Letter of 15 March, 2008 from Kevin Rudd's office

Our ref: klh:klh/

Dear Dr Ray

Thank you for contacting Kevin with your concerns regarding Telstra pre paid mobile accounts. Kevin has now asked that I make enquiries on your behalf in relation to this matter. Please be assured that I am investigating this matter and will provide you with a detailed response at the earliest opportunity. In the meantime, if you wish to discuss this matter further, or if there are any other Federal Government matters with which Kevin may be of assistance to you, please do not hesitate to contact the Electorate Office on 3899 4031.

Yours sincerely
Katrina Hicks

Letter of 9 March, 2008

TO:
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd

Dear Mr Rudd,

I have noticed that you have had problems with Telstra. So have I.

Are you aware that if you do not use money in a prepaid mobile phone account within a narrow timeframe, Telstra just confiscate the unused money and refuse to give it back? They did that to me and did it without any notice. One day I just found that my mobile was no longer working even though I had spent only about half the money in the account.

I wrote to Telstra about it but they declined to do anything about it.

I have written to the TIO twice about it but they have just ignored me.

I think legislation may be needed to stop Telstra from continuing this unfair practice.

I enclose a copy of the letter that the TIO ignored twice. I sent the second copy over a month ago but have not even had the courtesy of an acknowledgement.

Yours faithfully,

(Dr) John Ray

Telstra contemptuous of country Australians

Susan Carlson writes

Not all customers are treated the same! I have been using the net since 1996. During this time I was using a locally based ISP. Why? Because they were reasonably priced, offered service and I very rarely had trouble getting on line!

While I may have changed my towers, hard wear, soft wear and desks, I have always used the same ISP. I like my ISP, because time after time I heard my friends say how hard it is to get on line. Most of them are with Bigpond, or as I like to call it, Big Puddle!

This year I decided to upgrade my net access to broadband. Not because of the large downloads, although that is very attractive for my photographic service, but because my Mum is 86 and hates it when she can’t get through to me. So broadband seems the perfect answer.

Of course that’s perfect for me but not for Telstra. I’m not ‘with them’. And I don’t want to change! So when I asked my ISP about getting broadband, they advised me that I would be paying a fee to Telstra, an increased monthly fee and also buying a new modem. That’s fair enough and so I paid them. I trust them because I’ve done business with them for 12 years!

So why has Telstra knocked back my first application? I don’t owe them money and always pay my phone bill on time? Why did my ISP have to present my application again and why two months later are Telstra still ‘looking into my accessibility’!

Makes you wonder why a friend of mine (in the same phone area) has had broadband for the last few months? OH she’s not only a Telstra customer; she has her email with them!

Source

More Telstra arrogance

FOUR loyal Telstra customers are considering legal action after the giant telco stripped them of their profitable business phone number and handed it to a competitor just two doors away. The move plunged the Capalaba Raine & Horne real estate business into turmoil with its four owners claiming $312,000 in lost business. It had the "established real estate number" for only six weeks, after a transfer of business from the now liquidated Kanga Cove. "And to think Telstra gave that number – which was well established in the community – to LJ Hooker down the road really rubs salt into the wound," co-owner Margaret Enbom said yesterday.

Although technically a phone number cannot be bought, it is common for it to be transferred with the sale of a business. The value of an established business phone number, particularly in real estate, may surprise those unaccustomed to the phone-reliant industry. "In real estate it's paramount to the value of street position and taking it from a business is tantamount to identity theft," said private accountant Surome Singh, who consulted with the industry before costing the losses for the owners.

Mr Singh said the matter had dragged on since 2004, with Telstra in 2006 offering $50,000 in compensation for "poor delivery of service". Last month, Telstra downgraded its offer to just $5000. Mr Singh said that in May 2007 he calculated a fair settlement of $256,345, which had risen since to about $312,000.

Telstra yesterday denied it had even suspended the number, despite a previous verbal admission it suspended the service because it associated Raine & Horne (incorrectly) with Kanga Cove's incapacity to pay its telephone bills. "Telstra maintain the number was terminated by the administrator when the former business went bankrupt," a spokesman said. "The number was then made available and reissued."

Ms Enbom said her business enjoyed fair trade until the phones were cut, without warning, and then plunged into silent turmoil with the goodwill provided by the established number lost. She derided Telstra for its latest offer and questioned how many other businesses had suffered the same fate.

