?
Morons - In any Telstra mobile device
ET - Like my Telstra NextG Wireless USB modem in my Laptop?
Morons - No, it won't work in that, you need bigpond for that
ET - So, referring to my list of services you provide, should I put it in my Home phone?
Morons - Errrr, No
ET - In my ADSL router
Morons - No (sharply)
ET - In my Foxtel box?
Morons - Now your being silly
ET - So that leaves my Iphone
Morons - Yes, Mr ET that will work
ET - OK... So I understand this perfectly...
you want me to remove from my Iphone a Sim with $49 service on it for calls and 1 Gig of data;
a sim that is part of the bundle to get me the free data sim you told me would work in the Telstra Next G wireless dongle;
and put in my Iphone a data only Sim that I can't make calls with and only has 500 Meg of data allowance;
and put back the $49 sim whenever I want to make or recieve a phone call?
Morons - Yep, that'll work

KERAAAAASHHHHHHH (sound of Telstra landline handset being hurled across room)

Morons - Hullo (assumed)
Morons - Are you there? (assumed)
Morons - Do any of you others think he's still there? (assumed)
Morons - Do you think he meant it when he said "Telecommunications Ombudsman" (assumed)
Morons - I'm not sure but... yeah... thats probably going to be another one (sigh) (assumed)

[MudRunnerTD]

Yeah but does ya. Phone work???



LMFAO

[nissannewby]

I agree. I need to call them about my services but am dreading it due to a number of stories like this grr. How hard is it they pretty much have a monopoly on phone communications why can't they get there shit together.

[Fools_Errand]

This really does not fill me with confidence in the phone networks out here.. I left a mobile plan in the uk that was £35 each month, unlimited data and tethered data. I was literally downloading 20gb a month....

Have a prepay plan with telestra, $30 in about 2days.. FFS...

[NissanGQ4.2]

This really does not fill me with confidence in the phone networks out here.. I left a mobile plan in the uk that was £35 each month, unlimited data and tethered data. I was literally downloading 20gb a month....

Have a prepay plan with telestra, $30 in about 2days.. FFS...

Mate if you like surfing the net and download lots of data you might want to consider moving back, Australia's phone networks and the amount ISP's charge is absolute rubbish compared 2 other countries.

[NissanGQ4.2]

Next time I have 2 speak with them I will come back and read this post and have a laugh.

Thanks ET

[Patrol-Guy]

That was a great read. I had a similar encounter once with Telstra when they couldn't/ wouldn't (never worked out which one they were doing) send me a bill. That was ridiculous.

[threedogs]

Same billing probs with iPrimus, just swapped from Do Do to iPrimus.
Fisrt bill with Modem Was $180 fair enough ,they send bill for $285, Rang Guptar and all sorted
The plan I'm on is $70 a month next bill is $179 so rang Guptar again and raised my voice.
Bill was revised down to $70. Dying to see my next bill.
I will get Guptar to cancel it for not keeping his end of the CONTRACT

[lhurley]

Sounds very similar to when I got cable Internet at my last house. Now we already had all the wall fittings, the previous owners even had cable. So all we had to do was plug in the router and type in my details, and go. Nope. I can't do that. I need a tech. Ffs. Ok send a tech. They told us the tech would be there in like 3 weeks, ok, someone will be home. Of corse they didn't turn up.
2nd appointment the following week, come after 2 I'll be home. Letter in the mail box, we missed you call this number to get another appointment.
Angry phone call later, they will be there tomorrow. Called up work got the day off, of corse they didn't turn up.
Very angry phone call, come after 2. Repeat that to me, they will come after 2. So I got on break the next day early in the morning, missed call, "eeerrr telstra tech here, no one was home call this number to get another booking". FFS!. I had had it by this point, spent nearly 3 hours on the phone to be told they can't send a tech for another 2 weeks. I cracked it. Some not very nice words were used, ranjeet was getting upset. I was done. Cancelled the Internet, ordered a new service through another ISP to be installed the following week.
Sit down to remove all the forks I stuck in my head whilst talking to telstra, knock at the door. Guess who. A f ing telstra tech. First words out my mouth were you got to be f ing kidding me.

