Optus bungling

2011-07-26T12:34:00.000+10:00

Telcos resisting customer service reforms

Note the arrogance highlighted in red

PHONE companies are resisting major restructuring saying changes will be too costly to implement and that a new voluntary code will be more effective in addressing consumer concerns.

In submissions to Australian Communications and Media Authority's Reconnecting the Customer inquiry - published yesterday - the peak industry body, Communications Alliance, said it supported the ACMA draft report but that the industry's revised Telecommunications Consumer Protections (TCP) Code would address the major issues raised in the report.

Key points the ACMA's draft report said must be addressed were: clarity in pricing, advertising and comparison between providers; improved complaints management; tools for users to monitor phone usage; and amendments to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman Scheme.

The Communications Alliance submission said many of the concerns raised by the ACMA in its Draft Report had been addressed by the revised draft TCP Code.

The draft TCP Code has yet to be released, and no spokesperson from the Communications Alliance was available to comment.

Providing more information about telephone pricing and plans would only confuse consumers, the submission said.

Teresa Corbin, the chief executive of the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network, said the industry was in denial about the threat of further regulation. "I think they're not facing up to the reality that they have to make some serious changes, and I think they're hopeful that by testing the waters they'll find that they can get away with just tinkering but they haven't really woken up to the fact that they need to make some radical changes. "

Clare O'Reilly, the project director of the ACMA inquiry, said there was a resistance to change. "Industry's view is that to try to explain pricing in a more simpler way is just not feasible.

SOURCE

2011-07-11T12:35:00.001+10:00

Letter to Paul O'Sullivan, CEO, Optus

I am irate at a bit of systematic skullduggery you practice when your prepaid mobile phone users go online to get a recharge -- and I am thinking of drawing the attention of both ACMA and the TIO to it.

I believe in dialogue, however, so I will predicate my future action in the matter on your reply or non-reply to this letter.

I have prepaid mobile 0423 248 *** and when I last logged on to the net at optus.com.au/recharge the options presented allowed me only 30 days to use the recharge funds. I have had battles (which I won) with Optus since the year 2000 however so I was not going to lie down and take that. I wrote two letters querying the matter to your "help" staff and eventually someone rang me to let me in on the deep dank secret of how to get 6 months to use my recharge funds.

There is NOTHING on the recharge page to tell me so but if I change the default recharge from $20 to $30 an entirely new screen pops up and that screen allows a 6 month recharge. But even that screen does not SAY it provides a 6 month recharge. You just have to be "in the know" to realize what is happening.

It's no mystery what you are trying to do. You are trying to get less frequent users to waste their money by giving them insufficiant time to use their funds. In good Australian parlance, it is a RORT.

Unless you change BOTH screens to let customers know what is happening, look forward to a call from ACMA. And I think I might write to Singtel about you too.

You have just copped a $5 million fine for misleading and deceptive advertising. Do you want another one?

2011-07-08T10:59:00.001+10:00

Optus fined for crooked advertising

BACK in July 2009, Australian Competition & Consumer Commission chairman Graeme Samuel met with the chief executives of Australia's three largest telecommunications companies.

Telstra's David Thodey, Optus boss Paul O'Sullivan and Vodafone Hutchison Australia chief Nigel Dews had met to discuss the soaring number of complaints by consumers over confusing mobile and broadband plans, reported The Australian.

"The message I gave then was that the industry was in a race to the bottom in terms of advertising practices," Mr Samuel said. "That race to the bottom had to stop, advertising standards had to increase . . . (the ACCC) was getting too many complaints."

Mr Samuel said none of the parties was keen for the regulator to litigate on the matter and recalls the group agreeing to enter into a court-enforceable undertaking to lift their advertising standards.

One of the key issues was the use of so-called headline advertising in telecoms, which could go close to misleading behaviour. This was the use of an attention-grabbing major headline, diluted by a fine-print disclaimer.

That issue of headline advertising caught out Optus yesterday, when the Federal Court imposed a hefty $5.26 million fine for a series of broadband advertising campaigns that ran over a period of five months last year.

That Optus could receive the highest civil penalty for a consumer protection breach despite signing that undertaking in September 2009 was the real issue, Mr Samuel said.

Federal Court judge Nye Perram agreed, saying that fact had been considered when assessing the size of the penalty he was willing to impose. "What is involved is hypocrisy: the saying of one thing; the doing of another," Justice Perram wrote in his judgement.

"This has cost Optus lots of money and lots in reputation," Mr Samuel said.

SOURCE

2011-06-11T23:57:00.000+10:00

Letter to: Prepaid mobiles, Optus

Dear Sir,

I recently attempted to recharge my Optus prepaid mobile 0423 248 ***

To my surprise, on checking online I found that your offers there have a maximum life of 30 days. When I first signed up, 6 month and 12 month expiry plans were available

By dint of about 10 minutes of button pushing, however, I was able to get a 6 month expiry recharge per phone. I started out calling 555 and then got referred to 444. Option 3 seemed the most relevant choice offered by 444 but when I pushed that I got told to piss off. I eventually tried option 2 and that worked. Amazing.

Please advise the internet link that will enable me to get an online 6 month recharge next time. I am a bit deaf so phone transactions are slow for both me and your operators.