Source

Arrogant Telstra loses one

May there be many more like this

TELSTRA'S ownership of the network of copper wires that makes up Australia's fixed-line telephone system has been legally diminished after the High Court unanimously rejected a case by the telco that its constitutional property rights were breached by being forced to allow rivals access to its infrastructure.

Yesterday's ruling found that the former government-owned monopoly's ownership of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) was contingent on the telco providing rivals with access. "Telstra's bundle of rights in respect of the PSTN has always been subject to the rights of its competitors to require access to and use of the assets," the judgment said.

The ruling, which pundits described as Telstra's "own goal", affirms the telecommunications access regime of the Trade Practices Act and bolsters the power of the federal Government before the tender process for the $4.7billion national broadband bid.

Telstra brought the case in January last year, asking the High Court to consider whether its constitutional rights under Section 51 (XXI), that the federal government can only compulsorily acquire "property" on "just terms", were being breached by 11 of its rivals, the commonwealth and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which sets prices for compulsory third-party access to Telstra's network. Telstra argues the access prices set by the ACCC for its opponents are below cost and thus not acquired on just terms. But the judges challenged the scope of Telstra's "property".

"Telstra's argument that there is an acquisition of its property otherwise than on just terms is ... synthetic and unreal because it proceeds from an unstated premise that Telstra has larger and more ample rights in respect of the PSTN than it has," they said. "Telstra's 'bundle of rights' in respect of the assets of the PSTN has never been of the nature and amplitude which its present argument assumes."

Telstra general counsel Will Irving said the case had cost Telstra's shareholders "less than $1 million" but had been worth it.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy backed the decision, which "upheld the validity of the telecommunications access regime in the Trade Practices Act". ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel welcomed it, saying that enforcing the access regime did not amount to acquisition of Telstra's property. The other winners are the G9 group of smaller telcos such as Optus, Primus and Macquarie Telecoms.

Optus's Andrew Sheridan said the judgment sent a "clear message to Telstra that it cannot ride roughshod over the will of parliament". Macquarie Telecom's Matt Healy said Telstra had been "given a harsh history lesson" by the judges, while Primus Telecom CEO Ravi Bhatia said it was "well past time for Telstra to stop wasting money and management bandwidth on misguided and speculative litigation in attempts to crush competition and subvert the law of the land".

Despite the unanimous ruling against Telstra, David Forman, from the Competitive Carriers Coalition, said the industry suspected the telco would continue to launch "serial court actions with little or no merit". "Until Telstra is separated into independent wholesale and retail businesses, it will continue to do everything it can to make it difficult for any other retail telecommunications company to do business," he said. "Telstra has still not won a single case on substantial matters since its management arrived from America in 2005 and imported the litigate-everything strategy, winning only one minor administrative law case against the ACCC."

Source

You just CANNOT win with Telstra!

They are pigs, apes and monkeys -- or that is the standard of their service.

The first time I learnt that my mobile service had been cut off was when I had arrived at a gated complex and needed to phone the person inside to say that I had arrived. All I got from my phone was a message to say that my service had been "suspended" -- even though I still had plenty of money in my prepaid account. I ended up having to climb over a high fence that night in order to get to my destinmation -- which was not remotely amusing for an old guy like me.

If Telstra were a civilized organization, one might have expected that they would send out (say) a text message advising the customer of a service suspension as soon as the suspension occurred -- but expecting civility of Telstra is pissing into the wind, of course

And it happened again last night. I was delayed in hospital and wanted to advise the person who was to pick me up of that. But all I got was a message saying: "Emergency calls only"! The phone was working again this morning so I rang Telstra to enquire what the hell was going on and was told that they had "routing issues" last night. I have been using phones for around 50 years and had never heard that one before. Service standards have definitely got worse.

Telstra need to recognize that their customers RELY on their phones for many things and build in enough system redundancy to avoid such service failures. I now have my own form of systems redundancy. I have another cellphone from Optus that I can use whenever Telstra let me down. Disgraceful that anybody has to go to such expense, however.

A suggested improvement for BigBlog

Telstra rarely acknowledge that my suggestions to them are good ones but they do eventually seem to heed what I say to a degree. The fact that this site has a fairly high page-ranking may help.

