Monday, March 15, 2010

Frikking Telstra & the iPhone bills @#$%&!!

Okay, I ended up going to the ombudsman to have the phone charge reversed.

I get my new bill... two again, there's only supposed to be one account for the land and mobile services.

So, today I get my new accounts. (I'm only supposed to have one account.)

They've reversed the charge for the phone... then on the next page, they've charged me for the phone again.

They've also charged me for half a month of the $49 capped plant for a month I already paid for.

I'm soooo over this shit.

One of the calls they charged me for was a call to them, over $1. That's going to be coming off, too. It took me about an hour to sort some crap out over the phone a while back (getting MMS access to send pictures), and they have the hide to make me talk with five people over two calls for over an hour! Arrgh!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, Kae
I once spent five, count 'em five hours on my mobile to Telstra and talked to 16, yes, 16 people before I finally got through to them that a fixed phone had NOT been installed. A man had arrived, told me that the line allocated to my address had been given as a second line to my next door neighbour and I'd have to pay for a new line to be brought in (burrowing under the driveway). He asked me to sign his book "to confirm he'd been there" when actually he claimed to have done the job. THE COMPUTER said I had a phone had been installed, so that was THAT. I took pages and pages of contemporaneous notes including time and name of all personnel. Still have 'em.

ANYHOO... these days my combined fixed/mobile Telstra bill never exceeds $45. Every two-to-three months I get a bill from Buzzcorp for never more than $14.70 (they don't send a bill until you tip over $10). That includes talking to my sister on the Gold Coast (from Perth) about once per week for up to 90 minutes, various rellies in Sydney for 30 minutes or so each occasionally. And all because I have a (free) Buzz box.

It's a tiny little thing that plugs into the wall socket with the phone and the modem (broadband) plugged into the other side. Five minute set up. 1800, 1900, 1300 calls are billed through Telstra. All other calls are billed through Buzz.

I've put all of my family and friends onto Buzz and we've all been very happy little chatters for well over a year now. I don't usually tell anyone about it publicly (like this) as I'm sure Telstra will eventually make the inventors (two WA uni guys) an offer they can't refuse and it'll disappear.

Check it out at http://www.thebuzzcorp.com/

Regards
Sandi

SezaGeoff said...

At least you still have your iPhone. My daughter lost her 2 month old 3GS 32GB in a taxi after her 21st. party. GRRR.. Fruitless hours spent trying to contact the taxi driver, and the phone will be useless to anyone as I will have it barred! So the new plan was cheap in terms of calls and sms, but it ain't so cheap when you are paying it for a phone that no longer exists!

kae said...

Hi Sandi, I've heard of Buzz before.
With my rental at $20 and capped mobile calls at $49, if I can just remember to ring out on the mobile, I should have it slugged down to size.
I looked at going with Engin for VoIP, but they messed up a connection and my first bill and it took two months to refund me the money so I cancelled them completely.

Seza
Ahhhhh, kids. 21 and still costing a fortune. (Can't complain, when I lived at home after high school Mum supported me - I didn't have much of anything I needed, and you know, I'm 52 this year and she still buys me clothes, and she's pretty good at it, she's had some experience!)

Crap, look at the time. Gotta go to work!

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Cheers