The whinge/vent thread - Telstra Hate stories or whatever...

[Beerfish]

I cannot understand how anyone stays with them? Maybe they feel forced to in order to protect their woefully low priced shares?

There are some places in Australia where Telstra are the only carrier with coverage. I can't think of any other reason.

I actually have a good news story for you all.

We knocked our house over and rebuilt a few years ago. We were with Optus at the time and because we wanted to keep our number they cut us off but charged us a monthly fee of a couple of bucks (holding fee or some shit they called it).

Anyway, when we moved back in a year later and had our line reinstated, a computer glitch on their part never registered that we should be paying line rental and call charges again. We've never had a bill over 5 bucks and that was 3 years ago now.

It's funny when other carriers call claiming they can beat whatever deal we've got.

 

[subaru]

Oh, you know, between yourself and i, its so there

It's late and I'm tired.

I'm a bit slow on the uptake so I'll take your word for it.

 

[Lunchlady Doris]

- Trying to charge YOU $150 to get a technician out to diagnose a fault that is a Telstra fault, not yours.

They're just letting you know if the fault is yours they will charge you.

I've never really had a problem, and the vast majority of these issues will be the same at any large company.

WTF is this in Bay 13 for anyway?

 

[Pilchard_Adams]

Why are you blaming Telstra for your stupidity?

How would this be my stupidity?

 

[Pilchard_Adams]

I'll complain.
I hate Telstra. Wanted to get out of my over expensive 24month phone contract last year. Got told it would be $150 then got a bill for over $700. I complained and they reduced it to about $400.. it's bs.
Parents have been with them for years with home phone, mobiles, bigpond and foxtel. Both had a 24month mobile contracts but both phones became faulty and unusable. They said tough **** and refused to replace them or get the manufacturer to repair them. Convinced my folks to change networks last weekend. Telstra said it would be $130 for my step mum's and $300 for dad's. Both contracts were started at the same time and day, some dumb*** changed dad's to end in next Sept instead of Feb. They have also been charging $3 extra on each monthly bill to my folks claiming it's for the landline handset...they paid for that upfront over two years ago.
Crazy Johns ftw.




Oh.. and I also ****ing hate mechanics.

Unlucky mate, ive heard of things like this. Its hard to understand why there is a massive Telstra Call centre here in adelaide but in my hundreds of calls I have never been put through to them. I always get half wits who have no clue

 

[Pilchard_Adams]

Everytime I have to deal with them it takes weeks them to fix the problem up. you ring up work your way through getting transfered from one idiot to another until you get to a supervisor who says they understand everything and are going to fix the problem straight away. this happens everyday for weeks then finally you have a nervous breakdown. eventually they agree to send a maintenance guy out and the problem is temporarily fixed until six months later your calling them again for the same thing. I would like to know one person who has never had a complaint with telstra and received 100% satisfactory service from them. the fact is there isn't.

Haha nice, would be interesting to know. They probably can fix anything that is minor, and cost free. As soon as they need to reach into their pockets they wouldnt fix it.

 

[Pilchard_Adams]

I'll bite

Bloody Tiger Airways. Absolute pissant performance at the end of September.

It was a 6:50 flight to the Gold Coast on September 26th. Lot's of uni students were on that flight for the Australian University Games.

6:50 comes and goes - flight delayed to 7:30
7:30 comes and goes - rumours start to spread of duststorms and plane issues
8:30 comes and suddenly the flight is cancelled

So we queue up for another 90-120 minutes trying to give them forms for refunds.

Anyway I got my first past of the refund. They said they'd refund up to $120 and they gave me $104. That covered the one-way that I missed with them due to flight cancellation.

This leaves me wondering what I'll get for accommodation compo and Jetstar flight compo (as I had to buy a one way ticket for $440).

Lack of information, lack of communication, lack of alternate flights which wouldn't have suited the uni students

Not ****ing happy Tiger.

Heh the Telstra of the skyes. They should merge and form a super-pathetic company.