Yours etc

Dr John Ray

2011-04-28T10:32:00.001+10:00

Optus dropouts enrage iPhone users but company says window tints are to blame

TELCO giant Optus has failed to reach 200,000 Australians while infuriating potentially millions more whose phones are dropping out across Australia's major cities.

An investigation by The Daily Telegraph revealed Optus iPhones constantly drop out or simply do not receive calls all over Sydney.

It has prompted an angry customer revolt against an atmosphere of consumer uprising in the 22,000-strong class action against Vodafone.

In online forums, some have even suggested Optus' coverage is worse than its beleaguered rival.

Optus announced in May 2008 it would increase coverage to 98 per cent of the population by 2009 and reception speeds to 42MBps by 2010. On the back of this it sold hundreds of thousands of iPhones, even outselling its larger rival Telstra.

But its promises are now in tatters. Speeds are up to 80 times slower and the carrier reaches only 97 per cent - more than 200,000 fewer people.

And for iPhone 3G users only 80-85 per cent of people are covered - although Optus says its fourth generation coverage reaches 97 per cent.

The Daily Telegraph tested an Optus iPhone 3G in varied buildings and conditions in suburbs on all sides of the CBD, including Surry Hills, Darlinghurst, Erskineville and Balmain, in an apartment building, a house, a backyard and an office block.

In each the signal failed, the phone did not receive calls or was so distorted as to be useless. Online forums that have sprung up recently reveal the story is the same around Sydney and other capital cities.

Optus has acknowledged it is trying to improve coverage in the CBD but also blamed "environmental factors" such as window tints.

It also said "some handsets are not necessarily the best phones for coverage and performance".

The handset used by the Telegraph is a typical iPhone 3G, which Optus heavily subsidised in an effort to swamp the market. In the quarter of the iPhone's launch alone it added more than 180,000 subscribers.

The company website admits it has failed to meet this target: "Join the Network that Reaches 97% of Australia's Population Today!" it states.

As for 42Mbps speeds, the website admits typical speeds are up to 80 times slower, with a typical speed of 512kBps and 3MBps for the fastest devices. Optus said it was working to improve its coverage and its speeds were still competitive.

"We've invested $2 billion in our mobile network over five years and we have more than doubled the capacity of our network for our nine million mobile customers," a spokesman said.

"In an independent study in March the Optus Mobile network demonstrated strong and consistent performance for customers in Sydney."

SOURCE

2010-12-15T23:15:00.001+10:00

Another email -- from a different person at Optus

Hi John,

Optus have been experiencing unexpected delays due to high email volumes recently, and appreciate your patience. We apologise for any inconvenience you have experienced in this time and expect these delays to subside shortly.

I have checked with the credit recharge and can see that the last recharge from your account was for 04/12/2010. This may appear on your bank statement as 06/12/2010. To be able to check and confirm that the payment was taken twice please reply with a copy of your bank statement. Once I receive this statement I can then investigate further and complete the search and apply credits if applicable.

Should you have any further questions please reply to this email and we will be happy to assist.

Christine
Web Servicing Team
Optus

In response I sent them a screenshot of my online bank statement -- JR

2010-12-09T23:11:00.000+10:00

My same-day reply

Thank you for your assistance so far

I note however that one of my payments still has not been credited by your system

Westpac Mastercard confirms that Optus prepaid debited me for $20 on both 6th and 7th of December. Please get someone with computer skills to trace and remedy the fault

Furthermore, I note that the options one is given to tick when recharging are very limited and of obscure meaning. Please refer to someone in a senior position at Optus the need for each option to be accompanied by a clarifying explanation of what each option does

The options I was given were:

Recharge Type :

$20 Cap
$20 International Zone A
$20 International Zone B
$20 International Zone C
$20 RevUp Data

That was all very mysterious to me but "$20 cap" seemed nearest to what I wanted to do as I have no plans to travel overseas. So I just clicked it

You really do need to make things easier for your customers. If you had done so already, we would not be having this correspondence

Sincerely
John Ray

2010-12-09T23:10:00.000+10:00

Email from Optus

The last recharge received on the 4th December for $20. At the time, you received $30 My Credit and $80 My Bonus.

To retain credit, a $30 minimum recharge is required. This would need to be processed in a single transaction.

Optus offers different recharges for customers with varying needs, starting from $5, $10, $15 and $20. When recharging, you will be prompted to confirm the recharge offer selected.

Your current balance is is the 19th December 2010.

When a successful recharge has been received, a confirmation SMS is sent.

On this occasion only, I have arranged to extend your credit expiry to the 14th June 2011 as a gesture of goodwill.

I hope this response is of assistance and wish you a nice week.

Regards

Wilson
Optus Customer Service

2010-12-04T23:04:00.000+10:00

To: Customer Relations, Optus

Re prepaid mobile 0423248xxx

Dear Sir/Madam

I no longer have any faith in your online services so I am following up a complaint I submitted over the internet with this letter

Yesterday (3rd) I used my Mastercard to add a recharge of "$20 capped" (whatever that is) to my A/c. On ringing 555 however I found it had not gone through

Today (4th) I did the same thing again and suddenly found (via 555) that I had $100 of credit!

BUT the message said that I had only until Dec 18 2010 to spend the money. My recharge gave me only one extra week instead of the usual 6 months

I will raise this with the TIO unless you fix this BEFORE Dec 18. In anticipation of your incompetence, I am retaining a copy of this letter.

