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Post by pim on Jun 5, 2015 16:29:25 GMT 10
I'm currently on the phone to them and have been for over an hour. I'm typing this during one of those t e d i o u s periods when they put you on hold and you wait ... and wait ...
So far I'm keeping my cool, but steam is starting to come out of my ears ...
Somebody say something nice to remind me that there are human beings out there ...
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Post by pim on Jun 5, 2015 18:03:01 GMT 10
I'm happy to report that I beat them down from $615 to $75. It took 90 minutes to achieve that happy outcome. It was worth it. I'm happy now
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Post by pim on Jun 5, 2015 21:33:07 GMT 10
Oops! I just realised that I put this thread on the wrong board! Where should it have gone? Technical Stuff? Gossip and chit chat? Lounge Bar? General Board? I dunno! But definitely not Feeding the body!
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Post by pim on Jun 5, 2015 21:37:33 GMT 10
Mind you, beating Telstra down from $615 to $75 definitely fed my soul .... and my bank a/c
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Post by Deleted on Jun 7, 2015 11:13:25 GMT 10
So Pim, do you mind expanding on this seeing as I also have Telstra as my ISP? I'm just trying to work out their rationale for charging you such an exorbitant amount! I remember Matt saying that he used to work for Telstra but chucked his job, quite disgusted at Telstra's agenda to get OAPs signed up for far more services than they could ever use. As Matt said, these OAPs trust the operator to do the right thing for them and then are left with huge bills they struggle to pay.
I'm not saying you're an OAP though. But I think that Telstra should be reported for this because there are many older people who just can't take up the fight through sickness and whatever and so just pay up regardless of the overcharge.
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Post by pim on Jun 7, 2015 12:06:54 GMT 10
Stellar I quail at the prospect of expanding on their dog's breakfast of an invoice. They itemised their bill and I disputed every single item. Basically what we did in our household, since the lady in my life and I started to live together, was to rationalise our telephone and internet arrangements from two separate packages to one package. That meant we got rid of landline phones and only use pre-paid mobile phones (I "feed" my mobile $20 a month and even then I can't use it up. My credit rolls into the next monthly period and I now have this huge amount of credit on my mobile) and got a WiFi "bundle" which gives us 100 GB a month for $80. We figure that's more than adequate for the two of us. So that works out at 40 bucks each. When we got the new modem installed the techies who did the installation said that the job was made easy because there was already a cable and connection in place from the previous owner of our house, so they used that. So we were told there would be no installation fee. Lo and behold there's an installation fee itemised on the invoice! We object and the call centre who handles our call says there's no record of our installation fee waiver. Stellar it was a matter of digging in our heels and being more determined than they were. It helped that there were two of us so we were both witnesses to what had been said to us by the techie. Then there was the matter of being charged for services under our previous arrangements that had been discontinued when we entered the new contract. Again, it helped that there were two of us. We both remembered who had served us at the Telstra shop at Northgate, that we'd taken pains to ensure that our old arrangements had been voided and terminated by the new contract, and that there would be no more charges under the old arrangements and the precise date and time. Basically we had our answer to Telstra's standard bullshit line "we have no record of this" by being able to quote chapter and verse and by backing each other.
Don't get me wrong! It was gruelling and required a lot of determination and stamina. We just had to be prepared to be more determined than they were. It had its comic moments. They try to patronise you by getting onto first name terms - which means them calling you by your first name while you don't call them anything. What that does is give them a tremendous psychological advantage over the customer and I'm having none of it.
Me: Excuse me, I don’t recall giving you permission to call me by my first name!
Call centre: What would you like me to call you?
Me: "Sir" usually works fine!
It isn't servile for a service provider to call a customer "Sir" or "Madam" (the American "Ma'am" is coming into more frequent use and that seems to be acceptable to most Australian women). I call it "professional" and "businesslike" and they know it. But they try the first name stuff on. It depends. I'll take it from some people. If I go to get my car serviced and the guy in the service dept at the Mazda dealership calls me "mate" then that's appropriate. But in my dealings with Telstra through a call centre when they're trying to rip me off? Bugger 'em! They can grovel!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 7, 2015 12:42:44 GMT 10
Thanks for that Pim. Very interesting! I'll have to reply to this tomorrow because I'm on my way out and just here to shut down. My dialogue with "Suresh" at Telstra wasn't going too well either - maybe that's because I worked with a Suresh who was a very nasty little man who felt he was superior to females who were supervising him. I probably shouldn't put all Sureshes into the same basket but nevertheless.
