Telstra/downer Gripe, Or Something

[swtchbckr]

I'm well fucked off.

Earthquake forces us to move house while they repair it. Moved just round the corner, contact Telstra to get broadband and phone transfered to new address. Tech comes out, finds house not connected to street for them, so have to get Downer in to do that. 1 week later they run a line or find a line or something, but run it to the wrong pole, or something, and the Telstra cable is on the other side of the street so they have to run a line across the street meaning getting consent from Orion maybe? its all unclear and nobody is telling us whats going on. another week rolls by, nothing is done. and now another week has gone by and some guy came round on Tuesday and turned the power off for an hour, but still nothing...

THREE WEEKS now, with no phone and no internet, and our cellphones are needing topping up 4 times more often than usual.

and to top it all off, EVERY fucking time i ring Telstra i'm finding myself talking to India (or the Phillipines?). of course, they are all very apologetic as they fucking should be, but they cant actually do anything for me.

What the hell am i supposed to do? is there anyone in NZ who can tell me what the hell is going on, cos the nice call centre reps in India certainly cant. what's the fucking point of having call centres where they're totally ineffective!?

and NO WAY should i be paying anything for non-existent services over the last 3 weeks and i think they should be giving me at least an extra month's free line rental and internet. Should i send them a bill for our cellphone useage?

What would you do? go to Telecom? But how long would i have to wait for them? NZMATTO, didnt you work for Telstra? or do you? can you pull some strings?

[kona.stinky.]

Find the person in charge and knock them the fuck out.

[neels]

Call Snap!, compare the deal you're getting and if it's as good/better tell Telstra to shove it. At least with them you get to talk to someone in chch, not the other side of the world.

[ape]

Sometimes good ol snail mail is the best bet to climb your way to someone who can actually help you.., so few people use it that they haven't bothered putting systems in place to fob you off to the little people... and it's definitely not going to find its way to an office in asia

[speeding_ant]

I had a bitch of a time when I moved to our last flat... It seems like they never know what houses are actually connected.

Took us a month to get shit sorted after we persuaded them that actually, yes, there is a fucking telstra box on the house.

I love their services, hate their service.

[swtchbckr]

We're only gonna be out of our house for probably 10 weeks, so far its 3 weeks without services, 7 to go... by the time they get us hooked up we'll probably be moving home and then how long will it take them to reconnect us there?????

[E Dogg Capizzle]

Give Telstra the boot. And courier them a poo.

[nzmatto]

CEO's email is allan.freeth@telstraclear.co.nz

Pretty much guaranteed to get a response. :-)

Yup, I used to work there, but no longer....although 5 months later and they still owe me money.....

[swtchbckr]

cool thanks dude.

oh, and E Dogg, nice idea.

[znomit]

I'm well fucked off.
Earthquake forces us to move house while they repair it. Moved just round the corner, contact Telstra to get broadband and phone transfered to new address. Tech comes out, finds house not connected to street for them, so have to get Downer in to do that.

Did they see that you were a cyclist?

[nostromo]

I don't get Telstra. Their business strategy seems to be to not invest or innovate and provide quite bad service. Whereas some of the stuff Telecom is doing with the NGN is impressive particularly in the realm of data networking services, bandwidth is shooting up and price simultaneously coming down. Telstra is going to get smashed in the next few years if they don't up their game, or they are just going to become a reseller of other peoples services I guess more than they already are.

[great uncle bulgaria]

fwiw - i am no expert. everybody on telecom whose seen our cable telstraclear speeds is very impressed.

if i was you i'd consider something mildly sneaky like ringing up and trying to get sky via telstra and seeing if they can butt in somehow

I'd also consider saying ah fuk you and just go to telecom

you can always go back later if you don't like it





then again
maybe the poo is a better idea . . .

[Simonius_Titius]

It is frustrating, but you have to make a case to each tier at the call centre that they should escalate you to the next level, where you may or may not need to tell your story again. Eventually you may end up talking to someone capable of understanding and fixing your problem. If you run out of patience or phone credit you go back to the bottom of the hill again, so start with a speakerphone that you can take into the toilet, an hour or so of phone credit, sandwiches, coffee...

At each level you can try to get an email address or direct dial number to that level. This will often be refused but it is worth a try, e.g. you might have something that you could email to them. The case number and the name of a higher-level person familiar with your case will sometimes get you passed up to them, or to their level if they are unavailable.

Each operator should add notes to the case under their own name, and a bunch of low-level folk each adding their garbled version of your story makes your job look very unattractive. Try to give a concise story that they can copy down verbatim, and try to include pointers to the appropriate group or level so that next time the lower operators can just refer you without having to understand the story themselves.

I got to play this game a few times with a number portability/diversion thing with Telstra and Telecom a while back. It would break, and after an hour or two of bouncing between them one party would give in and magically fix it, but neither would admit to having fixed it.