Yours disgustedly

Dr John Ray

2010-10-06T13:43:00.001+10:00

"Unlimited" download plans a fraud

THE competition watchdog claims slowing broadband speeds after customers exceed a download limit on an "unlimited" plan is like selling them a Ferrari with one gear.

But the judge hearing a case between SingTel-owned Optus and the regulator said throttling broadband speeds to 256 kilobits per second (kbps) was more like selling a crumbling car.

Advertising unlimited broadband gave customers the impression they were getting a Ferrari, "but what is disguised is the fact that the steering wheel disintegrates after 10 kilometres," Justice Tony North said in the Federal Court in Melbourne.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission took action against Optus in June for misleading and deceptive conduct, claiming its advertising campaign for unlimited mobile and broadband plans actually included several limitations.

Optus has stopped using the word unlimited in advertising and agreed its mobile plan included several limitations, which were not adequately disclosed.

However, there was disagreement yesterday whether throttling broadband speeds limited service, as customers could still download as much as they liked at the reduced speed. Optus would slow broadband speeds from several megabits per second to a few hundred kilobits once customers downloaded 30 gigabytes. Hence the sports car analogies.

Late last week, the ACCC sought to amend the claim to describe the throttling as "significant constraint" on a service that was sold as unlimited. "It is a very coloured word and it ought not be used if indeed there is actually a limit or restriction on access, which occurs here," counsel for ACCC Colin Golvan, SC, said.

He presented "unlimited" plans from other providers as evidence of unthrottled plans, but counsel for Optus, Norman O'Bryan, SC, claimed these also contained speed limitations and were not universally available in Australia.

Optus has been granted 10 days to investigate other unlimited plans on the market and to gather evidence of whether consumers were significantly constrained by the throttling.

SOURCE

2009-09-02T11:49:00.002+10:00

More Optus arrogance and contempt for its customers

OPTUS has been forced to halt the planned shut down of its optushome.com.au email domain after users complained of insufficient warning.

Thousands of long-time Optus customers awoke this morning to find empty email inboxes after the telco last night flicked the off switch to its optushome.com.au email domain server.

Optus says it warned subscribers of the impending change -- a migration to a new domain, optusnet.com.au -- in an April newsletter but admitted it failed to issue any follow-up warnings.

The shutting down of the domain server meant that emails sent to customers with @optushome.com.au addresses disappeared into the internet ether or bounced back to the sender’s address.

But angry customers swarmed Optus's customer service hotline, saying they weren't aware of the closure.

One unhappy customer in Sydney expressed his disappointment that the telco failed to put in place an email redirect. He hopes Optus will learn from its mistake when it moves to complete the migration.

“Optus should have been more direct when notifying people about this change rather than hiding it in a newsletter.

“The ramifications are not just to the thousands of Optus customers but it’s a pain for any subscriptions people have, any software upgrades that are registered with that specific email address, bank statements and more," he said.

Optus refused to say why a simple domain name redirect was not put in place to avoid any disruption to customers’ email services.

An Optus spokeswoman said the migration process began yesterday afternoon but has since been put on hold while new notification procedures are put in place.

“Customers will be notified in the coming weeks regarding the date of the termination of the affected domain names. Optus apologises for any inconvenience,” she said.

The spokeswoman said the migration was implemented to reduce high-levels of spam and that only those customers who have been a customer with the telco since before 2002, when the optusnet.com.au domain was introduced, were affected by the change.

This includes all email addresses that sit on Optus’s microplex.com.au, mpx.com.au and optushome.com.au domains. All of these will eventually be migrated to the optusnet.com.au domain.

Source

2009-08-25T11:30:00.001+10:00

Letter to Manager, Optus landline accounts

RE: 3391 xxxx

I draw your attention to the enclosed correspondence.

I strongly object to the time it took to restore my phone service. I was without use of the line for roughly a month and I advise that I will be deducting one month's rental charge from any future payments that I make. You may wish to pass an equivalent credit to the account to resolve the matter.

The other person in the building whom your technician apparently cut off (Mr. Miranda) had his service restored today by a Telstra technician without affecting my service. His experience in getting technical service that was both prompt and competent is a sad contrast with your performance in my case.

2009-08-24T11:44:00.000+10:00

Letter to the TIO

Three weeks ago I wrote the enclosed letter to Optus. They have of course not replied.

They have however done SOMETHING. About a week ago I got a dialling tone back on my phone but the line was so noisy that the phone was still unusable.

Now today the snap crackle and pop is gone and my phone is completely "fixed"

They have fixed it, however, by cutting off the phone of someone else in the building and giving me his line. His phone is now dead.

That is so stupid that I am at loss to find words to describe it.

Since Optus will not communicate with me, would you PLEASE find someone at Optus capable of acting constructively in this matter? I fear that they will "fix" the other guy's line by cutting mine off again.

While you are talking to them you might suggest that they waive one month's line rental on my phone -- as that is roughly how long I had no use of it

2009-08-02T11:47:00.000+10:00

Letter to Landline Accounts, Optus

Re: Ph. 3391 xxxx

The phone service above was originally taken out by Judith B**. She left these premises some years ago but advised you that I was authorized to operate the account. I have no information about her present whereabouts

Since her departure I have used the service and paid all your bills promptly.