As I have noted before, things that I have suggested are often implemented by them without notice and without acknowledgement to me. The most pleasing of such events is that they recently seem to have cut right back on the waiting time that one experiences when calling their helpline.

So here is another way that Bigpond could enter the 21st century:

When you log on to your BigBlog site, you have to enter your whole email address plus your password. And you have to do so EVERY time. The service has no "memory". With most sites you just enter the first few letters and the rest is done for you.

Telstra take note. You too could offer an intelligent service!

This is no surprise at all. Trujillo is a disaster

Telstra using 'plastic bags' to patch lines

THOUSANDS of people are having their phones cut off every time it rains because cost-cutting by Telstra means the lines are no longer waterproof and sometimes protected only by children's lunch bags. The Daily Telegraph has learned the number of faults skyrocketed to more than 5000 problems during the rains last week, compared to an average of 1000 in normal conditions. The problem is so severe that parts of NSW are referred to as "Baghdad" because the plastic bag patch-up technique is so prevalent.

The situation follows massive job cuts as part of the controversial cost-cutting program embarked on by Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo in 2005. The telco, which posted a $3.3 billion profit last year, has slashed thousands of technician jobs in the past 18 months, causing a massive backlog of work and leaving phone lines unprotected from the elements.

The situation hit crisis point last week when Telstra bosses were forced to issue a desperate directive asking technicians to work double time to clear the backlog. One text message obtained by The Daily Telegraph states: "Total volume is 5233 & we are currently in contingency mode. All efforts to complete ALL TOW's (tickets of work - fault reports) will be greatly appreciated."

Workers say Telstra's squeeze on technician numbers over the past 18 months - a cut of 2600 nationwide, including 550 in Sydney - has meant up to 50 lines in each underground footpath box are not properly protected. In many cases technicians, overloaded with the 500 per cent increase in workload, are forced to do hasty patch-up jobs with tape and plastic bags. They then put in a request for an outside contractor to complete the job but often this is not done in time, leaving the lines exposed to water.

The Communications Electrical and Plumbing Union said Telstra's cost-cutting was to blame for a massive spike in faults. "These rising high volumes of faults are caused by Telstra's ongoing program of retrenching skilled communications technicians and major cutbacks to the maintenance of Telstra's copper cable network," assistant secretary Steve Dodd said. "Hundreds of skilled communication technicians have been made redundant in Sydney over the past 18 months following Telstra's CEO Sol Trujillo's announcement in 2005 to reduce its workforce by 12,000." Mr Dodd said there were safety concerns with people's phones being cut off at times of storms, floods and other extreme weather. The CEPU warned people to be prepared for a deterioration of services, including lengthy delays.

Source

I knew it!

My extremely low expectations of Telstra efficiency -- born of experience -- were justified. Can Telstra get anything right first go? Their offensive and incompetent accounts management continues. After all my run-ins with them, I was sure that I had navigated correctly through their regulations. I FIRST got my prepaid "plan" changed to a "longlife" one and I THEN put another $30 into the account. That should have given me 12 months (until January 2009) to use the money.

But when I checked the accounts-checking line (1258888) I found that I had been given only until March to use the money! So I rang their helpline straight away and was told not to worry. The date would come right in about "48 hours". It didn't. I put the money in on 19th and by today -- 23rd -- the account was still showing on 1258888 as due to cut out in March this year.

So I rang the helpline yet again. Rather to my surprise I got a prompt response. I was prepared for the usual 20 minutes wait before I got to actually talk to someone. So perhaps my nagging about their slow response time did hit a nerve somewhere and they have actually put on adequate helpline staff at long last.

Anyway, the line was atrocious. Once again we have a phone company that cannot keep its own in-house phone lines working well. Amazing! But I guess that my call had to go all the way to India and back so maybe that was a factor. As it was, I could understand only about every second word spoken.

Anyway, with much palaver he did succeed in altering the date to what it should AUTOMATICALLY have been set to. I wonder when the penny will drop at Telstra HQ that doing things manually that should be done automatically is inefficient and costly? Not to mention very irritating to their customers.

More Telstra boneheadedness

First: The good news. I rang the Telstra helpline (125111) about 11am this morning (Saturday) and got straight through -- instead of the usual 20 minute wait. Something to bear in mind! Saturday must be a good day.

