My Experience With Telstra Pigpond
(I must state that in all my dealings with Telstra I explained myself clearly and was not in anyway rude or arrogant, I believe that being rude abrupt or disruptive actually will work against you in the end.)
Why oh why did I ever sign up with Telstra Pigpond???
It all started over a year ago when I heard about VoIP services that could reduce your phone bill dramatically which would also offset the cost of having an internet connection. Being new to all this talk about VoIP and what it could do. In doing some research on the best way to go about having VoIP would be to have a cable connection with a VoIP router that I could run my phone on. So effectively I would have a dedicated internet connection (cable) that was fast enough to be able to run a VoIP phone on so that I would get a normal reception on the phone line without any interference.
At that stage and to this day Telstra Pigpond are the only internet providers that can connect a cable connection in Australia of which they run through the Foxtel cables that were laid many years before. The cable connection was also the fastest available and had the advantage over ADSL 2 as you didn't have to pay for a phone connection in able to do it. The idea was to cut out the cost of the copper phone line service and simply pay for an internet connection that enabled me to run a phone via a VoIP service. This would reduce costs dramatically and effectively for the price of a fast internet connection would also have a cheap phone line.
So after a massive dispute with Optus over getting out of contract. We didn't dispute the fact that we had to pay to finish the contract only that they would direct debit our account straight away despite us pleading with them to wait a few days until there was actual money in the account before they did it so we wouldn't suffer a dishonour fee of $40. Despite our pleading Optus were belligerent and insisted that they would Direct Debit straight away. After a mad rush we actually had to call our bank and insist that they block the attempt to direct debit the account. That fucked them!!!
Eventually Optus contacted us and we eventually paid to finish our contract and sign up with another provider.
And so my adventures with Telstra Pigpond began.
After choosing a plan and finally signing up with Telstra, installing our VoIP phone etc. We noticed that the usage on our data was being chewed up dramatically. When the first bill came in we got the biggest shock of our lives as somehow we had managed to chew through our data as well as bill up an extra $1200 in excess data usage. This bill gave us the biggest heart attack of our lives and we realised then that something must be wrong. It turned out that excess usage is charged at a whopping 15c per Mb. Thankfully at that time Telstra gives you the benefit of the doubt for the first excess usage bill and wiped the excess usage charges.
As we knew something was terribly wrong with Telstra's data metre but we had no way of proving it or knowing exactly what it was we decided to get an independent data metre and carefully watch exactly what we used. As you could imagine the difference between Telstra's data metre and our independent data metre was drastically huge and when our second bill came in for over $2000 we had no choice but to not accept this and refuse to pay it. The difference this time was that we had some evidence that proved that Telstra's data metre for our service was totally inaccurate when it measured data usage for both upload and download. During the period we did a number tests including disconnecting the service altogether. The problem it seemed was that for every 1GB we used according to our data metre Telstra's data metre would register 5GB.
Having decided to fight these charges we then got embroiled in a war of words both with customer service and sending and forwarding emails. Telstra's customer service were absolutely adamant that their data metre was absolutely correct and nothing on their end was wrong at all. In fact customer service over many different phone calls insisted that it must be any number of things on our end, including someone tapping into our account via our wireless router even though we purposely had the wireless function switched off. Each time we engaged customer service to sort out the matter we had to spend over an hour explaining and justifying to somewhat call centre workers that refused to believe what we were saying or rather didn't know how else to handle the complaint. An admission from a Telstra centre that there could be something wrong with the data metre could mean that they were ripping of people possibly in the millions. After getting so far into this dispute that I was actually ready to go as far as court to fight it, I decided to search the internet for others that have had similar problems and it seemed that there were many others out there, who were at least aware that there was something wrong with the data metre.
My first reaction would have been to cancel the service and go to another provider even if it meant signing up for a phone line and paying extra. This plan would not work as we were unfortunately locked into a contract for the next 18 months. After many arguments back and forth and allot of frustration in between not to mention hours and hours being on hold and being transferred from one department to another costing me a fortune in Mobile calls as our regular phone would not work. We eventually went to the Telecommunications Ombudsman. After putting our complaint in writing the ombudsman contacted us and gave us a reference number to quote Telstra call centre staff. We thought that this wouldn't do much to deter their action, however after quoting the number Telstra Pigpond contacted us and informed us that they were wiping the bill immediately. We were taken back at first but talking to the customer service rep, she told us that there were so many holes in Pigpond that Swiss cheese would be jealous.