I used Tiger unaware of how bad they were. Was booked on a 4.50 flight from adelaide to melbourne I think. We got there at about 3.50. They had one person checking customers in, and they were tied up with an Asian couple for a good 20 minutes as they couldnt understand what they asian couple were saying. When we finally got to the check in counter it was 4.10 and you MUST be checked in 45mins prior to the flight with Tiger. Other airlines will rush you through with as little as 10-15 mins before take off. We were 5 mins late, all their fault by the way, and they wouldnt let us check in. Cost hundreds extra through Qantas to get to melbourne that day.

 

[Pilchard_Adams]

There are some places in Australia where Telstra are the only carrier with coverage. I can't think of any other reason.

I actually have a good news story for you all.

We knocked our house over and rebuilt a few years ago. We were with Optus at the time and because we wanted to keep our number they cut us off but charged us a monthly fee of a couple of bucks (holding fee or some shit they called it).

Anyway, when we moved back in a year later and had our line reinstated, a computer glitch on their part never registered that we should be paying line rental and call charges again. We've never had a bill over 5 bucks and that was 3 years ago now.

It's funny when other carriers call claiming they can beat whatever deal we've got.

Nice one. Typical to see its not a Telstra good news story though hey

 

[subaru]

I actually don't mind when they ring from overseas and tell you they can do you a deal.
I use overt Australianisms like "pushing shit up hill" and "having a lend of me" .......and it throws them completely when, say it's Optus calling, and you lie and tell them you're with Telstra.

Look that up on your screens you little Slumdogs!

 

[IanfromSA]

Not sure who's flight it was, but last night there was a flight into Adelaide from Sydney that was 1 minute ...ONE MINUTE ...late and would have broken the curfew at Adelaide airport so the dick heads sent them to Canberra - they got there t 1.30 am and were put on a 6.20am flight back to here. How do you reckon that would have gone down???? How stupid is that!
Honestly, if I did my job as badly as some people do theirs, I'd get my head punched in!!!

YES this could only happen here - Qantas was the Airline, apparently delayed leaving Sydney due to storms (45 minutes late) - and the local govt minister and our Premier is in total support of the stand made by the Dept in charge as he has to think of the people in his electorate (West Torrens)

 

[Ben the Gooner]

My turn.

I called Bigpond Customer Service [sic] trying to connect a new laptop to our wireless modem. Basically, all I needed to know was what "User name" and "password" to put in, as I'd never used Vista before (basically it was the name of the modem, and the WEP key). I called three times. The first time, the guy had no idea what I wanted to do, spent 20 minutes before giving me his "help" and then hanging up. Needless to say, it didn't work. So I called again, and spent 20 minutes trying to convince the guy that, no, connecting a new laptop to my wireless modem was not a service I had to pay extra for, and, yes, you are allowed to tell me what I should put into each field, and, yes, I do pay your wages. It ended with me telling him that he was being deliberately unhelpful and lying to me. I hung up at that point. Third time, I got put through to a guy who told me that the user name was the modem's name, the password was the WEP key, try that, and let me know. The phone call was over within 5 minutes, including the obligatory wait at the start, and the verification that I am a Bigpond user, not an Optus user calling for help with my Bigpond modem.

Two of the customer "service" guys were Indian, and one was Australian. Guess which one was which.

 

[Borgsta]

Ben, next time you feel the urge to call Bigpond for help with your personal computer try google or whirlpool.

 

[Pilchard_Adams]

Ben, next time you feel the urge to call Bigpond for help with your personal computer try google or whirlpool.

I have notched up about 100 posts on my whirlpool account, over 30 hours of phone calls, air time on the radio, spent time with tech people in person, ombudsmen, spoke to today tonight and a current affair, even got a private number for some woman at telstra who was as useless as the support staff even though she was on teh big bucks...

 

[shoe]

I've had incredible experiences dealing with Telstra.

I work as a bookkeeper/accounts manager and as a result i've had to call them to fix many different billing issues. Every time I've called to fix something, they have not done it right the first time and i've had to call back to fix it again later. Absolute incompetance.

Recently..
We had a salesperson call my boss at one of my jobs and blatantly mislead her. He sold her a contract for a Wireless USB connection, telling her that with the contract we would get a group discount on our business bill that would aactually work out cheaper for us even though we were paying $80/mo for the wireless conn.
She agreed of course, telling them she wouldn't be using it and she's just agreeing to it for the extra discount.

