Ben the bull-artist has shown what he is

Optus PR man "Ben" (ph. 9085 9197) thought he could palm me off with corporate emollient (not that he would be bright enough to know what that word means. It means "soft-soap", Ben). He was wrong. I wanted action, not verbal puffery. When I insisted that he track down the offensive member of Optus customer-relations staff, he simply hung up on me. That was all he had left in his repertoire after the bull did not work. Taking a real interest in a genuine customer complaint was beyond him.

Prior to that, however, he had promised me that he would get a member of Optus accounts staff to ring me and explain why the information on their account checking number (5555) had been wrong in my case.

Nobody has called. So Ben is not only a bullartist but he is someone who does not keep his word. I cannot say that I am surprised.

So Optus still has two problems: Rude staff and an accounts department that does not give customers accurate information. Time for me to get back to Singtel, I think. I am sure they would be horrified to hear what cowboys their Australian representatives are.

Optus hangs up on me

I have just had another call from my contact at Optus -- Mr. 9085 9197. He had two bits of news for me:

1). Last time he called, I queried the fact that I had got a message saying that my prepaid account was about to run out. That was crazy because a call to the account-checking line (5555) told me that I had a balance of over $80 and that it was usable up until June.

His feedback? He said: Yes. My account WAS about to run out but that he had kindly added $60 to it as an ex-gratia gesture. I appreciated the gesture but I was quite dumbfounded by the state of the Optus accounting system. It's worse than the Left hand not knowing what the Right hand is doing: The Left and Right hands are contradicting one another! It's a madhouse! Customers obviously cannot trust the Optus account-checking line.

My contact was flummoxed by my report but did promise to get someone from accounts to call me. I await that call with interest.

2). In my previous conversation with him, I asked him to track down the person who sent me the contemptuous non-letter. When he rang back just now he said (predictably) that he had not succeeded at that. I pointed out to him that there would have been only two or three people who had dealt with my matter so had he actually interviewed them? He said he had not. When I pressed him to do that, he got very abrupt with me. So I asked him at that point what his name was. He refused to give it to me and hung up on me! That's PR Optus-style, apparently.

It does appear however that his first name is "Ben". I am inclined to write to Singtel about him. He is not fit for his job.

Contacting Optus

I had the rare privilege of a phone call from Octopus yesterday -- a guy who even gave me his number to call him back on: 02 8085 9197.

His call was in response to my letter to the TIO. He noted, rightly, that most of my complaint had already been sorted out as a consequence of my email to Singtel, the parent company of Optus. I think it is now the third time that I have had to write to Singtel to get basic civility out of Optus. They really are meatheads there but the polite Chinese in Singapore hold them to a higher standard.

I did however insist to my caller that the meathead who replied to my initial complaint by sending me a blank letter with only the date and my name on it should be traced and transferred to less demanding duties. We will see what becomes of that.

The meathead's actions did of course constitute a very vivid message about how contemptible and unworthy of reply he thought my complaint to be.

It reminds me of a time many years ago when I had some sort of disputation with a person of European origin. He disliked my letter of complaint so much that he sent it back to me torn into pieces by way of reply.

I must have incensed him rather much, however, as he also sent me a letter of his own a few days later abusing me.

I of course then tore HIS letter into pieces and sent it back to him! I learn fast!

But, getting back to Optus: One of their peculiarities is that they often send out letters with no return address on them! They do not even give a phone number -- mighty strange for a phone company! They just do not be want to be bothered by the unclean herd who are their customers.

So I note with some glee that the clever-dick blank letter that I received was on a letterhead that DOES give contact details. It says that their address is 367 Collins St, Melbourne, Victoria, 3000 and that their P.O. Box is: Box 53, Collins St West, 3000. And their phone is 03 9233 4000.

What a treasure-trove of rare information!

Hey! There is a fax no. too: 9233 4900

Give 'em hell!

Poor Margaret

I do feel a little sorry for Margaret Robertson. As you will see in a post below, I wrote her a rather mordant letter recently which does tend to portray her as a bit of a dumb cluck. And guess what? If any of her friends Google the following:

"Margaret Robertson" Optus

They will get this blog and its irritated comments to her at the top of the page.

A little-known secret of Googling is that if you want Google to pick something up fast, you should put it up on a blogspot blog. Why? Because Google OWN blogspot! Is that simple enough?

I do think there is a job for Margaret still to do however: Trace the arrogant Optus operative who sent me a sheet of letterhead paper with only the date on it in response to my initial enquiry. The implicit message in that was that my enquiry was so contemptible as not to be worth a reply. The operative concerned needs to be transferred to less demanding duties. We will see whether Margaret is up to that.

Happy Days!

The new SIM card arrived via ordinary mail, not courier, at around midday today. And it works!

I hope this is the end of my troubles with Optus

It's got worse instead of better!

I might have known that expecting even minimal competence from Optus was too much to expect. The SIM card that was supposed to be couriered to me did not arrive and the old card is still active with a credit balance of only 20 cents!

And, to cap that, I finally got a call in answer to my letters -- from a girl who was totally unaware of what Scott of the internet enquiries branch had done! I told her to talk to Scott, get her story straight and ring me back but what will transpire from that remains to be seen.

