What we're talking about

Dianne on The Burkha The Burkha Many years ago I also was confronted with a vision of women shrouded in a Burkha. It left an enormous impact on ... more
Robert Bailey on The Burkha One easy way to outlaw the burka is to enlist the help of the rebel motorcycle gang. Have them introduce a custom into their ... more
Albert on The Burkha Bigfella, I believe we may agree on what the word freedom really means, so the decision to ban the burqa liberated many and ... more
Albert on The Aboriginal Disgrace Smithy, You must be aware that the percentage of sexual abuse of Aboriginal children is no worse than in the white ... more
John Forrest on The Burkha Hi Jason, Bigfella picked picked you like a dirty nose.You really do need to broaden your thinking and show some level of ... more
bigfella on The Burkha Albert, The passage that you have taken from Ms Haussegger's blog is actually from the Australian constitution. It would ... more
Albert on The Burkha Bigfella, what is our responsibility when we know of women and young girls who are beaten because they do not want to wear ... more
Jason on The Burkha Bigfella, before we get back to the burka, i'm entitled to reply to your logic and insults. Which you leftards are so well ... more
john on The Burkha New product aimed at the Muslim market The Burkhie more
Albert on The Aboriginal Disgrace When the Prime Minister was making the Sorry Speech, 13 February 2008, I was reading his face, it was saying, as from Kath ... more
bigfella on The Burkha Hey Jason, The great thing about the Austrlian culture is that it draws from so many other cultures. That's why we embrace a ... more
Jason on The Burkha Hey Bigfella, Why do you want to change Australia so much? If you want to see mosques and Islamic schools going up every ... more
bigfella on The Burkha Michael, So Virginia Haussegger works for the ABC, is a feminist, and has won a United Nations Association award. I would ... more
Phil - Springwood on The Welfare State Anna Campbell -29.06.09 - The more I read this article, the angrier I become; and I call to arms my practice of ... more
bigfella on The Burkha Michael, Perhaps the debate has moved on for some. However, I suspect that many will simply jump on the bandwagon with this ... more
Norm on The Burkha Most of these women don't have a choice and if we in the West don't put a stop to it, for their sake,I fear we will see more ... more
Jeff MAURICE on The Burkha I like many other Aussies believe that if you come here to our fair land, you should be ready to join our society, our ways, ... more
rick on The Burkha this is australia, not the middle east. the burqa was designed to protect oneself from desert sand storms.(it has nothing to ... more
Albert on The Burkha Al Qaeda vows revenge on France over plans to ban the burqa. I suggest they study they Koran, then be the first to applaud ... more
Phil - Springwood on The Welfare State Anna Campbell - 27th. June. 09 I was the person who used the word scum; See Anna, I am on Disability Support, I have told my ... more

The Phone Companies

Posted by: Michael Smith | 24 November, 2008 - 11:50 AM

Most Australians are pretty easy going. It takes a fair bit for most of us to go to the trouble of lodging a complaint about poor service. When was the last time you sent a restaurant meal back?

When you have a problem with a phone company the process to get it solved is pretty time-consuming. First you've got to go to the phone company, go through their process to get the problem solved. If you go through those hoops and you're still not happy, then you can go to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman to try to get their help. That should be the last resort.

So it's jaw-dropping that 150,000 people lodged an official complaint with the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman about our phone companies last year. 150,000 people complaining about 268,645 individual customer complaints that the phone companies hadn't fixed.

This industry seems to think it's a law unto itself. And of course with 90% of the $40 billion a year industry's profits, Telstra is the main offender.

One of the blokes I work with, Kevin Turner, has just come back from New Zealand. He took his Telstra wireless broadband connection with him. It worked OK in New Zealand and he used it to download 678 megabytes of data (maybe one or two reasonable sized photos). He "roamed" onto a phone company in New Zealand. That phone company would have charged Telstra no more than it charged a New Zealand local - maybe $10 or $20 absolute tops. But the bill Kevin got from Telstra - $10,000. What a rip-off. Just pure, gouging profit for the monster gorilla Telstra.

Or this. The husband of the Consumer Telecommunications Network CEO bought a mobile phone from Telstra. It was faulty. He returned it to the dealer. Six weeks later the dealer denied it had the phone. Then admitted they'd lost it. Then they tried to sell him a new phone with a new contract, while still charging him under the old contract. After the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman stepped in Telstra promised a new handset. But the customer was billed for it anyway. Which sent him back into the same circle of complaints and no resolution. Months later Telstra found the original faulty phone.

The notion of customer service in the phone companies is a joke. Why do they bother with computer voice systems that say "your call is important to us, please select from the following option." It's total BS. Your call is not important to them unless you're going to buy something. It would be more honest to say "your call is a dead-set pain in the butt to us so we're going to make it so frustrating that hopefully you'll go away."

When the industry is so manifestly not up to fixing its own problems, there has to be a real role for the government to step in and regulate with serious fines for non-compliance.