You all are probably aware of my iPhone issues. I don’t want to go through them again, I'm over it and wanting to move forward.
Specifically my issues are with Telstra although I hear similar problems with people with other carriers.
Why do I choose Telstra, with my travelling, they are the only provider that provide the best coverage overall than any other vender out there. I’m not talking about capital cities or CBD’s or regional hubs, most of them all have reasonable coverage by most of the top players. When you choose to live by the coast or on an island away from major centres and hubs you limit your self straight up, but generally you can find some options. when your clients and customers offer the same location and comms challenges your options really come down to Telstra only or change to sat phone or have multi sim devices (Happy to have that debate).
So I go with Telstra and accept I’m going to pay a premium.
For years, I had been using a blackberry, great thing about the blackberry that I keep touting to management and CFO’s is you have a fixed price cap on your OPex. (albeit with some limitations) My primary requirement is Email and secondary is Internet. I have since later iterations of Blackberry not used too many apps and even then it was GPS enabled apps. Since being on the iPhone I certainly found one appreciation for that device the huge productivity tools i came to use, love and rely on. On the iPhone i had a couple of gotcha’s and lessons learnt.
- The Telstra Store salesman is full of shit
- Telstra can not provision SIM’s correctly the first time, sometimes the second, third nor fourth.
- The BS Sales man will undersell you a plan. “Nah Mate you’ll never go over 500meg in your wildest dreams” (I have spoken to a number of peoples that have recently purchased #winphone7 devices or iPhone and all been stung with undersized quota’s and misrepresenting Telstra sales staff)
- If you can find apps that have options of local Databases ie TomTom GPS and Bus and train time tables and you use them frequently save your bandwidth and put them locally on your devices and update when on Wi-Fi or connected to your desktop.
Back to my recent issue. I moved from iPhone to HTC desire. I was over it (iPhone), I wanted something functional and didn’t want to wait for #winphone7 so HTC Desire it was. Initial thought were nice, but found the apps and more so the type of apps I wanted just were not available in the market place. Also the Battery is crap, the winphone7 HTC’s are no better talking to some that have them. Again I digress.
First month of my HTC desire, with hardly any customisation and more than normal access to Wi-Fi i get a notification at 113% you are over your quota (WTF happened to 80% and 95% I have set?) I tried to contact Telstra, I was in the queues for 35 minutes it was 6:30 at night and heading out to dinner, so I waited for the next day. I contacted Telstra and in the processes and going through my details finding the account, transferring to the right department, retelling my life history I got dropped 3 times only to start the whole bloody process again. (Telstra I keep telling you, you need a call reference number, you need a call back policy in case of drop outs or accidently dropping calls on transfer. Your customer services and telephone support process SUX) By this time I'm boarder line in a rage. Having flash backs of dealing with apple support and retard bar staff. (maybe they are one in the same). I realised that the rollover was that night so left it alone for my sanity sake if nothing else.
Next month a bill for $630 (FMD rage ensued) i realised i was too worked up about the whole thing to have a civil and reasonable conversation, nor go through the BS with their phone support i waited for the next day and decided to go into the Telstra shop at Chermside and talk directly to a team member. Hmm WRONG. I was met by some bloke with a clipboard and sat in a queue in the store for 35 minutes with the offer to come back in half an hour. God I know I should have hit him and run away at that point. Was clearly the only level of satisfaction I was going to get. Eventually some miss pronunciation of my name later that sounded more like an Indian help desk operator that what I was expecting at a Telstra shop, oh shit it was Muhammad (i wanted to cry) I explained the problem to this bloke. He tapped on his keyboard and glanced at his screen and said everything seems to be in order. Dude the issues are 1st I strongly believe this data is wrong. I dispute that on numerous registered quota useage periods listed my phone was connected to Wi-Fi or turned off and could not have downloaded data, particularly the 100mb to 300 mb indicated 2nd my data usage notification that you guys supply as a management tool for clients to manage their quota’s clearly is faulty and as a result I am notified in the first instance after I am over the quota and additionally way past the notification thresholds set. 3rd the ability to contact you to make changes to the plan as prescribed in the notification that comes late is useless unless you can be notified to make that change.
The solution at this point after discussing with his supervision was to take me to the phone so I could talk to the people I had already been having problems communicating with. I protested and spoke in depth with the manager who re affirmed that this was an accounting issue and they could not deal with this in store. Off to the phone we go my mate Muhammad makes the call, screws up my name 3-4 more times eventually the phone number does the trick. I speak with the accounts, they put me on hold, guess what, yep, cut off. after waiting for 10 minutes for the manager to come back to the store due to a enraged client we have a discussion about shares, oxford dictionary listings and meanings of the words customer and service. We all so discuss the submissive images of people bending over tables that could be used to represent Telstra and their client relationships. I left him my business card and challenged him to follow up on the problems and make me a happy customer. Still waiting 6 weeks now.
One month on I proudly receive another notification 133% of data used, pursuant another bill for $500 of excess data. reviewing the sessions I’m still getting data use while on Wi-Fi or the phone turned off.
Do I;
- Bury the phone? Probably get billed for data sessions still
- Should I commit suicide? Problem will still be there for others.
- Change providers? end up with shittier services
I’ll probably get another blackberry, most likely a torch and go back onto a blackberry plan for fixed price uncapped quota. When Telstra have them available. Optus won’t sell them outright. Concerned about some of the online outrights being able to get warrantee and reasonable turnover if something goes wrong with the phone and has to be sent back for repair.