I like the rest of Australia share a hate-hate relationship with TLS. They are a bumbling, incompetent bunch of dicks that we are stuck with courtesy of successive bumbling incompetent governments who have had their heads firmly rooted up their arses when it comes to communications policy. Where else in the world would you have had successive Ministers for Communication who have claimed to either have never sent an email or believed they invented the internet.
However, I digress from the purpose of my rant. I have received two successive communications from TLS telling me that I am about to receive a new modem which I didn’t ask for. Fantastic I think – what could possibly go wrong. The letter I received told me that I could change the address to which the modem could be sent and since I am never home to collect such things I decided to tempt fate and ring TLS and tell them to send it to a different address. How stupid am I ?
So I ring the number on the letter and guess what…..it doesn’t connect. At this point I should have realised that the universe was telling me something and I should hang and go do something useful with the next hour, but no I press on like Odysseus in the Odyssey and we all know how well that went…So I ring again and eventually get through to my very polite helper who was no doubt enjoying better weather somewhere else in the world than I was in Melbourne. I explain to him that I wish to redirect the modem I am receiving for free to a different address and after exchanging a few details he tells me I am not receiving a new modem. I say yes I am and he says no I am not and I say yes I am and he says no I am not. This goes on for a little while till I read him the actual letter sitting on my desk – its odd how the instant defence of all Australian companies I have dealt with is to assume that the client is a liar. Probably explains a lot about how things work in Australia, or in the case of TLS dont work.
Anyhow he manages to get organised and puts in an order for my supposedly new free modem which TLS will undoubtedly try and charge me for because if you are going to be incompetent you might as go the whole hog and be completely useless at the same time…
I grew up with the same experiences and remember the comedy Company episode where they had been using a company call “Bastards inc” all the previous seasons to emphasis crap behavior of companies to their customers. In the final episode they announced they were changing their name to Telecom (Telstra). I wet myself laughing at the time and my opinion of them has not changed to this day.
Then I had a funny experience with Telstra, when I moved a whole 2 km up the road I had a move consultant. He was so good I couldn’t believe he worked for them. Everything from Telephone land line to Satellite ( from Cable as no cable existed where I moved to) worked and all issues were resolved without cost. I still believe I was in the twilight zone.
I’m loving Telstra too!
I’ve got a 100gb download limit per month with a cable internet service, which I check occasionally; as the kids are loving YouTube.
Around mid April I noticed they’ve stopped reporting my usage. I called Telstra to check on my actual usage, as I wasn’t keen exceed.
They advised there’s a known issue with cable internet customers, where they not able to monitor usage levels.
It’s been two and a half months and they’re still not monitoring usage. Their contact centre staff told me to use all that I need as I’m not currently monitored! Every week or so Telstra call me to advise they’re still working on the issue, and that I’m still not being monitored. They can’t be that incompetent, could they?
I’m sure they’re just trying to build up customer’s consumption, then hit them with extra data fees when they turn monitoring back on!