Phone frustration

Ok, I'm sure I've probably mentioned this before but, as I sit her on hold for the 17th minute, I feel the urge to say again how flipping hopeless Telstra* are. We bought a landline and what they call a T-Box which is a set-top box with free internet music/sport/movie channels. Sounded good. Unfortunately, not only was reception a bit dodgy in our area but to get the movies (which is what we really got it for) you had to register and confirm your age with a credit card. We don't have one, nor were we told that we'd need one.

So, after two whole weeks of trying to get Telstra to explain to us why we couldn't register and receiving a myriad of excuses until we found the one person who knew straight away what the problem was, we said that we no longer wanted it as it didn't do what we'd been told it should. "No worries" said Telstra "Just send it back to us in this lovely registered post bag that we ourselves will provide to you and call us if you keep getting charged and we will sort it out". Too easy.

The next bill arrived not long after. With the monthly charge. I ignored that one as we had only just sent it back. The next bill arrived and of course, we were still getting charged (and not only that but they had whacked a massive 'one off' charge on which apparently always shows on your second bill. Not happy as this had most certainly not been mentioned, I think I would have remembered someone saying 'Oh, and by the way after lulling you into a false sense of security with your first, normal bill, we will then give you a heart attack with a massive second bill". Made such a fuss that they credited that back to us too) So, I rang up and they credited us the $11.00 and said that we wouldn't be charged any more. Fantastic.

Next month. $11.00. I mean, honestly. So here I am, again, on hold to Telstra (the all Australian company which is why I'm talking to someone in the Philipines...). Maybe this time...**

*for those of you in the UK, this is the Aussie version of BT
**one bright spot, they said at the end that they would put me through to a survey and instead the line went dead. Yay :)