I have however not had any service for over a week now. The phone is "dead"

Please advise whether this is a line fault or whether it is the result of some action on your part.

In either case I will not be paying any more bills unless the service is restored.

2009-07-03T14:48:00.002+10:00

Optus: A thoroughly nasty and evasive company

Knowing how they treat their customers, it is no surprise to hear how they treat their dealers. My local phone shop has broken with them. I now begin to understand why

OPTUS could face a costly backlash from its dealer network as seven parties prepare to file a class action in a bid to recoup allegedly withheld commission payments.

It is understood a draft filing has been prepared by the law firm representing the dealers and is likely to be lodged with the Federal Court in about a month.

Dealers resell Optus products and services, earning commission on the sale and a trailing commission based on a customer's monthly account.

It is understood the dealers' dispute with Optus flows from the telco's alleged failure to make ongoing commission payments over a number of years.

An Optus spokesperson said there were no court actions or class actions involving unpaid commissions or other issues.

The spokesperson did not directly respond to a question about whether commission payments had been paid in full to Optus dealers.

"Optus is committed to fulfilling its obligations to its dealers at all times," the spokesperson said.

"In the event of a dispute with our dealers ... we would generally resolve the issue through negotiation or mediation." It is believed the dealers have alleged that millions of dollars worth of payments have been withheld.

Any decision against Optus would open the door for similar actions by others in the telco's 1500-strong dealer network.

It is understood Optus has previously reached settlements with a number of dealers for payouts worth millions of dollars.

Optus did not respond to questions about whether settlements had been reached previously with dealers.

Source

2009-06-16T14:58:00.002+10:00

Letter TO: Accounts, Optus prepaid mobile

Yesterday I went online and topped up my prepaid a/c for phone 0423 XXXXXX

Shortly afterward I rang 555 to check that the new balance had been applied. It had.

I checked with my credit card provider this morning and the appropriate debit has been made

Yet I received a text message from you this morning telling me to recharge or my account would be suspended shortly

Please explain

I also note that I was on a plan which gave me 12 months to use the funds but my enquiry to 555 told me I had only 6 months

Please explain

Failing a prompt and satisfactory reply from you, I will hand this matter to the TIO. I have had experience with your scatterbrained "service" before, you see.

Update July 3

I received a letter today saying that they are looking into it!

2009-02-25T23:25:00.001+10:00

An email from an Optus insider:

I was incredibly impressed that you were posting this information online. It's extremely important that the public can see exactly how dodgy Optus is. They may have been a champion of the customers 10-15 years ago, but now they are worse than Telstra.

I worked for Optus for several years until a short while ago, and I watched everything around me continue to fall apart.

I was there when Optus started switching customers to that terrible Reitz computer system (both postpaid AND prepaid customers had to suffer), I was there when they launched that Optus Wireless Fusion package (which was so bad that they had to stop selling it for a while).

I was there when they released the iPhone, and then when the flood of angry calls came in from iPhone customers who couldn't use the service because of our terrible 3G speeds.

It may be the worst company I have ever worked for, my colleagues all suffered nothing but constant stress and frustration.

Most Optus staff start putting weight on very quickly, I myself gained 10kg while I was there. The only thing that kept me going was the glasses of straight liquor I was drinking every single night, and even sometimes during my lunchbreaks at work.

I'm unemployed at the moment, and that feels like a promotion compared to what I had to go through at Optus.

When you work for a company like Optus, there's only 2 ways you can deal with the constant stress.

One way is to do everything you can to do the right thing for customers. Take the time, fix their problems and get constant praise for being the first person to help them. Go above and beyond, spend an hour on the phone calling other departments to get it fixed. Call them back every day to give them an update on whether or not their problem is resolved.

That's what I did, and it turned me into a depressed overweight alcoholic, but at least I could sleep at night without feeling like a criminal. But you don't meet your stats/targets, and you won't have a chance of getting any special rewards or bonuses.

The second way is to become just another call centre robot. Don't care about the person on the other end, the company has made it so hard to do the right thing that you may as well just give up and start giving people the runaround. Listen for "trigger words" during the call, any reason you can to dump them through to another department. These are the people who achieve/exceed their targets and get rewarded with big bonuses and prizes.

I'm absolutely thrilled that this new Vodafone/Three merger will make them the #2 mobile telco in Australia. Most young people seem to be with both of those companies, and if they start getting free calls between Vodafone and Three mobiles then Optus is going to lose a lot of their youth base. It's not cool to be with Optus, the only hope they have is to try to revamp their Virgin Mobile brand (which has better customer service and plans anyway).

If you have any problems or questions relating to anything at Optus, send me an email and I'll be happy to tell you what I know.

I've already started posting this information online, if I said I despised this company it would be an understatement.

They've made life hell for so many customers and staff, just to try to boost their profits. That's inexcusable in my opinion.

2009-01-09T14:08:00.003+10:00

Optus gives away family's phone number

Anybody can make a mistake but getting the arrogant b*stards to acknowledge their mistakes is the hard part. That people have to go to the media to get any attention is a disgrace. It once took me a year, innumerable emails and phone calls plus the assistance of the TIO before I got them to fess up that their system was at fault for the difficulties I was having

A FAMILY that had the same contact details for 15 years are angry their phone number was given to a family in the next suburb.