So my first battle with Telstra was over - we managed to get the debt wiped. Yet this did not change the situation. We still had a problem with the way our data was being registered with their data metre, and it was still massively inaccurate. Not wanting to let up on this - we monitored our usage via our data metre and Telstra's data metre on a daily basis. Every night I was on the phone for between 3 - 4 hours being swapped around and explaining he problem only to have to explain the problem again. I discovered one thing and that was Telstra Pigpond staff only have authorisation to credit 2 GB at a time and that is all that there system will allow to happen. If your lucky you might get a sympathetic worker who would credit more, but they can only do it at 2 Gb at a time. Although this seemed to help it was definitely inadequate ringing up every night, costing me a fortune in Mobile bills and battling staff with a problem they refused to acknowledge existed?
It came to a point where I insisted that Telstra Pigpond send a technician out to check our system as we new there was nothing wrong at our end, yet I needed to prove it somewhat. When the technician came out I let him check out our system without any input from myself. He checked it out and could not find any problem. I then explained what we had experienced and showed him data readings both from Telstra and Our own Data metre and asked then what the hell is going on then. He looked at them and said, well something most be wrong at the exchange end of the line. Finally I had an admission that something was wrong at their end. Or so I thought, the technician refused to put anything down on the paperwork that suggested what he believed was the problem. Furthermore, I tried to get him to say what he believed the problem was on video and he refused, for the reason that if he did, he would probably loose his job and the company that employed him would probably loose their contract with Telstra. I then asked if he could at least contact someone at Telstra Pigpond and tell them what is wrong to at least try and fix it. He again had to refuse, as there were different people who controlled the exchange end of the line, which he couldn't et involved with. He then wrote on the work slip, No Problem found. This meant that Telstra Pigpond would interpret the work as basically a waste of time and could possibly charge us for the technician coming to our house. I couldn't believe this at all.
I was still persistent in my confrontations on the phone and man did I have some idiots to deal with. One customer service rep in particular got outraged as he thought that I called him a liar when I did no such thing. I actually had to try and calm him down on the phone so he could hear my complaint, although he had no way of verifying Telstra's data metre, when I told him that it must be totally inaccurate he jumped the gun and went on a 20 minute rant at me for calling him a liar.
After some weeks of battling customer service reps and spending hours on the phone (one even told me that if I raised the data plan that that would actually fix the problem, how gullible they must think we are?)
I eventually ended up on the phone with a rep explaining the problem when I mentioned that if I could I would leave Telstra Pigpond except for the contract. He suddenly said "well I could do that for you". I said are you serious you could cancel the contract without me having to pay anymore to get out of it. He stated "Yeah, as you've had so many problems with our service we can go ahead and cancel the contract and finish you up by the end of the month." I sceptical at first but as I paused on the phone in disbelief I suddenly blurted, "Let's do that then, straight away"
I couldn't believe it, I was out of the contract, and it was a better result than what I was aiming for. I firmly believe that one should vote with their feet, yet when you are stuck in a contract it's a little hard to do. That's why I absolutely refuse to enter into contracts under any circumstances if I can possibly help it.
After doing some research, I discovered that the 2 best deals from internet providers for internet were number 1: TPG, which offers a huge data allowance for a very cheap price. Number 2: Netspace which like TPG offers a large data allowance at a cheap rate (just not quite as cheap as TPG)
We eventually settled for Netspace as they offered a greater package without a contract and we couldn't get TPG in our area as the nodes had been taken up.
We immediately saw a difference with Netspace and in particular the fact that there data metre was actually accurate. For once our data metre and Netspaces were actually the same, which in our minds gave us greater validation of just how Telstra rips people off.
Now, we are people who understand just how much data is such as 1 mb, 1 Gb, 1 Tb and just how large in terms of data that means. However there are many, many people in Australia who have no idea when it comes to the internet and just how much a Mb is compared to a 1Gb. This I believe Telstra Pigpond may be exploiting, which is totally un-Australian. My hope is that someone will eventually take them further, however this may not eventuate as Telstra seem to settle disputes before they get to court because then they would have to properly prove that their metres are accurate and opens the door for the internet systems to be audited which at the moment is exempt as they argue it comes under phone lines which is exempt from being audited.