Lo and behold, this was a lie and although it did give us a small extra discount, it wasn't more than the $80/mo we were now paying for the wireless card & connection.

We called telstra demanding a cancellation and full credit on the card because of the misleading salescall. Surprisingly, they realised it was their BAD mistake and agreed to a full credit. The next bill shows up and these's no credit. What else do we receive? A bill for a seperate, completely newly created account just for the $330 credit.
So we had our normal account, and one completely new account with nothing except a credit on it. Well ****ing done you idiots.

Another story:
A few years ago i worked for another business that for some reason had multiple Telstra bills for their Bigpond & phone line services. It was getting ridiculous and we needed to amalgamate them. I call to try and do this. I get put through to someone who can help me eventually, after being transferred to different departments several times, before they accidentally hang up on me after i've been on the phone for half an hour without getting anywhere.
I call back and eventually get someone that can help me. They tell me that for some reason I am a contact on only 1 of the business accounts, so I can't get the bills combined myself. Fine. The manager is here, I put him on the phone. They tell him after much ****ing around that he is a contact on only 1 of the bills and that he can't do it either.. he is the one who set up both accounts and he has been able to get help from Telstra on both bills in the past. Go figure.
We end up with no choice but to get the business owner in the office in order to talk to them, so we hang up. He turns up 10 mins later and we start the ring a rosie again, eventually get through to someone who will help. The owner speaks to them to try and get this done, but the person on the end of the phone obviously doesn't speak wonderful english and everything needed to be repeated over and over and takes a shit long time.

3 hours from when I made the first phone call, and we are satisfied we FINALLY have combined the 2 bills. All of our blood pressures are raised and we go home.

Fast forward to the next month. We then receive not 1 but 3 bills. The only changes are the Bigpond bill has a different billing name on it, and 1 of the business lines has been taken off the other bill and made into it's own, seperate & new bill.

We call and after a bit more than an hour on the phone, they tell us they have fixed it.

Fast forward to next month, they send us 2 bills. The bigpond account is finally on the first bill, but the new bill that appeared last month was still seperate.
Mother. ****er.

It took us 1 more call to get it fixed up, but jesus christ i've never had so much trouble getting something so simple done.

 

[Ant_]

Would only use Bigpond if I had no other choice.

 

[Beerfish]

You always have a choice Tone...

 

[Ant_]

You always have a choice Tone...

Correct if I was in a area where Tel$tra was the only option I could choose to not have internet services.

 

[Beerfish]

Correct if I was in a area where Tel$tra was the only option I could choose to not have internet services.

Exactly.

I, on the other hand, choose Telstra which allows me to have this lovely conversation with you right now as opposed to actually doing what I'm paid to do.

 

[Borgsta]

I have notched up about 100 posts on my whirlpool account, over 30 hours of phone calls, air time on the radio, spent time with tech people in person, ombudsmen, spoke to today tonight and a current affair, even got a private number for some woman at telstra who was as useless as the support staff even though she was on teh big bucks...

So in other words you love to whinge. You most likely spoke to a Team manager. They may be on big bucks but technically you may as well speak to a donkey. I highly doubt you have spoken to anyone of any technical worth in your dealings being a Bigpond customer. Half of the crap in your first post was either

a) nothing to do with Telstra
b) Done by every company in the World.

The maze of departments was the only valid one.

BTW I have Optus for my home cable and phone line (as they didn't charge me for 15 months. Got charged this month so cancelling next week).

 

[Pilchard_Adams]

So in other words you love to whinge. You most likely spoke to a Team manager. They may be on big bucks but technically you may as well speak to a donkey. I highly doubt you have spoken to anyone of any technical worth in your dealings being a Bigpond customer. Half of the crap in your first post was either

a) nothing to do with Telstra
b) Done by every company in the World.

The maze of departments was the only valid one.

BTW I have Optus for my home cable and phone line (as they didn't charge me for 15 months. Got charged this month so cancelling next week).