Ruth and Bob Pye had been Optus customers for 15 years before they decided to switch to Telstra around 18 months ago.

They opted to keep the same phone number, which was important for Mr Pye's work as a bricklayer contractor.

But they were unaware their number had been duplicated until about eight weeks ago, when they began receiving calls for someone named David.

"And my daughter kept ringing me on the home number, but the call was going through to a young family with children," Ms Pye said.

"Eventually I called our home number myself from a mobile, and got on to a man named David. I asked him what his phone number was -- and he gave me our number."

The other family -- who lived in Frankston North -- were with Optus, she said. Ms Pye said she contacted Telstra and Optus, but both companies initially refused to believe that two addresses would have been allocated the same number.

"What got up my nose is that there has been no apology or anything. This has been going on for two months and we have no idea how much business my husband has lost because of this," Ms Pye said.

A spokeswoman for Optus said yesterday the number had been incorrectly allocated to a new customer after Mr and Ms Pye moved their business to Telstra. "Optus apologises for any inconvenience," she said.

A Telstra spokesman said problems with the Pyes' phone line had been resolved.

Source

2008-12-27T10:37:00.000+10:00

Optus gets nasty on Christmas eve

ANGRY customers have accused Optus of greedy behaviour after it cut off their access to cheap international mobile telephone calls on Christmas Eve.

The company texted customers this week telling them they would no longer pay local mobile-to-mobile rates for services that use the internet to make overseas phone calls.

The move forced at least two businesses offering the service to pull it from Optus customers on Christmas Eve, just as many were preparing to call family and friends overseas.

"I spend two hours a day calling India and the US," an Indian student studying in Sydney, who did not want to be named, said.

"It affects me because I have to pay $100 per month as according to my [phone] contract but now I have to spend more on using a calling card."

Consumers have flocked to companies offering the cheap service, which uses voice over internet protocol (VoIP) technology to redirect national mobile calls overseas at no extra cost to the telco or customer, according to one provider.

The system allows customers on plans offering, for example, "10c for 10 minutes" or unlimited voice calls to networks within Australia, to call mobile numbers overseas but not pay any more than the price of a regular mobile call.

Telstra, Vodafone and Three all allow their customers to use the services but Optus texted its pre-paid mobile users to warn them they would be charged at international rates of 29c a minute.

Nizi Bahandari, from Freedom Calls, one of the businesses offering the service, said Optus was effectively overcharging customers for calls that did not cost the company anything extra. "We're not using the Optus network," Mr Bahandari said. "They just want customers to pay the premium international rates."

An Optus spokeswoman said she could not comment on whether the service was costing Optus more than the cost of a national mobile-to-mobile call.

But she said the pricing change was in line with the terms and conditions of its timeless and cap plans, which exclude international calls.

But Mr Bahandari said Optus should not be applying international call rates to telephone calls made over the internet and on another network.

"The number [that customers call] is on a Vodafone network and Vodafone gets paid [a termination fee] by the other networks," he said.

The decision has cut Freedom Calls traffic by 50 per cent because most customers had signed up to Optus plans in the belief they could use the mobile-to-VoIP services.

"We used to connect 15,000 to 20,000 minutes of international calls per day … now it's only 6000 or 7000 [minutes]," Mr Bahandari said. "[Optus is] trying to conquer the market by getting a really good plan and a good offer and suddenly they're changing the offer by saying it's not to their benefit because customers are using it for VoIP calling. It's the wrong thing to do."

Source

2008-10-21T22:43:00.004+10:00

Account checking service disconnected without warning

Holders of Optus prepaid mobile accounts used to be able to ring 5555 and get an immediate readout of how much money was left in their account. Telstra has a similar service on 1258888.

Sometime in the last week or so the Optus service has simply vanished -- with no redirect.

So I had to go online and spend half an hour setting up the service there. I now need a username and password to retrieve info that I once got simply by dialling 4 numbers.

Optus really have utter contempt for their customers.

Update:

How about that! The new number is 555. I used the old number lots so I know what it was. I have it written down in front of me.

But it took a commenter here to advise me of the change.

2008-09-23T12:21:00.002+10:00

More woeful service from Optus

And, as usual, Optus doesn't care

The Optus 3G mobile network is on its knees with customers reporting performance problems and an unusable service in North Sydney, but Optus refuses even to acknowledge the problem.

The carrier's heavy promotion of aggressively priced wireless broadband and iPhone 3G plans has resulted in the network being overloaded with users, leading to widespread network performance problems and frequent outages.

The worst of the complaints have come from North Sydney, where users have been forced to drop down to the inferior 2G network just so they can receive calls.

So far regulators have done little to compel Optus to improve its 3G network performance and customers have been left in the lurch because they face significant fees should they terminate their contracts early.

In the US, Apple and its carrier partner AT&T are being sued by a customer for allegedly deliberately overselling the iPhone 3G, resulting in network overload and speeds far below those promised by the companies.

A global survey of iPhone 3G users by Wired magazine found Optus offered the slowest network speeds of any iPhone carrier worldwide.

Users of the Australian broadband community site Whirlpool have flooded the message board with tales of woe.

They report being unable to send or receive phone calls and texts or to browse the internet when on Optus 3G. Their only option is to drop down to the slower 2G network.

