I just have to share this with you ....

**Driver** · 28th July 2005, 08:32 PM

Today I had occasion to query the bill for my mobile phone.

For background, I should perhaps explain that I have recently entered a contract with a telco - a very large telco - in fact, it would not be stretching the truth to refer to this organisation as a very, very large telco. Everybody with me so far?

The new contract with said very, very large telco is a cap contract. The way this is supposed to work, as most of you will know, is that my monthly bill is capped at a certain amount. If I use less than this value of calls, I pay for what I use. If I use more than this amount, I only pay for the amount of the cap.

My first bill arrived yesterday. It was for an amount significantly greater than the cap - like nearly four times as much! :eek:

I tried to sort this out over the phone when the bill arrived. That didn't work. The bloke I spoke to seemed to find it all slightly amusing but he was not very helpful (read: he was a patronising git and if we had been in the same room, I would have cheerfully snotted him! :mad: ).

Today I visited the shopfront operation where I had made the original contractual arrangement. I spoke to the bloke with whom I had done the deal. I showed him my bill and asked him if he could explain it to me. He tried. He failed. I smiled at him politely and told him that I didn't understand any of what he had just said. I knew what all the words meant but, when they were placed in the sequence he had just constructed, I could not draw from them any useful interpretation. He tried again. This time he drew a little illustration on a piece of paper. He failed again.

We agreed that it might be more helpful if I were to talk to the billing department, using his phone.

The young lady in the billing department was actually very helpful. Unlike her colleague from yesterday, she didn't seem slightly amused. Very quickly we worked out that the contract that I had been given was unsuitable and a different contract would be much more to my liking. She offered to switch me to the new contract immediately, adjust my current amount outstanding back to the level of the original cap and, in short, solve my problems. I was very pleased with this and still am.

Naturally there will be some paperwork associated with all this. She promised to send it to me. I started to give her my email address. She explained to me that this was not necessary because she can't send the paperwork by email - it will have to be sent by Australia Post.

There was a pause in our conversation. I said:

"Does anything about this strike you as ironic?"

She said: "What do you mean?"

I said: "Your employer is, I think, if not the biggest then certainly one of the biggest Internet Service Providers in the country and you can't send me some documentation by email. Isn't that a bit odd?"

"Yes," she said. "You're right but there's nothing I can do about it. Our policy is to send all these documents by normal mail."

She's a bright, pleasant and helpful person and she solved a problem for me so I am grateful to her. However, she is working for an organisation that has its head jammed firmly up its bum!

I hope you all enjoyed that - it made my day!

**la Huerta** · 28th July 2005, 08:53 PM

so she sounded nice hey...did you get her number ???

**ozwinner** · 28th July 2005, 08:57 PM

HAd a similar experiance some years ago. ( why is the "a" as a second letter always a cap, if the first letter is?)

I had a company credit card and the company forgot to pay on time for some reason.
I got these threatening letters to pay up, OR ELSE!!

I rang the bank concerned to protest that the card belonged to the company, not me.
Not so, I was told.
As the card is in your name, YOU are responsable for the payments.
CRAP!!!!:mad:

Now what?
As I had spent the companys money on doing their business. I didnt see as I could be held to pay.

Went to the doofus in charge of paying bills at the place I was working, all he did was laugh.:mad:

Anyway, the bill was paid and I never heard any more of it.

Al

Is this a highjack?? :confused:

**Gumby** · 28th July 2005, 10:00 PM

Many years ago, when the internet was still young, a mate of mine got broadband for the first time and it had a download limit of 3 Gig on it.

His kids were at home on school hols and spent the best part of every day downloading movies. Telstra sent emails telling him the limit had been reached and that the extra charge for the excess would apply. They didn't ever read those emails and my mate got his first Internet account of $1250 for the first month. because it took a few weeks to coe and he was already well into the second month when he realised what was happening, the second month account was already over $1000.

he complained, and apparently so did many others in the same boat.

They all got out of paying the excess because it was considered that telstra hadn't notified them properly. It seems email isn't considered legally delivered. maybe that still applies so the use normal mail. Just a thought.

(the above has not beem checked for typoos) (neither was that)

**RufflyRustic** · 29th July 2005, 09:55 AM

Had a similar thing happen when upgrading one of my optus mobile plans for the second time. The first time I got overcharged by one month's rental and it came off the next month's bill - great, no problems. The next time I upgraded the plan, they overcharged by a month's rental again but didn't refund it.

Anyway, rang up the bills dept, talked to the person who just could not see what I was talking about even though it was very straight forward even when compared with the previous upgrade. Ended up pulling out every single Optus Mobile Bill (yep, kept them all) and went through it all and was able to prove my point. Got on the phone again - no luck. Went into the shop and watched the assistant's eyes boggle when he saw I had every single bill. He put me on to the state billing manager and even she couldn't work it out!!!!!!!!

Was very jacked off at this stage. Thought what the heck, so I rang the general billing number again, and within 2 minutes the gentleman had sussed the problem and sorted it out.

sheeeeezzzzzzsh!!!!!!!!!!!

RR

**shaunburgess** · 29th July 2005, 10:26 AM

Being in the industry and having worked for a large telco, the biggest problem is they employe contractors that don't have enough training, don't have the mental capacity to understand a solution and because they are contractors usually they have no authority to credit back a customers account. I used to have a $1000 limit to credit a customers bill if it was a genuine error. Those capped plans are a joke, the call rate is usually 3 times the standard amount and don't include things like SMS. You are usually better off getting a good business plan suited to what you spend, and whatever you do don't go into one of their shops with 17 year olds not knowing what they are doing believing if they are on a plan it must be the best.....what crap..........

from a cynical bastard who has had to fix to many stuff ups

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