Telstra Screwing It's Customers Again with A New Campaign on Broadband Users

Diji1 on 17/05/2016 - 18:59
Last edited 17/05/2016 - 19:00

Seems Telstra is trying to screw over it's customers in a new way: by sending existing broadband customers a letter claiming that they've "identified" that the discounts they're on shouldn't be applied and so they're going to remove them and charge $30 extra per month for your broadband as a result.

See: https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=2529279

They already screwed me during the negotiation process for 100Mbit, 1TB allowance for $89.95 by causing me to terminate my existing service early leaving me without internet and then provisioning me with 33Mbit after 100Mbit was agreed - and refused to fix the issue until the TIO told them to which was a process that took months and many hours of my time.

As you can see from the thread they're reinstating customers discounts if and when they contact the live support (for the love of Christ do not attempt to rectify it over the telephone) so it's just another action by Telstra to waste their customers time by being unreasonable to the customers.

As I said in the thread I linked … over my dead body. Not with all the previous BS from Telstra lol.

Anyone else getting the letter?

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Comments

  • spackbace on 17/05/2016 - 19:25

    Lol everyone saying along the lines of 'I knew I shouldn't have been getting that discount but…'

    Hilarious

    • Diji1 on 17/05/2016 - 19:32
      +1

      Well the discounts aren't somthing you should or should not get, they're sales devices that are used to get you to pay more. They exist or do not exist as the sales person desires because Telstra does not have 1 plan they have a myriad of plans none of which are fixed.

      Some people are paying $149 for 33Mbit 200GB and they paid over $500 in setup costs.

      I am paying $89.95 for 100Mbit 1000GB and I didn't pay for the technician or connection fee (I tried to get the modem for free as well but nope) which is the best I've heard of. Though some do say you can get them to give the modem over for free as wel.

      And now the discounts are being used as a device to change the price of the customers plans retroactively.

      • No on 17/05/2016 - 19:37

        Just out of curiosity how'd you get the discount in the first place?

        • Diji1 on 17/05/2016 - 22:19

          I spent hours continuously repeating that I wanted 100Mbit cable internet with 1000GB data allowance for $89.95 per month and no setup fees over and over again.

          They continuously kept putting up barriers as to why that's impossible and no ones ever heard of this and pigs fly etc. and in the end they gave it to me.

          Not an easy process by any means lel.

      • kipps on 17/05/2016 - 19:48

        I'm paying $80 for 100Mbit 500GB on cable as a bundle including phone line. Will not be happy if they reneg on the deal.

  • toliman on 17/05/2016 - 19:38

    Again, YMMV. If you have a standard ~1tb ADSL account, it's about $30 to $60 a month more than any other company i could think of. If you have a bigpond account, and you're not using Cable or satellite, you kind of deserve to be screwed over.

    I expect people who love/have no choice with telstra/bigpond pay around $220/month (and more) for internet, phone and mobile, whereas shopping around will probably push that down to $140 for most people. perhaps lower.

    There's a definitive reason why alternative providers proliferate and have millions of users around australia, and that's simply due to other companies offering better deals, better prices, and better service, arguably. If you've never had a bad experience on Bigpond, you haven't lived; i.e you are the exception.

    That said, try the 24/7 live support with a consultant, as they don't usually have the permissions to change your account settings.

    reason for this is explained a few posts down by endgame in that thread, i.e. http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2529279#r50405593 accounts regularly get 'washed' / audited for discounts for users on contracts, etc.

    The problem seems to be coming from grandfathered plans being converted into a new plan, or landline bundle discounts not working anymore due to the non-grandfathering of old plans being upgraded. As mentioned in the thread, they do bundle/discount checks regularly enough that you should always check your bills for odd entries or bundle discounts that are removed. and complain when charged extra for things that you don't use

    It's not clear what plan you're on, or what bundle/discounts are applied, and you should probably chase it down with the CSR's via the bigpond website, i.e. Live Chat or 24/7 support. This just seems like it could be applied manually in some cases, because telstra is not a monolithic corporation, and bundling is often manually applied from different databases by a CSR/operator.

    • dasher86 on 17/05/2016 - 19:53

      So people like me who have no other real choice other than to use bigpond deserve to get screwed over?

      • StewBalls on 17/05/2016 - 20:39

        You got that line straight from Telstra policy & procedure, right??? ;)

      • Diji1 on 17/05/2016 - 22:22

        Hey I'm in the same boat: Telstra cable or ADSL2+ at 5 Mbit (if I'm lucky, Exetel at the end were providing dialup speeds presumably other providers are better).

        ADSL2+ is awful.

  • moraldk on 17/05/2016 - 22:49

    Good for you people for standing up straight. Telstra tried to bend me over, they ended up giving me lots of free services to shut me up, well I am cheep stake and took the carrots; I have rabbits to feed…

  • dealhunt on 17/05/2016 - 23:31

    The problem is the monopoly in Australia, in other civilized countries internet has NO download/upload limits or other BS dictated by the same greedy companies, also internet is much faster (standard adsl) and reliable!

  • iforgotmysocks on 20/05/2016 - 11:11

    I was hit with this letter too. Has got me out of my contract which is handy, as I'm moving in a few months. They didn't want to budge on giving me the discount back, however.

  • picogary on 24/05/2016 - 10:35

    I got the letter too, as did a friend of mine who called support on the phone and got nowhere for 5hrs! … not impressed at all. I'm trying to sort it out now on live chat.

    —-EDIT—-

    Unbelievably helpful Live Chat person just gave me monthly credit up to the end of my contract period, plus they threw in a speed boost for free!
    One happy customer here… so long as it all sticks ;)
    I have been given reference numbers and an email transcript for each of these changes, so hopefully it will be smooth sailing from here onwards.

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