Compounding matters is poor Optus support, with customers reporting being bounced around incessantly between departments and huge waiting times.

For many, the only viable solution has been to switch providers.

Tom Piotrowski, managing director of North Sydney IT security company Unixpac, bought an iPhone 3G the day it came out and has been experiencing issues ever since.

His office is situated 300 metres from an Optus mobile tower yet he is unable to get any 3G reception at all.

"Our modern 3G phones need to be switched to 2G while in North Sydney, otherwise chances for getting calls through or being able to call out are very slim," he said.

Using an iPhone speed test application Piotrowski recorded a transfer rate of 20Kbps in North Sydney compared with 390Kbps at his home in Collaroy.

Mark Novosel, telecommunications analyst at IDC, which is also based in North Sydney, said three of his colleagues who were Optus 3G customers experienced severe service problems.

Two of them downgrade their phones to 2G while in the office so they can reliably make calls, he said. One was able to convince Optus to waive its early termination fees so they could switch carriers.

Despite Optus's coverage maps indicating there are no problems in North Sydney, Novosel said Optus customer support staff had admitted there was a "black spot" in the area.

A spokesman for the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman said the regulator would look into Optus customer complaints only if customers had obtained a coverage map from the carrier when buying the service and could prove the coverage did not match up to Optus's promises. [The TIO is pretty useless in my experience too]

Optus spokeswoman Tracy Monkman said there was no 3G black spot in North Sydney and many factors could affect speeds "including traffic, your equipment, location, software and the source of your download".

In an apparent admission that its 3G network was overloaded, last week Optus quietly ditched the 3G wireless version of its Fusion bundle, which includes broadband and telephone services.

The plan, heavily promoted by Optus, had only on the market only since August. Optus said it was axed "to ensure that we deliver an optimal service to our customers".

In addition to the surge in wireless broadband subscribers, the Optus 3G network has also been strained by an influx of iPhone users. Optus was able to secure a large chunk of iPhone early adopters when the device was launched in Australia in July because it offered the best value pricing packages.

A study by mobile communications company Amethon found iPhone customers were more demanding on the carriers' networks than users of other phones because they were performing far more network-intensive tasks such as web browsing.

"We're seeing iPhone users browse more pages than the average mobile user - almost twice as many pages," Amethon CEO Michael Stone said.

"The average browsing session of an iPhone user is [about] two megabytes, versus [about] 300 kilobytes of an average mobile user."

The Optus 3G network has had four outages in various parts of the country since July. The carrier announced in May it was rolling out expanded 3G network coverage and would eventually reach 98 per cent of the population

Source

2008-09-13T10:16:00.001+10:00

Optus: Customers not important

SOCCEROOS supporters who rose early to watch the boys in green and gold play a crucial World Cup qualifying match on Thursday morning received a rude awakening when they discovered that their Optus cable and pay-TV services were not working.

A planned outage in Optus's Belrose exchange near Sydney's northern beaches knocked offline the telco's cable services including telephone, internet and pay-TV for eight hours from 11pm on September 10.

But while Optus said only a few hundred customers were affected by the outage, customers as far away as 30km reported they were without services too.

One Optus subscriber from Pennant Hills who contacted The Australian expressed their frustration that the telco failed to warn any of its subscribers about the impending outage.

"What if someone had a medical emergency and couldn't ring 000?" asked the subscriber. "In fact, I nearly had a heart attack when I was trying to figure out how to watch the Socceroos' match!"

According to an Optus spokesperson, the planned outage wasn’t important enough to warrant telling customers about it.

"This maintenance involved less than a few hundred customers and was timed to have minimal impact to them. We deemed it unnecessary to contact customers in this instance," the Optus spokesperson said.

Source

2008-08-22T12:54:00.000+10:00

Letter to Prepaid mobile accounts, Optus

Re: 0423 248 xxx

Dear Sirs/Mesdames,

What the hell is going on?

I received this morning a message on the above phone saying that my SIM card needed recharging. Yet I have used it hardly at all since the last recharge and it has remained in my possession at all times.

Then I rang the usual number to check on my account (5555) and was simply told that the number had been disconnected. No alternative number was provided. Is it chaos manor there?

If the card is indeed in need of recharge it may be connected with the recent Queensland service outage. Excessive billing at that time by you has been widely publicized. Failing that, someone else has hacked into my account. Please clarify this matter and provide me with a record of all alleged calls.

Unless the matter is resolved to my satisfaction I will have to conclude that I can no longer afford your dubious service. I will of course be posting this letter and your reply on my Optus blog:

http://optus-australia.blogspot.com/

Yours faithfully,

Dr John Ray

2008-08-07T10:41:00.001+10:00

The problems keep on coming

FLAWED software patches from Nokia Siemens Networks have crippled Optus's 3G mobile network in Brisbane, the telco said.

Since 6am yesterday, Optus subscribers in Brisbane suffered from intermittent transmission of data and voice services as Australia’s number two telco battled to reconfigure a recent upgrade to its new 3G software platform.

The upgrade, which has been applied to all Optus 3G mobile switches nationwide, was supposed to provide efficiency gains in speed and capacity load. Instead, it triggered three separate network failures which combined to cause chaos for Optus customers in Queensland, NSW, the ACT and Victoria last week.

As a result subscribers were left without mobile phone services for about 10 hours.