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Post by pim on Jun 7, 2015 13:11:15 GMT 10
During those 90 minutes I was put on "hold" three times and transferred to a different person twice. Since the call was from my mobile phone I knew from previous experience to demand an assurance from the outset that I would not be charged for the call. Last time I'd been in dispute with them I found myself charged $20 for the call and had to move heaven and earth to get that reversed. The key is determination. And time! Who apart from retired people has 90 minutes to devote to haggling with a telephone company over a bill! The other thing I did was to get the name and ID number of the person I was speaking to. And don't be afraid to threaten them with the Ombudsman! And take notes! Let them know you're taking notes: "Excuse me, would you remind repeating that? I'm taking notes of this call and want to make sure I've heard you correctly." If I do that I find I'm rapidly passed up the food chain to a more exalted pooh bah.
Give 'em hell! They deserve it! I have in a previous dispute asked: "Is this call being recorded? It is? Excellent! I'm noting down that you (employee number xyz) have stated that the call is being recorded. If this dispute ever goes to court my lawyer might well want to subpoena it as evidence."
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Post by KTJ on Jun 7, 2015 18:12:46 GMT 10
You should ask the Canadian religious idiot nicely to shift this thread to the Technical Stuff messageboard.
Both he and Jody have the tools to do so.
If the thread was moved, it would even retain its current URL.
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Post by pim on Jun 7, 2015 18:39:50 GMT 10
You should wash your mouth out with soap
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Post by pim on Jun 8, 2015 15:37:14 GMT 10
I reacted to the religious bigotry and the ethnic slur in KTJs post when I told KTJ to wash his mouth out with soap. But I have to acknowledge that where moving the thread to the Technology Board is concerned he does have a point. He should still wash out his mouth with soap ...
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Post by Deleted on Jun 8, 2015 15:54:10 GMT 10
... My dialogue with "Suresh" at Telstra wasn't going too well either -... At least he was honest enough to give you an Indian name... I usually get 'Jeff' or Dave'
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2015 11:39:22 GMT 10
Good for you Pim! I'm usually too polite - but the frustration rises rapidly when you're talking to someone in a call centre on the other side of the world and coping with the accents (they don't seem to have a problem though!) plus not being technologically minded and then the transfers to other techies usually ending up back in Oz by the sound of it. And the time involved! Yeah, I agree only retired folk have that time advantage but at the same time, older folk often struggle with the accents and technology so are disadvantaged there.
Personally I dread having to contact my ISP. You know that it's going to take something like half the day. Just even to get through to someone, something? So I don't bother if they call me by my first name. It happens everywhere these days although I find it a little incongruous. Take for example a girl of 17 or so calling an 88 year old woman by her first name - it just doesn't sit right with me although I did it myself all the time talking to the patients in the nursing home. But of course I was older.
However, back to the ISPs. I hate them all. I've had them all over the years and really at the end of the day, they're all as bad as one another. Although a couple stand out as really bad - I Primus and Vodaphone! And now Telstra as well. Oh and I should also mention Optus!! When I left Optus to go to Telstra, they kept sending me bills in the mail each month although my contract had ended months and months before and I'd cancelled the service, for crappy amounts - $7.95 and the piece de resistance - $1.79! I paid it at the PO and the woman said that is the smallest bill from Optus she had ever seen in all her time working at the PO. I said they're just doing it to aggravate me because until those amounts have been paid I can't make any calls to mobiles or long distance - even though I had rung Optus several times and believed that the last bill I got from them was the last. And then over the next two months I got those other two for such piddling amounts.
So I really hate telecommunication companies and they're the ones that get the most complaints from customers because they're a law unto themselves. After them I hate insurance companies. Anyway, I'm about to leave Telstra because they're ripping me off. I think I'll get ADSL2. My son has them and thinks they're pretty good. And besides they're the only ones I haven't used so wish me luck!
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