Wanna know what he did, plugged 1 end of the cable into the walk, plugged the other into the router, turned it on, used MY computer to enter MY details that I had and it was on. Total of about 3 minutes.

[Hodge]

Telstra are by far the most incompetent company I have ever had to deal with in terms of customer service.
The troubles I have had with these people is just brain numbing. The very recent mistake I made was I chose to order foxtel through Telstra and I tell you what, as expected, they stuffed it up something shocking. It set that many f'ups on their side in motion, that even right now I or they do not know where my account's stand. It's frozen on the financial side as we speak because they're sorting it out.
Mind you the only positive I have with them is the reception. I've been across the board with different telcos and they are up there with it. But you pay for it, through your wallet and the mental torture you have to go through when you ring them up to get something sorted out.

On a funny side my mate recently had to go through a similar issue. 4 weeks later he got a international bill "Philippines" for calling their customer service centre, using their own lines/service/number. LOL

[choppie]

Telstra don't have monopoly on stupidity!! I think they have first play but, Was with dodo as they had promised the world but found they couldn't deliver, James(Gupta) who nearly melted my phone with his curry breath tells em that they can give me 95% coverage of Aus so I ask him if this is a satelite phone, Oh no sir latest model smart phone. I informed him that I needed as much coverage as possible. even out in the bush as i travel all over the place, receive phone, basic samsung smart phone, 2 weeks later take a load up to Darwin, from Mt Isa to Katherine no phone service, same rest of way to Darwin. Get to Darwin phone had dropped off the network now as it had been out of rang for so long, Not HAPPY JAN, got back on network had several missed calls & texts, missed 2 Jobs on way home, 1 $2800 the other $3500, could have done either. got home find bill on computer $76 all to there 1800 No trying to set phone up, remember blood pressure, OHmm needle going off scale. Ring James, ask him if he knows what a Bazilian neck tie is, have to explain procedure, no need to get violent he squeeks, after many colourful words big chief King Curry comes on and learns a new language, long/short they cancelled contract and phone bill. But that meant I had to go back to Telsta AAAARRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHH. But on a cheaper plan with more benefits, some times you just have to raise your voice a little to cross the language barrier.

[Stropp]

Yep as an EX Telstra field tech I can tell you since the privatisation it has gone to shite, so much so I resigned in disgust. I also have my story about when I moved into my current home, ring Telstra and say I have an in place service and need it reconnected, miss shareena butter chicken tells me they have to send a tech as I have a pair gain system at my house, I say I have looked around and definitely not one present at this address, oh but yes sir our records show there is. I say how is the weather in New Delhi, oh no sir I'm in Melbourne, oh how is the weather there, very pleasant day today thank you sir, oh it must be a different Melbourne as I am watching the hail storms on telly, oops silence. Anyway sir we need to send a tech and you must pay $186 or we will not hook up the phone. Tech turns up and I identify myself as an ex tech and no there is no 1+1 here, tech looks everywhere and says no pair gain system here, I say well how about that, tech gets the phone hooked up and says sign the bill, now being ex Telstra I know a few tricks, I get the tech to write customer refused to sign as no pair gain system present at this address. I think now it's all done and dusted but no, I get the bill with the $186 on it, call customer complaints and get one of my old girls from Darwin fault centre who is now in Melbourne, have a chat with her and the whole bill including the connection fee is written off as a goodwill gesture :) now I was smiling.

[Avo]

Geez guys and here I am complaining about my service the other week...Apart from being slow every now and then I think i'll wear it and not bother about telsuck....was considering it not long ago but I do like who I am with and have been with then for years now but wanted bigger GB cheaper but not at the cost of service