Comments on: Telstra with a different name

By: Si

Si — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 08:11:34 +0000

LOL

By: astephens

astephens — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:02:11 +0000

My second bill was exactly as I expected it would be. Optus still suck, but at least I am being charged the agreed amount for the pleasure of having zero reception.

By: Si

Si — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 03:14:22 +0000

Aaaaaand I just got my next bill. $55.99

By: Si

Si — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 02:03:05 +0000

astephens you were right. This is what they’ve done.

Period 05 Aug – 21 Aug (0.548 months)
Billed pro-rata for 17 days with included credit REDUCED proportionately from $300 to $149.56.

Period 22 Aug – 21 Sep (1 month)
Billed full amount for 1 month ($49 + $7)

Call #1:

“I was NOT informed that the included value would be reduced to $150 at ANY stage during my application. So I have gone over the cap because I was using my phone thinking I have $300 worth of calls when I only had $150 worth of credit.” Repeated several times etc. etc.

Action: $14.16 charges above cap removed from bill. w00t.

Expected bill after call #1:
Pro-rata period: 49 * 0.548 = $26.85
Full-month: 49 + 7 = $56
Total expected: $82.85

Actual bill after call #1:
104.70 – 14.16 = $90.54

Call #2:

“Can you see these entries titled “MobileBrowsingStarter” on my bill? You are charging me extra for data access when the iPhone $49 plan has to include 250MB data access. You can NOT charge me extra for this, it MUST be included in the plan.”

Optus lady: “Oh yes, we’re sorry. It appears the MobileBrowsingStarter pack was added to your account in error. I have removed these charges.”

Action:
2.72 + 4.95 = $7.67 removed from bill

Expected bill after call #2:
90.54 – 7.67 = $82.87

Actual bill after call #2:
104.70 – 14.16 – 7.67 = $82.87

Happy.

By: Si

Si — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 07:49:03 +0000

Thanks for all the input people. I found a couple of VERY interesting posts on Whirlpool forums.

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1027543

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1021036

By: D

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:03:23 +0000

It seems that a lot of phonebills are a nightmare to understand. When we switched our plan with optus from Cable+phone to a newer cable plan the next bill was impossible to work out due to different caps, free stuff etc. I think it was right…but I couldn’t be sure (and I supposedly love numbers). Same kind of thing when we cancelled iinet, working out all the different bills, refunds etc is next to impossible. Surely there is an easier system!

By: astephens

astephens — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 08:28:53 +0000

I think you’ll find that you have been charged for the month that you have already had the iPhone plus the next month in advance. I can’t really understand my bill either but I am assuming that it is a good approximation of what I should be billed.

By: Si

Si — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 11:56:09 +0000

Yeah, it would seem that Optus are just as bad as Telstra in their general incompetence. Only as recently as this weekend I was speaking to relatives of mine who had to ring up Telstra to get over $300 worth of mistaken charges removed from their bill. At least after several phone calls and being handballed around 5 different departments, they were successful.

By: Zac

Zac — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 11:17:25 +0000

You seem to be implying that Telstra do that kind of stuff too. (?) I wouldn’t know.