Telstra Customers Beware

If they've already got you for $250-$350 per month why on earth would they try to reduce your overall bill? I can understand it if you're with one of their 'competitors'.

I know, 20-20 hindsight is a wonderful thing :)))))

Thanks for the warning Snowy.

When I get called for these things and ask for the deal in writing before signing up, I have yet to receive anything at all from Telstra.

As far as I'm concerned if they are not willing to put the deal in writing there is no deal, or none that I'm prepared to enter into anyway.

We have all enjoyed dealing with Telstra staff over the years, they are lovely people who have probably have not been given the appopriate training or access to the information needed to deal with us.

Its a bit like the old joke "Whats the difference between a computer /telephone / techno salesperson and a used vehicle salesperson??"

The used vehicle salesperson KNOWS their lying!!

boom boom.

Sorry but its a real problem and it costs us dearly, im my last episode with Telstra they wanted $1200 buckeroos out of me they weren't entitled to and it took a stiff conversation and mentioning the "O" word (ombudsman) to sort them out.

The B&^%*&^%*ds

Regards
Russell

May daughter said yesterday - just go with whatever the Indian's offer you and after a few days Telstra will be ringing you up with much better deals to get you back.

Hi Snowy,
I was with a mob,...big ocean, not wanting to name because of possible nasty reactions..but i think you will get the jist,for internet,and I have kids and we went over our down load limit our first bill was $550 aprox as I cant remember exzactly how much it was,so I cut my losses and paid my way out of my contract..I think it cost me another $800 or so...but considering my first bill this was nothing compared to what threatened to keep coming our way...once I got overmy hip pocket nerve shock I think it was a prudent move...WILL NEVER GO BACK AS LONG AS MY DIGIT PIONTS TO THE GROUND..sorry for yelling..Igot carried away...its been going on a long time.
JD4WDActivist

Don't let them bluff you. Pull the plug and refuse to pay the $150 cancellation fee.

The only penalty you may incur, is if you have a current mobile contract with them.

I give Telstra one shot at giving me a "better" deal and this is ONLY by talking to a salesperson at a Telstra Shop. Any phone calls I get from their Indian based marketing Group is very short indeed. I can't understand them anyway, so it is, "not interested thank you" then "f*ck off" and hang up in their ear.
They seem to understand the second action real good.

Hi, Snowy,
I know how you feel. Last year, preparing for a trip around Oz, I decided to change plans and increase the monthly rental payment to decrease the call cost per minute on my mobile. After talking to a "foreign-accented" person, I was assured that I would keep my "extras"; the cheap 10-minute unit-calls to a designated number (you call a special number and it diverts to your nominated number). While away, I frequently called this number from my mobile, and on my return home, found that I had been charged at the full rate, with no cheap rate. The bill was horrendous. On enquiring to billing, I was told that this had been cancelled when I went to the higher plan. What pi$$ed me off was that I could still access this special number, but with no recorded announcement that it was no longer active. I could still make the call but at the full rate.
I asked to be put back to the original plan, but was told that it doesn't exist any more. I pointed out to the Telstra that I had obviously been deceived by the sales person. I was told that there was nothing they could do about the deception, but I could get a limited rebate if I signed up for a 12-month plan. I told them that they had destroyed any goodwill and they could stuff it. Now with a different company.
Should have taken it to the Telecom Ombudsman, but didn't.
Oh, and along the way, they cancelled my voicemail, and I had to get it reinstated half-way thru the trip. Have you tried to get around the voice-activated prompts to get to talk to a real person when all their options do not cover what you are trying to achieve? Especially when eventually the number you are told to call can't be accessed from a public phone box (I was in the Kimberly, out of range of mobiles). Took over 20 minutes of frustrating calls in that stinking hot phone box, trying every permutation to get thru to a real person.
Trick: to any prompt request, say "other", regardless of whether one of their prompts seems to fit the bill. That seems to help a lot and will save heaps of time.
Gerry

If you look long and hard at Telstra's competitors, you can save heaps. Takes time to sort out the best deals and means dealing with multiple companies.

We use Telstra for phone $18 per month and toll barred. GO Talk for tolls via a calling card, Exetel for ADSL $26 per month for 256/64k and 2G data (extra data $3 per 1 G), Vodafone on account for mobile. Telstra pre-pay for a CDMA phone (not used much, too expensive to use), Telstra for Foxtel and Skype for tolls when not using Go Talk and for calling the kids on their PC's (free).