Hmmm Ok. So you wouldnt whinge or complain about getting speeds of 2kb/sec when your main source of income is through a website and eBay store? I know it turns listing stock from a 2-3 hour job to a 5-6 hour job. All of a sudden my work day is 10 hours a day instead of 7. I also lost 2 housemates who were into online gaming. There goes $140 a week. I would think I have a right to complain about that.

Would you say a Telstra technician who came to my house to diagnose the fault would have no "technical worth?" Or the techical guys at Adam Internet and Westnet who knew exactly what the fault was before telstra came to my place? Also the woman I spoke to who you suggested was a Team Manager was actually higher. She had a direct number, and announced herself with some title when she answered, cant rememeber what. She knew exactly what the problem was but dodged it by saying "the correct procedure is to lodge a fault with my ISP" over and over. Even when I told her that it had been escalated to the highest level and Telstra sent a tech out who admitted the problem was with Telstras gear, she still repeated the same dribble.

As for my points in the first post not having anything to do with telstra or done by every company in the world:


- trying to take my 75 year old grandparents to court over a 2 cent bill. They cant go pay 2 cents at the post office!!! and are too old for the internet. Telstra bill would definatley have something to do with telstra. Never heard of anything like this through any other comapny

- Getting an Indian with bad english every time you ring for customer support. Never rang any other company and got poor english speaking indians.

- Getting disconnected. Im sure if you could ring a phone number which was for a company specifically there to disconnect you, Telstra would still do it better. Seeing as I was ringing telstra, pretty sure the disconnections has something to do with them. Does happen with other companies but no where near as much

- Trying to charge YOU $150 to get a technician out to diagnose a fault that is a Telstra fault, not yours. Telstra tech. Definatley to do with telstra.

- The famous maze of departments, Whenever you ring for internet customer service, expect to be picked up by someone in sales, who will then transfer you to the correct department. 15 minutes of holding and you are next answered by someone in complaints. And it goes on and on.
Again, only ever experienced this with Telstra

- As if try and charge a fee when you pay your bill at a post office or Telstra shop. Not everyone can pay online. Criminals. Telstra withdrew this after a billion complains.

- A simple task of transferring internet service from one house to another when moving seems like an epic battle along the lines of the Vietnam War. "Yes Sir, it will take 5 working days" she says. 7 days later you ring back and its now going to take another 5 working days. Then again 5 working days. Telstra again. No one I know has ever had issues with other companies for this task

- My personal favourite - RIM congestion (insert funny comment here). For those of you that dont know, that is when you pay for a broadband connection (roughly 160kb/sec speeds) but because Telstra have been fat and lazy, and their equipment is out dated and overloaded, you get anything from 2kb/sec to 70kb/sec speeds. You would thing that only getting 5% of the speed you are paying for would be sufficient evidence that Telstra must fix the problem... Nope, they make their own little loop hole filled laws. They are providing a "service" not a "speed". So they weasel their way out. How could this possibly not be a Telstra issue? Its like leasing out a loan car with a cracked radiator and flat tyre with no spare.

- When people complain about RIM congestion, the first thing Telstra do is cap the people with 8mb speeds to 3mb, all the while charging them the same price. Robbery. A bit like taking a few geelong stars and giving them to Melbourne to even things out. Again, Telstra issue. Its a Telstra policy.

- Some how when people have an alternative ISP (Adam, Westnet etc) who rents Telstras ports for internet, and you complain to the Telecommunications Ombudsman about the poor quality of this equipment your ISP is renting, Telstra side step the issue and the ISP gets fined. Considering the fault has nothing to do with the ISP, I dont get it. The ISP is actually paying to use Telstras faulty equipment, but when the equipment is found to be in breach of quality standards the ISP takes the fine... I know the ISPs arent standing there saying fine me, fine me. Telstras problem, but others get fined? Id say some how Telstra have their hand in that too

 

[Howard Littlejohn]

I'll bite

Bloody Tiger Airways. Absolute pissant performance at the end of September.

It was a 6:50 flight to the Gold Coast on September 26th. Lot's of uni students were on that flight for the Australian University Games.