While the upgrade was successfully rolled back in Melbourne and Sydney, the problem again reared its ugly head in Brisbane.

"We had a new patch put in place in the affected areas by midday last Friday but we now have a re-emergence of a similar problem in the Brisbane area," Optus spokesperson Maha Krishnapillai said.

The network in Brisbane was online at 7am but went offline an hour later. At 4pm systems went down again.

"We're not sure how long it will take to fix this problem again but we hope soon," Mr Krishnapillai said.

He said Optus could offer no guarantees that the problem would not recur as it was related to a Nokia Siemens software fault.

"Nokia's latest version of the software was in effect 'contaminated'. We had a bug in the software so we have had to roll it back.

"The issue for us is that we have put the upgrade in other areas and have had no problems whatsoever - so it’s a bit of a lottery."

Engineers from Optus and Nokia Siemens were both responsible for the patch installation.

He said Optus was unsure why the patch had worked in some areas but not others.

"There was extensive testing on both our parts and we were also assured by Nokia Siemens that the software would work in different (network) environments," he said. "But when we went live it was a different story."

"Now we’re just hoping the patch will hold. We can’t say for sure whether or not we will have more issues over the next week in Brisbane," he said.

Nokia Siemens declined to directly address Mr Krishnapillai's claims, saying it valued its close relationship with Optus.

"We're proud of both companies' shared goal of providing a superior mobile service in Australia. Experts from both companies are working in partnership to resolve any remaining network issues, as is always the case when any outage occurs," Nokia Siemens spokesman Ben Roome said.

In the meantime Optus has requested network engineers from Nokia Siemens' Finland headquarters to rectify the problem on-site.

"We have told Nokia to fly out some engineers because we certainly won't be flying them here," Mr Krishnapillai said.

Mr Krishnapillai suggested Optus would be reviewing the service level guarantees it had in place with Nokia Siemens.

"We do have some service level guarantees with them and we will clearly be looking at whether in fact the software they have given us is up to scratch," he said.

Mr Krishnapillai ruled out Optus pursuing legal action against Nokia Siemens or seeking compensation.

"We are not looking to sue them on this, what we are doing is looking to work with them to fix it.

“As I’m sure Nokia would tell you, we are their most important customer in Australia and a very important customer throughout the SingTel group ... they will clearly want to make sure they work with us to fix this problem," he said.

http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24141034-15306,00.html

2008-08-06T13:00:00.001+10:00

Nuisance text messages: Letter

TO:
Optus
PO Box 306
Salisbury South
SA 5106

Dear Sirs,

Please stop sending me promotional text messages on my cellphone no. 0423 xxxxxx. They distract me and take time and attention I do not wish to devote to them.

I look forward to your early reply to this request. I will post this letter and your reply on my Optus blog: http://optus-australia.blogspot.com

Yours faithfully,

Dr John Ray

2008-08-05T09:52:00.000+10:00

Optus overhaul misses deadline

It has been a torrid three weeks for the nation's second-largest telecommunications provider, Optus, and there's worse in store.

Following a series of network bungles, Optus has failed to meet a landmark deadline in its $160 million technology transformation overhaul.

The final leg of Project Reitz, the telco's ambitious program to consolidate its billing and customer relationship management systems, has stalled, as it has yet to finalise selection of software and systems integration suppliers to complete the project.

Optus had a self-imposed target of mid-July for the selection. The last stage of the project covers its business, wholesale and hybrid fibre coaxial residential networks. An Optus spokesperson could not nominate a new date.

"This is a complex project with many elements, therefore we are taking our time to make sure we get it right," the spokesperson said.

Accenture is currently the telco's main systems integrator and software from Oracle and its subsidiary Siebel are widely used throughout the company.

In the mix is software from Optus parent company Singapore Telecommunications.

Project Reitz is aimed at reducing myriad legacy systems as the telco moves towards a self-service model so customers can manage their subscriptions themselves.

"Like all the large IT operations companies we are looking to reduce the number of systems and we will try quite hard to use what we have.

"We are certainly looking for systems integration partners, as that has worked well for us," said Lawrie Turner, Optus's chief information officer in an interview with The Australian in mid-June.

In May 2006 Optus pledged $100 million towards the project but at its recent full-year results briefing Optus chief executive Paul O'Sullivan said Project Reitz had cost $160 million as of March 31. It was unclear how much the next stage would cost. The total could be as high as $260 million, industry observers said, and completion could take until 2010.

The project is named after Bruce Reitz, who performed the first successful heart-lung transplant in the early 1980s, and Optus has its own triple bypass tale. It began on July 14 when subscribers in Queensland and northern NSW were left without phone, mobile or internet services for more than four hours.

Two incidents merged to create the ensuing blackout: a contractor operating a backhoe on a building site at Molendinar on the Gold Coast accidentally severed a fibre optic cable. A back-up link should have kicked in but the telco's Stanthorpe point of presence had a hardware failure.

The state's peak industry body for business, Commerce Queensland, estimates that compensation claims could run into millions of dollars.

The outage drew the ire of Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, who expressed her dissatisfaction with federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy.

Then, a little more than two weeks later, Optus experienced a second body blow when its 3G mobile network on the eastern seaboard was crippled.

Subscribers were unable to make or receive calls and internet access was disabled for more than eight hours.

