Letter to TIO

TIO
PO Box 276
Collins St W.
Melbourne 8007

Dear Sirs/Mesdames,

Would YOU grumble if your phone company suddenly cut off your phone without warning, explanation or reasonable cause? What if there was plenty of money in the prepaid account concerned but the company decided to just take that money for themselves and give you nothing in return? That's what Telstra did to my mobile phone service no. 0448 285691.

No doubt there is something in the acres of small print that they hit you with that does in their mind permit their execrable behaviour in this matter but the courts have increasingly recognized that the average consumer cannot be expected to hire a lawyer every time he signs something and there are now in many jurisdictions provisions to overturn "unconsciencable" contracts. I hope however that an appeal to you will forestall the need to go to court.

I wrote to Francis Croydon of the Testra CEO's office about the matter on Nov., 27, 2007 and got back a reply dated Nov. 28th in which he said that what Telstra had done was right and proper. Subsequent letters from me have not budged that stand. So I think it is now clearly over to you.

As far as I can gather, the problem arose because I was put on the wrong "plan". My whole reason for getting a prepaid card was to avoid these godforsaken "plans" but it appears that I was put onto one anyway. And the default plan gave me only a short time to use up whatever money I had on the card. There IS apparently a plan that would have allowed me 6 months to use my money but I was not told of it.

Please get them to restore my account, restore my funds and put me on a 6-month plan