Phone bill shock? Why you shouldn't give in without a fight
Faced with an incorrectly charged $1,500 data bill on his phone, Adam Turner decided to fight it, and won.
My latest Telstra horror story involves $1,500 in so-called excess data charges and a three month struggle to get two mobile phones and a landline combined on the one bill. It took three goes to get the bills combined, because the Telstra call centre told me I could only do it in a Telstra store, but of course once in the store I was told it could only be done over the phone.
The problem is that Telstra doesn't seem to be able to handle more than one issue as at a time. As soon as you ask them to deal with a few problems at once, you can almost guarantee that they'll cock it up somehow. Believe me, I speak from years of painful experience.
It seems my mobiles and landline are finally on the one bill, but in the last few days I've had two bills charging me for $300 and then $1200 worth of excess data usage at an incredible $20 per MB - data usage that should have all been covered by the $10 150MB data pack I put on the phone.
First a little back story. I've had a 2G iPhone from the US for more than a year, running on the Next G SIM card that came with my JasJam. When the JasJam's two year contract expired in January, I decided to get a 3G iPhone from Telstra and hand over the 2G iPhone to the Lady of the House - who was using a cheap Nokia on Optus pre-paid.
I went into the Telstra store, got her Optus pre-paid number transferred to a Next G post-paid SIM card, which we then stuck in my 2G iPhone. My SIM card then went into a shiny new 3G iPhone. I set up call plans and data packs for each phone, put them on the same bill as my home phone, and then walked away foolishly thinking that would be the end of it.
I swear Telstra deliberately makes its bills as confusing as possible to reduce the chances of people spotting billing errors. Thanks to the combined bill confusion of the last few months, the billing situation has been unclear until this week.
First I got a bill demanding $300 excess data charges on the 2G iPhone, even though it had stayed well within the $10 150MB allowance. After 30 minutes on the phone with Telstra we established that the $10 data pack hadn't been applied correctly. The $300 data bill was waived, the $10 data pack applied and once again was foolishly left thinking the problem was resolved.
Today I received another bill from Telstra, dated *before* the previous bill with the $300 data charge (getting bills out of order seems to be a side effect of the combined bill cockup). Today's new bill included a $1200 excess data charge for the same 2G iPhone. I figured it would be a simple matter of ringing Telstra, reminding them of the previous conversation about data packs and having it applied to this bill as well. Foolish optimism on my part.
When I explained the situation, I was told that the data network settings hadn't been applied correctly to the account and it was using the wrong data billing system - which apparently explained why I was being charged an obscene $20 per MB pay as you go rate rather than the standard horrendous $2 per MB.
After putting me on hold for a while, Telstra's response was to waive half of the data bill - thus still insisting on charging me $600 for a problem that was clearly Telstra's fault.
That's when I lost it, dropping the f-bomb more than once as I explained in no uncertain terms that I was not giving them a cent to cover a mistake that they'd made. I try not to make a habit of swearing at the poor people in the call centres, but I'd just been pushed too far. After some umming and ahhing on the part of "Jimmy in Queensland", he put me on hold again while he tried to sort it out.
When Jimmy came back on the line I could hear the supervisor talking in his ear. It seems Telsta had had a change of heart and I wasn't to be charged for the $1200 in excess data, just $10 for the data pack. My account would be fixed so I was using "the correct 3G access code", whatever that means. I made it clear I was using a 2G phone running on Telstra's EDGE network, but Jimmy assured me all is well. To be honest, I'm still not left with the feeling that the problem is actually solved.
Before I hung up, I apologised for losing my angry and explained that I didn't appreciate it when Telstra tried to buy its way out of a cockup by offering a discount rather than addressing the actual issue. It's not the first time a Telstra call centre operator has pulled the "we'll halve the charge" line on me, only for me to keep fighting and have the problem resolved and the incorrect charge removed completely. I wonder how many people take the discount offer and still end up still paying more than they should.
The moral of the story; always check your phone bills and, if your telco is trying to rip you off, don't be afraid to tell them to #%&@ off - in your own words, of course.
Other Blog Entries written by Adam Turner:
Thoughts on this article? Add a comment below.
Comments: 1
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Kensei
Apr 23, 2009 2:13 AM
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I'm myself in a dispute with 3 cause they made an error in cancelling an order that will cause my bill to be increased from $80 to $800 dollars. After four days of phone calls, my account still says that I owe $800 by the 8th of May. If this happens it will wipe out my account and leave me with an overdraft fee. We'll see how it goes. |