To compound matters, Optus technical support personnel were providing wrong information to customers on how to overcome the issue. Instead of advising them to manually switch their mobile phones to GSM mode, users were told to keep turn their handsets on and off every second hour.

Source

2008-08-04T11:29:00.001+10:00

The bungles continue

OPTUS appears to be suffering another network outage, as customers in Melbourne and Sydney report problems accessing the carrier's 3G mobile phone network. Customers in Melbourne said the 3G network had been down for several hours, while the GSM network appeared to be intact. There have been similar reports in Sydney.

Optus has about 1.5 million 3G users in Australia.

One customer said he was told by an Optus representative this morning that the 3G network in Melbourne would be fully functioning by midday. "I've been unable to make or receive calls on my mobile all morning," he said on the Whirlpool broadband website.

"After a 50 minute wait listening to the Optus telephone on-hold rubbish, I was told by someone... that service will be (affecting) quite a lot of Melbournians at least till (sic) midday."

Optus spokeswoman Elizabeth Greene confirmed that there were issues with the network in Sydney and Melbourne, but did not know what the cause of the issues was. She said it was believed the Victorian network was the first to "experience issues".

In May Optus announced a $315 million 3G rollout that would introduce 750 new base stations across the country, leading to 98 per cent network coverage by the end of 2009.

Source

2008-08-02T11:30:00.002+10:00

Big Optus meltdown

OPTUS 3G customers on the east coast were unable to use their mobile phones for up to 8 hours after an unknown failure crippled the telco's network.

To make matters worse, Optus's support crew were giving customers the wrong information on how to overcome the problem. [Why am I not surprised?]

One Optus 3G customer, based in Sydney, said each time she tried making a call, "connection error" would be displayed on her phone.

"I can't make calls, can't receive calls, can't access the internet ... it's a lemon," she said.

Another customer in Sydney's Milsons Point reported similar symptoms, saying that although their handset indicated a 3G signal was available they were unable to use their phones.

Optus 3G subscribers in Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast, Maitland, Lismore, and Melbourne have all reported similar problems.

Optus has over 1.4 million 3G subscribers locally.

An Optus spokeswoman confirmed the carrier's 3G network was experiencing problems but was unable to pinpoint the root cause.

"Our 3G data services in Sydney and Melbourne are currently affected by an unknown problem," she said.

The spokeswoman said Optus customers in Melbourne were without 3G data services since about 10am AEST.

The Optus spokeswoman said customers could work around the 3G outage by re-routing to the carrier's GSM network.

However, most subscribers would have to manually change the settings on their phone to Optus's 2G network.

3G subscribers to Virgin Mobile, a wholly owned subsidiary of Optus, also reported similar network failure.

Optus technical support staff advised customers that the outage affected the entire eastern seaboard.

Support staff could not say when the network would be online; instead, they were advising customers to switch their mobile on and off every other hour.

"Why didn't tech support tell me I should manually change to the 2G network? Someone hasn't briefed their people on what to say," one disgruntled Optus user said.

Today's outage is the second major network failure to hit Australia's number two telco in the past 15 days.

In mid-July Optus suffered a major communications meltdown in Queensland after a construction worker severed a major fibre optic cable on the Gold Coast.

An Optus-owned redundant route should have diverted the traffic along another path but an earlier hardware failure at the telco's backup site resulted in what Optus dubbed a "one in a million" complete network failure. [Just bad luck, Eh?]

In the ensuing communications blackout more than a million Optus customers were left without phone, mobile and internet connections for four hours.

Source

2008-07-17T01:38:00.003+10:00

Fascinating

I did get a reply to the letter below -- in which they politely told me to bugger off -- but the fascinating thing about the letter concerned -- I am almost inclined to scan it in -- is something I have noted before:

Far from there being a return address on it, there was NO ADDRESS OF ANY KIND on it.

They REALLY hate talking to their customers!

Just to upset that applecart a little, the address I used for them -- which works -- is:

PO Box 306
Salisbury South
SA 5106

2008-06-25T11:45:00.000+10:00

TO: Optus accounts. Re: Prepaid A/c 0423 248795

Dear Sirs/Mesdames,

I am writing to you in this matter because I find great difficulty in understanding Indian English -- which is all I seem to get from your helpline. The fact that I suffer from age-related hearing loss probably contributes to my incomprehension.

I want to know why all the money suddenly vanished from my a/c.

I use the phone only a little so when I checked a fortnight ago and found I had only $6 left, I did not use the phone subsequently. Yet my A/c was at zero this morning. Where did the money go?

I understand that I had until the 27th to top up so I discount the possibility that I had run out of time. If however that is the explanation, I think it is very petty and offensive that you stole that $6 from me. Please restore it to my account.

2008-01-23T00:19:00.000+10:00

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.

2008-01-18T16:03:00.001+10:00

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.

2008-01-17T00:58:00.000+10:00

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!

2007-12-22T07:54:00.000+10:00

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.

2007-12-21T12:54:00.000+10:00

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

2007-12-21T08:25:00.000+10:00

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.

2007-12-20T12:15:00.001+10:00

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

2007-12-19T11:53:00.000+10:00

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.

2007-12-17T23:29:00.000+10:00

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

2007-12-07T23:27:00.000+10:00

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.)

2007-11-30T23:21:00.000+10:00

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.)