6:50 comes and goes - flight delayed to 7:30
7:30 comes and goes - rumours start to spread of duststorms and plane issues
8:30 comes and suddenly the flight is cancelled

So we queue up for another 90-120 minutes trying to give them forms for refunds.

Anyway I got my first past of the refund. They said they'd refund up to $120 and they gave me $104. That covered the one-way that I missed with them due to flight cancellation.

This leaves me wondering what I'll get for accommodation compo and Jetstar flight compo (as I had to buy a one way ticket for $440).

Lack of information, lack of communication, lack of alternate flights which wouldn't have suited the uni students

Not ****ing happy Tiger.

Better than the flight out of Hobart that left people in Hobart for 3 days a couple of weeks ago because a cabin crew member was sick.
And, yes, that was Tiger.
That said, I've regularly had 6 and 8 hour delays out of Tas with Qantas and Virgin as well - but 3 days?

 

[Borgsta]

Hmmm Ok. So you wouldnt whinge or complain about getting speeds of 2kb/sec when your main source of income is through a website and eBay store? I know it turns listing stock from a 2-3 hour job to a 5-6 hour job. All of a sudden my work day is 10 hours a day instead of 7. I also lost 2 housemates who were into online gaming. There goes $140 a week. I would think I have a right to complain about that.

That is way under Telstra's minimum speeds so you have every right to complain about this.

Would you say a Telstra technician who came to my house to diagnose the fault would have no "technical worth?" Or the techical guys at Adam Internet and Westnet who knew exactly what the fault was before telstra came to my place? Also the woman I spoke to who you suggested was a Team Manager was actually higher. She had a direct number, and announced herself with some title when she answered, cant rememeber what. She knew exactly what the problem was but dodged it by saying "the correct procedure is to lodge a fault with my ISP" over and over. Even when I told her that it had been escalated to the highest level and Telstra sent a tech out who admitted the problem was with Telstras gear, she still repeated the same dribble.

The Telstra tech who went to your house most likely would have no technical knowledge. He would know where the problem comes from but be unable to fix it. Everyone in Telstra would have a direct number. She was most likely either a Team Manager or someone from the Media complaints department. Telling you to lodge a fault with your ISP is basically just telling you to stop wasting her time.

As for my points in the first post not having anything to do with telstra or done by every company in the world:

- trying to take my 75 year old grandparents to court over a 2 cent bill. They cant go pay 2 cents at the post office!!! and are too old for the internet. Telstra bill would definatley have something to do with telstra. Never heard of anything like this through any other comapny

Read a newspaper, it has happened numerous times, I remember with Optus less than a year ago.

- Getting an Indian with bad english every time you ring for customer support. Never rang any other company and got poor english speaking indians.

I've never spoken to anyone with anything other than an Indian accent with Optus, except for the complaints department.

- Getting disconnected. Im sure if you could ring a phone number which was for a company specifically there to disconnect you, Telstra would still do it better. Seeing as I was ringing telstra, pretty sure the disconnections has something to do with them. Does happen with other companies but no where near as much

Good to see you acknowledge it happens with others. How do you know it doesn't happen as often.

- Trying to charge YOU $150 to get a technician out to diagnose a fault that is a Telstra fault, not yours. Telstra tech. Definatley to do with telstra.

Every company in the World would give this spiel. It's basically saying if it is your fault we will charge you. I got it from Foxtel last week, Optus 6 months ago and have had so every time I have ever had the need for a technician to visit my house.

- The famous maze of departments, Whenever you ring for internet customer service, expect to be picked up by someone in sales, who will then transfer you to the correct department. 15 minutes of holding and you are next answered by someone in complaints. And it goes on and on.
Again, only ever experienced this with Telstra

This has become particularly bad within Bigpond with their crappy speak to a computer thing but again I have had similar troubles with electricity companies, Optus and even fridge repair companies.

- As if try and charge a fee when you pay your bill at a post office or Telstra shop. Not everyone can pay online. Criminals. Telstra withdrew this after a billion complains.

This was hilariously bad. I can't believe they tried to do it. However whilst slightly different some companies charge you for paying via Bpay.