Second: The usual archaic accounting system. I am now at last on a "longlife" plan which allows me to pay in $30 and get a year to use it. So I went in today and paid over my $30. Being a nasty old skeptic, however, (Telstra would make ANYBODY a nasty old skeptic), I immediately rang the account-checking number (1258888) to see if the $30 had gone through. It had. But what had NOT been properly reset was the expiry date. The date given was in March 2008 rather than in January, 2009.

So I rang the polite Indian gentleman on the helpline to ask what was going on. What he told me is that a reset date takes 48 hours to go through so they initially reset it to only two months ahead.

Incredible! If they can reset it at all, why don't they reset it to the correct date? It's very Telstra. I really am beginning to think that it will need legislation to make these bunnies behave with some semblance of civility and intelligence.

Silly Francis

A letter to Francis Croydon -- PR man for Solomon Trujillo

You are being very stupid by ignoring me. I had to write to the Prime Minister once before to get a Telstra problem sorted out. I am quite prepared to write to Kevin Rudd about your latest pigheadedness -- and that might have more fallout this time than Solomon will be comfortable with.

Yours disgustedly,

Dr John Ray

My aim

My immediate aim in my present controversy with Telstra is to get them to refund the money that they have purloined from my prepaid mobile phone account.

But I am financially very well-off. I give away money by the thousands frequently. So such a tiny amount of money is of no consequence to me of itself.

What I object to is being treated contemptuously and my underlying aim is to stop people in general from being treated that way. What is an insignificant amount of money to me may be quite important to many others.

So I want to win this one for the impact it will have on Telstra, not for any other reason. I want to civilize them -- vain hope though that probably is.

The Telstra Tricks

At long last, after numerous phone calls to Telstra and one totally uninformative letter from Telstra Head Office, I think I have figured out the treacherous techniques that Telstra uses to squeeze more money out of their hapless customers who hold prepaid mobile phone accounts.

No doubt one is supposed to figure it all out from the reams of legalese they give you when you sign up but I am no lawyer and nor are 99% of their customers, I am sure. Furthermore, Telstra's own helpline people don't generally seem to be aware of it all either. So how can customers be expected to know it?

First trick: When you buy a prepaid Telstra SIM card, they give you 6 months to use the money on it. But once you have used that money up, you only get one month to use any extra money you put on it unless you specifically request restoration of a six month's leeway. That one got me straight away. Before I knew it, my phone was cut off because I had "used up" my one month after the first recharge that I did -- even though I still had plenty of money in the account.

Second Trick: You have to request a return to the 6 month "plan" BEFORE you put in more money. You cannot do it after you have paid in. I fell for that one too. After my phone was cut off I put in another $20 of credit and rang them immediately thereafter to get my "plan" changed to a 6-monthly one. Both of the two helpline people that I spoke to on the day concerned assured me that all would be hunky dory from that moment on. It might take "2 or 3 days" for the change to show up in the account records but show up it would and that is all there would be to it.

It was only when I rang today (9 days later) and demanded to know WHY no change had showed up in the account records (automatically accessible via no. 1258888) that I was told of Trick no. 2.

I think that these tricks are utterly gross and that my "plan" should be fully changeable at ANY time, WITHOUT my pumping more money in. I further think that money unused due to time restrictions should be refunded to the customer. That would in my view be a minimum standard of civility for Telstra to adopt. But don't hold your breath when you are dealing with a huge and predatory company. I hope however that this blog might serve to forewarn a few of their potential victims.

I think my next step might be to approach the Rudd government and ask them to IMPOSE those minimum standards on Telstra. Rudd and Telstra are at daggers-drawn anyway so Rudd would probably welcome the chance to give Telstra one in the eye.

Dear Mr McGauchie

I have just sent the following letter to the chairman of Telstra:

I would like to draw your attention to the contemptuous attitude towards customers that characterizes Sol and his staff. It has got so bad that I have started a website devoted to recording my appalling experiences with Telstra/Bigpond. It is here: http://telstra-bigpond.blogspot.com/

The site already has a high Google page-ranking --- as you can see for yourself if you Google (say) the two words:

Trujillo bigpond

My site is the first or second on the list that Google gives you in response to that query. So lots of people will be reading it. You get a mention there too.

Have a read through it (the posts are short) and consider whether or not personal intervention from you is required. Sol is missing in action -- even though I have written to him and his PR assistant (Francis Croydon) many times.

Yours sincerely,

(Dr.) John Ray