Agmates

A Chronicle of Telstra indifferent / appalling service its country customers in Australia!

Unhappy Telstra Customer No 1 - Susan Carlson writes .

(Susan pictured below with her Champion mare Dammit Janet)

Not all customers are treated the same!

I have been using the net since 1996. During this time I was using a locally based ISP. Why? Because they were reasonably priced, offered service and I very rarely had trouble getting on line!

While I may have changed my towers, hard wear, soft wear and desks, I have always used the same ISP. I like my ISP, because time after time I heard my friends say how hard it is to get on line. Most of them are with Bigpond, or as I like to call it, Big Puddle!

This year I decided to upgrade my net access to broadband. Not because of the large downloads, although that is very attractive for my photographic service, but because my Mum is 86 and hates it when she can’t get through to me. So broadband seems the perfect answer.

Of course that’s perfect for me but not for Telstra. I’m not ‘with them’. And I don’t want to change!

So when I asked my ISP about getting broadband, they advised me that I would be paying a fee to Telstra, an increased monthly fee and also buying a new modem.

That’s fair enough and so I paid them. I trust them because I’ve done business with them for 12 years! So why has Telstra knocked back my first application?

I don’t owe them money and always pay my phone bill on time? Why did my ISP have to present my application again and why two months later are Telstra still ‘looking into my accessibility’!

Makes you wonder why a friend of mine (in the same phone area) has had broadband for the last few months? OH she’s not only a Telstra customer; she has her email with them!
NOT HAPPY JAN! Telstra lift your game! Susan Carlson.

Got your own beef with Telstra. Want Telstra to improve their service to Country people? Click here to leave your own personal Telstra Horror Story or click on comments below to leave your thoughts or message for Susan.

A Chronicle of Telstra indifferent / appalling service its country customers in Australia!

Unhappy Telstra Customer No2 - Agmates writes:

After moving the Agmates site from a server in the USA to our own dedicated server in Australia we became aware that many people could not access the site either by typing in the address, clicking on the AgNews links or by Google.

After 100’s of emails and calls, we noticed they were all from Telstra Bigpond Satellite or ISDN customers. I then spent 2 full days on the phone none stop to Telstra to sort this.

When we first contacted Telstra they said that it would be fixed shortly. So we waited, then on Monday almost a week later, when contacted again they blamed everything from the new hosting company, to the old hosting company in the USA to faulty modems.

Finally I got a Telstra Tech to tell me that it was because the settings in the Telstra DNS Server had not been changed. Try as we might we could not find anybody to change it.

Finally I was told the only way we’d get it changed was if enough bigpond satellite and ISDN customers complained they would do something, but otherwise nothing could be done.

By this time I was furious.

Totally frustrated I called Telstra’s Corporate office in Sydney and asked to be put through to Media Relations. I got a very helpful guy - Daniel. I told Daniel my woes and that If I did not get the settings changed by tomorrow I would be launching a “Hate Telstra campaign” on Agmates and actively promoting a competitor.

Because we have 1,000’s of users / readers in the bush, they suddenly became very interested & helpful. Daniel left me on hold for half and hour and came back and said that he’d spoke to 7 different departments but could not find the department in charge of the Telstra DNS Server. He told me he’d keep working on it and suggested I call back tomorrow.

Mysteriously about an hour later it was working. Don’t know if the threat of bad publicity to corporate office was the catalyst and don’t care. But it seem’s very coincidental - doesn’t it.

Got your own beef with Telstra. Want Telstra to improve their service to Country people? Click here to leave your own personal Telstra Horror Story or click on comments below to leave your thoughts or comment.