A great friend is doing her utmost to make her restaurant the success that it should be, while Telstra is busily working hard to throw up road blocks at every turn.
After taking weeks to get a new phone line installed at her Ipswich, Queensland restaurant which involved over fifteen separate calls to Telstra, number changes and missed completion deadlines the Internet suddenly stops working – and Telstra won’t even investigate the issue.
Initial calls to Telstra had staff completely ignoring technical information provided to them – with their insistance that it was an ISP issue. Even though it was clearly explained to them that the ISP had investigated and kicked it back to Telstra.
Telstra had…swapped their phone line with somebody else
After the ISP finally caved in and agreed to send a technician, it was determined that Telstra had indeed changed the “pair” that was being delivered to the customer premises - with the obvious result of disconnecting their Internet. Essentially, they swapped their phone line with somebody else – so in effect it’s like taking your ADSL modem to your next door neighbour and expecting it to work.
More calls to Telstra and more “line tests” that resulted in staff insisting that the line was appearing Okay – so it must be customer equipment, or the ISP still… essentially saying it’s everybody’s fault but Telstra’s. And again – even a non-technical explanation that the wrong phone line is connected at the customers phone socket was met with disbelief by Telstra staff – and an explanation that it’s not a Telstra issue. Details about the “fault” were at least recorded, and even some compensation offered – but still – no movement from Telstra to actually fix the issue.
Finally the stars aligned yesterday, and after several call transfers and repeated “line tests” – it was agreed that indeed a Telstra technician will have to attend to investigate further.
After just about an hour of a Telstra technician being assigned, the phone line (and associated Internet) was restored. It turns out somebody had made incorrect changes not only at the “pillar” but also at the exchange. Firmly pointing the finger at Telstra (or the very least a Telstra agent).
Now the battle for actual compensation begins, with $180 spent on 3G and $69 spent on DSL connectivity that couldn’t be used for the month you could reasonably expect the offer to cover that and all the contractor time spent arguing with Telstra – but as Telstra has a policy of not compensating for their mistakes – I don’t think anybody should hold their breath.
