Telstra & Telstra Dealers

[jyetara]

...man, they can be a pain! That's all I can bear to say at this point.

//thanks for listening.

[Green Team 2]

Yep, not wrong. Had a bloke come to the door with a Telstra deal. Questioned him about rates etc as I knew what we already paid. It was too good to be true so changed to Telstra and got screwed. Told we would get ADSL2 and got 1500 speed. It goes on. Told them to send the salesman back to me so I could knock him down the steps. Then to have to ring them and go around and around. Well must be time for a drink.

[jyetara]

We copped a $4800 bill from a Telstra dealer a couple years back. In the end, turned out someone was signing people up and cancelling & resigning and entire staff was fired. That was sorted...

THIS time:
Me = "grrrr"
Leading Edge Telecoms Cranbourne = "only Telstra can sort that problem, ring 125 111"
Me = "grrrrrrrrrr"
Telstra = "yes, i agree but you have to sort that out with the shop, here is a Ref #, and ring us from the shop if they don't help you"
Me = "GRRRRRRRRRRR!!! you low life @#$!~@~!@"
Leading Edge Telecoms Cranbourne = "only Telstra can sort that problem, ring 125 111 and I can't give you the owner's contact details"
Telstra = "we dont have the power to do ANYthing. Sort It Out with the shop"
Me = "f-n darn diddily darn dang dang!"
Me = "Ombudsman? I'm filing a VCAT application but before I pay the $36 fee can you tell me where I stand?"
Ombudsman = "yes, you have a clear case, and it should be sorted out within 10 days, here is a # for Telstra Resolutions and a ref #. good luck and all the best"
Telstra (Resolutions) = "oh yeah, no problem we should have this sorted in a few days, seems pretty clearcut case"
Me = "why waste so many hours for this?"

... will see what ACTUALLY happens....

[Damo.]

I had an unused phone socket at home which I need to connect to Telstra in order to have it disconnected and switched to naked dsl.
Rang them on a Tuesday, they gave me their service level of the time it would take to get connected (forget what it was, maybe up to 10 working days...?) but said they had a slot on the Friday afternoon and might be able to get it connected then. Saturday it wasn't connected so I called them back and they sent a technician out to the building on Monday and had it connected that afternoon.
I feel like I am expected to bitch and moan about them, but I was quite happy with the service and speed of the connection. Is it un-Australian to not want to bash Telstra?

[CraigRat]

Is it un-Australian to not want to bash Telstra?

Yes.

Consider this your 1st formal warning

[Dvixen]

Every headache we have had regarding our DSL/phone, etc, has been due to Telstra. Including their disconnecting our perfectly functional DSL line (that we have with another provider) when our phoneline (also with another provider) broke. Our phoneline was fixed on day 3, our DSL, disconnected on day 3, wasn't back til day 5 or 6.

Time before that - it took them 6 weeks to figure out how to throw a switch. I really don't understand how they get away with such incompetence and double handedness.

[Papa Bear_Left]

Our story is that we moved house but were still on the same exchange. However, our new line was a pair-gain and not suitable for high-speed ADSL.

iinet couldn't do anything and Telstra said that they couldn't, there just weren't enough lines available at our new location.
After a couple of weeks of (shudder!) dial-up Internet, we were advised by someone (who needs to remain nameless) that the way to do it is to sign up with Bigpond and then switch back to our original provider.

So, we did that and suddenly, the impossible happened and we got a nice new line with Bigpond (i.e. slow and overpriced) Internet. We then reminded Telstra that they have a firm requirement to provide the same level of service to _all_ users of their lines, not just their own retail section, and we'd like to transfer the line to iinet again and we don't want to pay any connection or cancellation fees or we'll see what the Ombudsman has to say.


Every now and then, some poor telemarketer calls MBL (she has the landline as her business number, the family number is VOIP) asking if she'd like to switch back to Telstra. She's taken the matter up to some pretty high levels to get our number off their calling list and I doubt that we'll get any more of those calls...

[jusojara]

We building a new house in a new suburb some time ago and when we commenced construction we asked Telstra how long before we moved in would we need to request the phone line to be connected (we wanted to get it sorted as I was on-call for work and a mobile was not an option). They advised us that two weeks notice was pleanty.

Three weeks before moving we called to book in, only to be told that there was an eight week wait This meant that for five weeks my work needed to ring my parents who then needed to drive three suburbs over to tell me. I then needed to then drive to the nearest phone box and call them back - frustrating .

[CraigRat]

My tale of woe is so long and technical that I won't go in to it here, plus I'm not in the right frame of mind to get all riled up right now!

Needless to say, I am awaiting the rollout of the NBN, and then it's goodbye phone line, goodbye to the big 'T'. (Several surrounding towns are being attatched to the NBN as part of phase two, kind of hoping I'm in a catchement area)

[Shael6636]

Hmmmm I probably shouldn’t be posting this (don’t shoot the messenger)

I work for a 'unnamed" Dealer for the "evil empire" and have done so for the past 20 months. My role is to liaise with our business customers and "the evil empire" TO MAKE THE PROCESS SMOOTHER

In my experience this rarely ever happens, nothing at this company is ever easy, they constantly make mistakes that create more additional work for myself, stress, and headache for all of there customers whether they be consumer or business.............

A part of the biggest problem is the outsourcing of a lot of the work they do for new connections etc... as these subbies usually are overworked and short staffed (according to them)

Even as a Dealer for the "evil Empire" I constantly get the run-around, transferred to the completely different department, sit on hold for hours trying to get though.......

Strangely enough all my ADSL service and mobile are not with them.......