We were 100% Telstra but have now halved our communications bills with this mish mash of providers - but it all works, is cheap and now all bills are paid automatically from a bank account or credit card - something Telstra could not do with their ADSL

See sites as follows to make things easier to sort out which is cheapest:

http://www.phonechoice.com.au/ for phone and mobile options

http://whirlpool.net.au/ for Broadband options

Stevesub.

Something else I just thought of.

How many of you forumites that have a home phone with Telstra, still pay for a monthly handset rental?

Do you still use a "rented handset" or have you purchased your own phone.

If you own your telephone handset you shouldn't be paying rental on something your not using. Still have, but no longer use an old handset?
You can return it to Telstra and cancel the monthly handset rental and save something like $23 per month.

Do it!........I'm not a shareholder:-)

Ahhh telstra.........I wouldn't pi$$ on them if they were on fire. Never again.

I have been with Telecom/Telstra for 30 years or more and have never had a problem.

I make sure I own all my phones.

Still on a $10 mobile phone plan all these years later. It costs when using the phone but have had no probs.

I have my Satphone with Telstra as well and no problems there either.

I too get bombarded by Optus and the Indians but just say NO THANKS

In the end changing plans or companies does not save you anything and as mentioned above, may only bring you grief.........

Hi all

After some recent hellish problems with Telstra one of their guys told me to always do the following when dealing with their call centres:

Always ask the operator for their employee id number to identify them for the transaction as well as the employee id of their supervisor - they are obliged to provide this to you when asked and will always get you back to the right call centre. All computer transactions and entries are logged by this user id. Always get the operator to read back what they have entered against your transaction on the computer against this id - makes them personally responsible and identifiable when all goes awry. You soon get far better service when they know you can id them rather than just having a first name to go by.

Has worked well with recent transactions for us.

Good luck

Age

Consider VoIP - through internet carrier - all calls major centre to major centre 10c per call untimed. Home to mobile cheap. VoIP phone to VoIP phone world wide is FOC.Access to broadband is needed and a VoIP ATA (Analogue Telephone Adaptor) OR Voip handset and/or Router Modem is required. Downside is for landline only. But still savings are tremendous

Still retain standard phone at basic rental charge through my internet carrier.

$tuff Telsterra and all they stand for - and the three Mousketeers (Sole Threeear and his mates) can pi$$ orf back to whatever rock they crawled out from under.

I have been with a mobile company that uses Optus for 7 years, Simplus. My phone is my business, in summer the bills were up to $350-400/month..... last summer they contacted me and offered me a $99/month cap plan which includes $700 credit. No fuss, no catches, no BS!

Since then, I have paid over the cap on one occassion when I mistakenly dialled a "Special" number (My ISP on a 1300 number... was on the phone for two hours to them trying to figure out a glitch in my broadband hookup)... they don't include 1300 numbers and the like, which is fair enough I guess. Last bill was $570 for the month.... I paid only the $99.... couldn't be happier!

The "T" company on the other hand are kidding themselves!

I had a bloke ring me the other day trying to convert me back to telstra (landline).
Included was free cordless phone etc. It sounded a bit ??? and with caller ID being blocked, I basically burred up about giving any sort of information to him.

He said he was from telstra - however it turned out he did not work for telstra but for some telephone shop in Brisbane....

Always ask for a number to ring them back on and a telstra reference number before giving anyone any details about yourself (birthday, address, creditcard number, etc) if they are ringing you!!

Where we live, we are unable to get broadband over the telephone lines because Telstra refuse to upgrade their lines. We ar negotiating to have a wireless system installed. When this is complete (the wireless system) I am strongly considering telling Telstra to jam their landline and for the few telephone calls that I make will be on my mobile. We have a gain pair here, which in my book is half a line but i still have to pay the full line rental. For the $30.00 pm line rental I can make quite a few calls on my mobile but I will have to install an outside antena.

Secondly my contract expires with Telstra for my mobile in March next year. Does anyone know what will happen if I choose not to renew it?

While we're on this topic, does anyone know if you can get pre-paid CDMA with anyone else but Telstra? Last time I looked you couldn't but things change.

one of the posts was about a cdma
but as you may have heard cdma is on the wayout gonna be replaced by 3g (third generation) so the question might be what else are they gonna chop ? :)