Ah, Telstra - big fail again.

After months helping a client resolve drawn-out issues with their Telstra email and billing, after bringing in the Ombudsman, after Telstra confirms to us and the Ombudsman in mid-Dec 2014  that the problems are absolutely, definitely, completely, FULLY resolved, and we agree a final compensation amount for the client to 'close' the matter ...

... Telstra send yet another bill for the cable internet service that was terminated months ago.  

---

Groundhog day!

My head hurts from hitting it against the Telstra brick wall!

I am still struggling to understand how, when I could look at the Bigpond website and see that the client's supposedly terminated account was still set up for billing, Telstra could not see the same thing - no matter how many times it was raised and they were asked to fix it. 

Even though, because of the Ombudsman's involvement, we has finally been escalated to a 'Complex Complaints' team here in Melbourne, we could still not get the Telstra representative from that team to accept that what we were seeing meant that the problem was not yet resolved.  

Even sending screen shots of their own Telstra website screens, showing the account billing details that were not supposed to exist, would not sway the representative from his adamant assertions that the account would no longer bill.

Of course, it did - one full week after the Ombudsman send the final 'resolution of complaint' letter to us, and the matter was supposedly fully resolved and closed.

And the response from the Telstra representative today nearly two weeks after we asked that the complaint be re-opened (and several months after the problem was first alerted to Telstra)?

"Regarding being billed for the BigPond Cable service on account number nnnnnnn I have checked and have determined that when the email addresses were reconnected it unfortunately was reconnected as a full service and not just a email service."

To use one of my kids' favourites terms, "No sh%t Sherlock."  

Why did have to take so many calls and emails to work this out when the evidence was there all along?  And of course, we got no apology or acknowledgement that he had got it wrong.

As a Telstra customer and shareholder, I am appalled by the money that was wasted on just this issue - the number of resource hours that were required and solve just this problem was so ridiculous and unnecessary.  Multiply that by the number of others suffering the same torture at Telstra's hands!

A problem shared by many

In just the last couple of weeks, I have spoken to two local families whose main Telstra email accounts were just cut off by Telstra - with no explanation, and with no request from them as the customer to do so.  

In both cases, this caused ENORMOUS stress and resulted in hours and hours of frustrating calls to Telstra, and the loss of emails.  Neither sought financial compensation from Telstra for the problems caused - something I would have insisted upon.

I know so many of you reading this rant will have the same types of stories, of similar dealings with Telstra or another Telco.  Please feel free to share your story in the comments below.  I can't guarantee that 'a problem shared' will be 'a problem halved', but I would love to hear of your experiences.

If you need some help with an existing Telstra (or another Telco) matter, iTandCoffee may be able to help.  Just call 1300 885 420.