Monday 30 April 2012

Dear pathetic excuse for a phone company that rhymes with Hellstra...


My hatred for you began just before I moved to the bush when you had me blacklisted under the title“identity fraud” because I had the nerve to purchase two mobile phones and an wireless internet connection from you, but since you eventually cleared my name and admitted the mistake was yours I will let that little incident go for the duration of this post.

I will also not mention the fact that I paid $50 a month for internet connection that didn’t ever work for the best part of a year before you finally admitted there was no available 3G service and agreed to close the account with no cancellation fee.

So anyway, upon moving here and receiving new phones for my husband and I, I was assured I would have “excellent” mobile phone reception in my new rural location. It is true that I do indeed get (intermittent) reception, although one bar is not really considered excellent in my book and I can only achieve said single bar if I stand clinging precariously by one hand to the front veranda post whilst leaning into oblivion with my head tilting just a little to the left.

As the thought of falling to my impending doom should I ever want to make a phone call was unattractive at best, I decided to do the sensible thing and set up a home phone account too so that if one of my children were bitten by a deadly brown snake or the husband rolled the tractor I would at least have the ability to phone 000.

Now the home phone account was set up at the bargain price of $69 per month and has proceeded to die every single time we get more than half a mm of rain, first it goes crackly so you can’t hear the person on the other end which may I add can make for a whole lot of future awkwardness when you think you are talking to the husband you had the best sex of your life with that morning and it turns out to be your mother in law.

Then after about 48 hours of “What? What? Who is this? Hello?” it will kark it totally and there is no longer a dial tone.

Now in case you live in another country or deep in a cave somewhere, you will have noticed how over the last little while eastern Australia has been getting rather a lot of rain...

Every time this happens I assume my veranda hugging position and with my life on the line I phone up the ‘faults’ department. Where they are unable to hear me properly due to poor reception and after a bunch of ‘pardon me?’ and ‘can you please repeat that’  and 'do you realise your phone servive is not good?' I find out I have been transferred to the wrong department.

Finally it gets sorted out and after the lovely friendly consultant promises me someone will be out to fix the line within the next 7 days I am asked to hold and answer a survey question on my experience – but not before the consultant assures me it is only to rate HER PERSONAL performance and to please not let it reflect my views of the company.

Without fail on day 7 somebody called Trevor who looks like a cross between Hagrid and an axe murderer in a phone company uniform always arrives and temporarily fixes it until of course the next time it rains again and we go back to square one.

Two weeks ago my phone died AGAIN, but  this time Trevor never came.

 So after pondering  for a few days if perhaps another happy customer finally snapped and took it out on old Trev, I decided to call up the company again and find out.

By the time I have been redirected through ‘ADSL’, ‘Mobile Services’ and ‘Sales’  it has been 40 minutes and my foot and arm are asleep from clinging to the post in the icy wind. I finally connect to someone who CAN help me a lovely sounding lady, and my mobile battery went flat.

 So dear unnamed telecommunications giant, I’m more angry than Matthew Newton and have developed a twitch in my right eye. If there was ANY other telecommunications  companies that serviced my area I would have given my children up to be with them. In the meantime while my mobile battery charges, may God help Trevor if he turns up before I have had a coffee and some zanax.

Have you ever been f$#ked around with by a telecommunications company?

2 comments:

Lydia La La said...

I'm sorry, I laughed at your post.
Now if your phone was working I would give you my phone number so we could talk for months together. The only subject we would need, would be Hellstra. I imagine we would have enough material to keep us busy for up to a year.

Yep.... know exactly where you are coming from. We are lucky in that we can get mobile service in 2 places and can even sit down while using the moby. I must admit that the staff have been wonderful with the exception of a couple of Australian women. I could hear the gum being chewed and I'm sure I could smell bright red lippy!

I had to tell a woman 3 times before she got it that the line was broken, snapped in 2. I had to help her understand it by asking her what happens to a chook when it's head is cut off? RIGHT... it can't make a sound. Same here, you sweet understanding, Hellstra treasured employee. Well.... good luck with that one. Maybe Optus has a tower. Cheerio and if I drive by a property with a woman hanging off the verandah with a mobile phone in her hand and cursing, I'll know it's you. xo

Suzi - Under The Windmills said...

LOL - Oh Lydia, the visual of gum chewing red loopy clad ladies! I'm sorry you have had hellstra problems too, if you do a quick google search we are certainly not alone!
Unfortunatly Optus doesn't service my area yet, but I promise the day they do I will go with them ;)