So, only weeks after acquiring it, I have at the moment a totally unusable Optus cellphone! Unbelievable.

Telstra calls the kettle black

Sounds like some real psychological projection going on in the news report below. Telstra is accusing Optus of being reluctant to connect its cable to large dwellings. I had a HUGE battle to get Telstra to connect its cable to my place. I actually had to write to the Prime Minister before they would do it! Even though their cable was only a couple of yards from my front door! Hard to believe, really.

Telstra and Optus are two very lazy oligopolists and that is all there is to it. It is a definite case of the pot calling the kettle African-American!

Telstra has taken a swipe at its competitor Optus, accusing it of getting a cheap ride on its network instead of investing in its own. The claim comes a day after Optus announced it had upgraded its cable network to 20 megabits per second, and ahead of an anticipated ruling on the price Telstra can charge for access to its copper network - known as unconditioned local loop (ULL).

A spokeswoman from Optus denied the claim, suggesting Telstra is attempting to distract the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) regarding its ULL decision.

Telstra has lodged a request with the ACCC to exempt it from offering Optus access to its ULL network where Optus already has cable. It claims that despite Optus' cable network passing 2.2 million homes, it continues to rely on Telstra's, particularly in multi-dwelling apartments.

"SingTel Optus claims that only 1.4 million homes within its cable footprint are serviceable, which is code meaning they don't want to make the investment to connect nearly 40 per cent of homes that have cable running past their front door," Telstra executive director regulatory, Dr Tony Warren, said. "By comparison, overseas cable networks treat less than eight per cent of their homes passed as unserviceable."

Source

Lights! Action!

My experience with Optus over the years has not been good. Optus and Telstra are the only two companies with a nationwide cable network so they tend to function like oligopolists -- i.e. they compete in only limited ways. And if Telstra has low standards of customer service then Optus sees no reason to do better: "Don't rock the boat, old chap, or we might all have to work harder!". Very "Yes Minister"!

So it was with some trepidation that I bought a new Optus-linked cellphone. And I struck difficulties with Optus immediately, as you can see below. I of course wrote letters (see below) and filled out online forms but got no helpful response. It now transpires that I was only a week away from getting my Optus service cut off!

Anyway, just a few hours ago I did get a phone call from a perfectly knowlegeable, intelligible, polite and helpful Optus staffer who seems to have fixed my problems. His call apparently was in response to one of the two online forms I filled out a couple of weeks ago. When you fill out one of the forms it tells you that they will try to respond within two days. But TRY is obviously the weasel word. They don't try too hard.

Rather amazingly, however, he tells me that to preserve my service beyond the end of this month, he has to give me a new number and courier to me a new SIM card! I wait with bated breath! Efficiency it is not.

Update

"Scott", the Optus staffer has just called back and, through some strange hocus-pocus, I apparently now have on my new prepaid SIM card over $80 of credit. Seeing that I originally paid only $69 for the original phone-and-card package I can only say: "Thank you very much!". It's not often I make such a good profit out of complaining about bungles! There have always been a lot of allegedly free phones but this seems to be a real one!

Someone once said that the universe is stranger than you CAN imagine. Optus is clearly a part of that universe.

Dear Margaret

TO:
Margaret Robertson
Customer complaints escalated
Optus


Dear Ms Robinson

I am puzzled by your letter of 13th. What about my previous letter requires "investigation"?

All that I asked for was information and routine services. All that was required was a prompt and polite phone-call to me from one of your more competent staff.

You might however care to explain why you have ignored the two approaches I made to you via your online form.

You might also care to explain the gross rudeness of your eventual reply to my letter of Nov. 30. The TIO has the specimen concerned. I have also emailed Singtel about the offensive behaviour concerned.

I am also flabbergasted that your letter to me carried no return address or any Optus address of any kind. I enclose your letter for your further perusal. What are you trying to hide? If I did not know better, I would think that Optus was some sort of cowboy outfit. Do I have to write to Singtel about that too?

Yours etc

(Dr) JOHN RAY

Ignored!

TO:
Customer complaints
Optus

Re: Possible complaint to the TIO


Dear Sirs/Mesadmes,

You have so far ignored my letter of 30 Nov (copy enclosed).

In the circumstances please give me in writing all the terms and conditions to which I am subject as user of no. 0422142596 and give me full written particulars of all that I have agreed to. If you also ignore this request, I will raise the matter with the TIO.

Please note that if I have to be on some plan or other, I request that I be put on a plan that gives me as long as possible to use prepaid sums.

I would also like you to change the number of my service to a number I had earlier in the year but which I cancelled. The number is 0413 836248. When I had that number it was with Vodafone.


Thanking you

Dr John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.)

Activation difficulties with cellphone

TO:
Customer complaints
Optus

Dear Sirs/Mesdames,

Today at approx 1pm I activated my new Optus sim card and was given the number 0422142596

I am not good at understanding foreign accents, however, so I understood virtually nothing of the vast screed the guy at the other end read out to me. So I ended up just saying yes to everything.

Could you get a native speaker of Australian English to ring me and tell me what it is that I have agreed to.

Thanking you

Dr John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.)