- A simple task of transferring internet service from one house to another when moving seems like an epic battle along the lines of the Vietnam War. "Yes Sir, it will take 5 working days" she says. 7 days later you ring back and its now going to take another 5 working days. Then again 5 working days. Telstra again. No one I know has ever had issues with other companies for this task

I signed up for ADSL with Optus. Waited 2 weeks for the phone to be "installed". 2 weeks after that I called asking when the hell the ADSL was being installed to be told that I can't get ADSL in my area and had to get cable. That took another 3 weeks to be installed. 2 + 2 + 3 = 7 bloody weeks! Was so close to cancelling it all so they gave me a free phone line for 16 months.

- My personal favourite - RIM congestion (insert funny comment here). For those of you that dont know, that is when you pay for a broadband connection (roughly 160kb/sec speeds) but because Telstra have been fat and lazy, and their equipment is out dated and overloaded, you get anything from 2kb/sec to 70kb/sec speeds. You would thing that only getting 5% of the speed you are paying for would be sufficient evidence that Telstra must fix the problem... Nope, they make their own little loop hole filled laws. They are providing a "service" not a "speed". So they weasel their way out. How could this possibly not be a Telstra issue? Its like leasing out a loan car with a cracked radiator and flat tyre with no spare.

Minimum guarenteed speed which would be all over your contract is 1.5M. If you are getting less than that take them to task over it.

- When people complain about RIM congestion, the first thing Telstra do is cap the people with 8mb speeds to 3mb, all the while charging them the same price. Robbery. A bit like taking a few geelong stars and giving them to Melbourne to even things out. Again, Telstra issue. Its a Telstra policy.

They do it to 24Mb customers too. Mind you companies like Westnet just start dropping packets when it gets congested and they don't realise that they don't have enourgh bandwidth.

- Some how when people have an alternative ISP (Adam, Westnet etc) who rents Telstras ports for internet, and you complain to the Telecommunications Ombudsman about the poor quality of this equipment your ISP is renting, Telstra side step the issue and the ISP gets fined. Considering the fault has nothing to do with the ISP, I dont get it. The ISP is actually paying to use Telstras faulty equipment, but when the equipment is found to be in breach of quality standards the ISP takes the fine... I know the ISPs arent standing there saying fine me, fine me. Telstras problem, but others get fined? Id say some how Telstra have their hand in that too

I highly doubt that this is true but my goodness if it is how stupid are Adam and Westnet. How on Earth could they sign multi million (possibly billion) dollar contracts whereby they can get fined for not keeping equipment which they can't touch (in your opinion) up to scratch. Seriously whoever signed these contracts (if true) should be shot!

 

[skilts]

Telecommunications in this country have never been any good since they broke up the Postmaster-General's Dept into Australia Post and Telecom/Telstra.

Mate of mine had horrendous problems with Virgin Airlines. He rings their 'Customer Service' and immediately says to the person who answers:

"I want speak to your supervisor."

Person says, "What's it about?"

He says, "Harrassment of customers."

Gets put through to the supervisor and says the exact same thing to them, as well as, "Are you in Australia?".

Eventually, after four transfers, and finally speaking to someone in Australia, he gets through to somebody who's in a position to make a decision. Gets the required refund.

Personally, I had splendid service from Telstra when installing ADSL. Made a couple of phone calls. They were incredibly helpful and patient with your resident Luddite. So much so, that I asked to be put through to a supervisor to compliment him on his team. He was extremely surprised to get my call. I agree that download speeds are a hideous problem. Where I live, there is nobody else though.

 

[Childish Gambino]

Better than the flight out of Hobart that left people in Hobart for 3 days a couple of weeks ago because a cabin crew member was sick.
And, yes, that was Tiger.
That said, I've regularly had 6 and 8 hour delays out of Tas with Qantas and Virgin as well - but 3 days?

I was on the flight where that flight attendant got sick. Thank **** it was on our flight and not the one before.

 

[Dry Rot]

Check your BgPond bills for fraud.

They bunged on some sort of their own security/antivirus etc package when I expressly said I didn't want it and explained why.

They put it on anyway, and then charged me $100 a couple of months later.

I sorted them out.

Utter *****.