The best option for trying to get somewhere with the "evil empire" is
1. be nice to the person on the other end. (it actually works better having a calm voice)
2. Call them early in the morning (better chance of getting through)
3. If you are stuck trying to get through to someone and the stupid voice recognition software isn’t being helpful SWEAR PROFUSELY!!! the system recognizes this and generally puts you straight through to a real person very, very quickly (tryt hi it does work and it makes you feel so much better)
4. If these don’t help, contact the 'evil empire" complaints department. In general they are supposed to contact you within 24 hours of a complaint being lodged.
5. As Bear Left said CONTACT THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS OMBUDSMAN.....it will most of the time help you.
6. Keep detailed records of the time you called them, who you spoke to and what you were told. Most of their internal systems require that they record notes to your account.

And if none of the above works then I say NUKE them........and go to another carrier if that is possible.

[ma77hew]

I find it ironic that a provider of high speed networking doesn't have the technology to be able to tell you what time of day they're coming around to hook it up. I don't expect them to schedule it to the minute, but a two hour window would be nice, even AM vs PM would be helpful.

Now that I no longer deal directly with the 'evil empire', I get a monthly 'bill' showing a credit. I wonder how many hoops I'd have to jump through to get them to attach a cheque to the next one.

[Shael6636]

"I find it ironic that a provider of high speed networking doesn't have the technology to be able to tell you what time of day they're coming around to hook it up. I don't expect them to schedule it to the minute, but a two hour window would be nice, even AM vs PM would be helpful."

Hmm two hour window......the best i have ever gotten for one of my customers was a two hour window after several calls and demanding that it be done due to system programming.......

Strangley enough even the new system that the "evil empire" uses cant do better than a 4 hour window...basicallly there convering there butts incase the tech is delayed at another job or somethng horrible goes wrong. But you should be told whether it is AM or Pm as i always am............

In regard to getting a cheque attache to the bill call the complaints department and hopefully they wont send the check to the wrong person like they did for another of my customers

[grahamf72]

Leading Edge Telecoms Cranbourne = "only Telstra can sort that problem, ring 125 111"
Me = "grrrrrrrrrr"
Telstra = "yes, i agree but you have to sort that out with the shop, here is a Ref #, and ring us from the shop if they don't help you"

Having worked at a Telstra dealer in the past, I can only wonder at why any dealer in a metro area would choose to align with Telstra, and dealers in country towns where Telstra is the only option have my sincerest sympathies.

The above buck-pass is pretty typical. As far as dispute resolution etc goes, dealers can do absolutely nothing. But Telstra won't do anything unless the dealer requests it. But when the dealer contacts Telstra, they can't do anything. Rinse, repeat. The only way to get anything done is to be in the Dealer's store IN PERSON, and call Telstra from the store. Unless the customer is in the store, Telstra will do absolutely nothing for the dealer. Even then it is difficult, and time consuming, and the dealer is the one who cops the angry customer.

My biggest gripe with Telstra though is the handling of faulty handsets. Telstra will not accept an out-of-box faulty handset back for return if it has successfully registered on their network at least once. IOW the dealer can only return it if it is totally dead. But if it registers on the network and has another fault (eg faulty screen, keypad, microphone), as far as Telstra is concerned the phone has worked and has then developed a fault - the phone must be sent for repair. Try telling a customer that their phone they have just signed up for and haven't even left the shop with, must be sent for repair - doesn't happen. Obviously a customer would be very cranky if told "Sorry sir, I have to send this phone away to get fixed, you can pick it up in 3 weeks". But the shop now can't return the faulty handset for credit. If they give a new handset to the customer and get the other repaired, it is then 2nd hand and cannot be resold on a plan. Their best option is to try to sell it outright for whatever they can get for it. So through no fault of their own, an out-of-the-box faulty will end up costing the shop several hundred dollars. AARRGGHHH I hate Telstra.

[mundoo]

In regard to getting a cheque attache to the bill call the complaints department and hopefully they wont send the check to the wrong person like they did for another of my customers

Or having a credit applied to an account you never owned/had and them telling you that you used to own that account and it was in debit from 2001. The phone number attached to that account was in an exchange 100km from where I had ever lived. When I queried why they had never sent me a bill for the debit as I had lived at my current address since 1997 and they insisted that my address was the one attached to that bill so the credit went to that account.

This was for $6.35 credit and eventually (after many phone calls/time wasted) they credited the correct (mine) account with $6. I couldn't be bothered chasing the other .35c

As I have said in my blog item we would be looking at changing our mobiles to another carrier when the contracts finish and we have.

[Bundyrumandcoke]

Heaven forbid you have a Bigpond wireless account, and have problems. I have had a recurring issue over the last 8 or 9 months. Basically Hellstra wasnt debiting my credit card for the monthly account. Having twice recieved a Suspension notice for non payment, I have previously decided to go to a Hellstra shop to sort it out, only to be told by staff there they couldnt help, as it was Bigpond. I had the computer and modem with me. I pointed to the big Hellstra T on the modem, and the big Hellstra T on the walls of their shop, and told them they WILL help me, and that as far as I was concerned, Hellstra was one organisation, and if their shop was doing business for Hellstra, then they did business for ALL of Hellstra.

Last month, I spent about 6 hrs on the phone, trying to sort out this issue- AGAIN. I ended up with the name and direct phone number of the manager of direct debits (well, she told me she was the manager) and she will be getting a phone call if it doesnt workj this month. But they are getting a phone call anyhow. Last month to get the account into order, I made a payment over the phone. This months bill has 4 credit card processing fees attached to it, when there was only one payment. The other 3 are ones they didnt take, yet I have been charged for their stuffup- OH NO I HAVENT.

Cheers
Bundy