We upgraded to Optus My Plan in late December 2015, with changeover, Monday 11th.Jan at noon, that would take no more that 30 minutes. Great! But from that day to now, the after sales service would be the worst experience I've ever encountered. Our landline was disconnected for 11 days, with many calls to Optus "Help & Assist" many times waiting for over 30 minutes, to be attended, then being redirected to many ëxperts. None had the facilities to dial my landline number for me to respond. Telstra online check out advised the problem was between my home & the local exchange. Eventually Jill in the Philipines had the initiative to dial our landline number, it didn;t answer, but somewhere in hyperspace a phone was ringing. She had the problem resolve within 2 days, phoned me to ensure I was satisfied with her resolve. That is after sales service. Then the SIM card, for wireless broadband was not ordered hence not delivered. We had one account for many years & requested one account in the future with email statements each month. "No problem sir. I am here to assist" 3 accounts were opened, no email statements. Our mobile was inundated with messages pertaining to"non use of prepaid, have you gone to another provider. perks, surveys etc etc. $10.00 charges for exceeding 1GB per month when our contract was 10GB per month. Extremely difficult to be connected to Billing Section. $2.20 for mailing a statement & $2.20 to pay your bill using Bpay. Many calls to have access, to My Account was a complete mess, trying many new Usernames & passwords. You cannot contact individuals direct, only thru special numbers. Consultants can't or won't supply their email address or direct phone number, so if a fix doesn't work you need to repeat the process over & over. Very boring & frustrating. Optus do not reply to any snail mail posted to them. And they claim to be a Communications Company.
So as of yesterday, we received email statement & would you believe we can now access the same via My Account. Is that double dipping?
So make sure you at least have the salesman contact details.
Sounds very familiar. Wife and I were with Virgin and never had problems with them (even though they are now owned by Optus). Both our Galaxy phones clapped out at about 14 months old (hows that for built in redundancy) and the only retail phone shop in the area was Optus - we were in regional VIC at the time.
Went there and had a very helpful saleslady, but it took 4 visits (about 40 minute drive) to get the BOSSES phone connected. The salesperson said she would arrange the first month free, but it never happened.
Up until then we used to use Telstra as our data provider, but when we returned home to Perth late last year, we made the mistake of changing to Optus as they were substantially cheaper at that time. Went into a shopping centre Optus shop, said I wanted a "4G hot spot" and prepaid connection.
Made the stupid mistake of not reading the contract very carefully and when I got home found I was on a postpaid contract for $79 a month and that I had been sold a 3G device.
Numerous phone calls to the Phillipines to get it sorted. Each operator started off with "we are so sorry....." (which started to grate after a while) and they would cancel the postpaid contract and get a 4G hot spot posted out to me.
This went on for about 3 weeks and a phone call from me to them every other day. Finally I stumbled over a call centre phone number based in Melbourne. Phoned them and the operator understood my frustration with the overseas staff saying it was a common problem that did Optus' reputation no good at all.
Two days later my 4G device arrived with a prepaid bag to return the 3G hot spot.
It dragged on for so long that I got 2 snail mail bills from them and then a 3rd showing a nil balance.
Unfortuantely I have misplaced the Aussie call centre phone no for any future use
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Cheers Bruce
The amazing things you see when nomading Australia
What After Service, I was with Optus with a new home Internet connection, they connected fast and sent out accounts even faster but when it came to having problems fixed, you can all go to buggery. I spent 5 days with a total of 11hrs of waiting and being transferred from one dept to another this also included being hung up on 4 times when being transferred. In the end they fixed my problem but I had enough and told them to cancel my account, they told me that there would be a penalty and I said yes I am aware of that. They closed my account and deleted my email account. Guess what they cant send me a email account as they have cancelled my email so I cant get it. GEE Karma works sometimes LOL
its amazing that Optus had major problems with coverage and customer service problems about a year ago and they lost 1000's of customers. They sacked their CEO and appointed a new smart operator - appears they must have dumbing devices installed in their offices so they can still deliver poor service.
I'm going to check out what deals Telstra are offering on prepaid data and will change if not too bad. Stuck on post paid phone for another 18 mnths, but will leave them as soon as my contract expires.
Interestingly enough, our gripes are generally about the customer call centres when the problems start - and all the major AUSTRALIAN companies have sacked their AUSTRALIAN staff and employed cheap overseas labour who you struggle to understand.
In the past couple of days I have been dealing with insurance company, SGIO. They seem to have gotten rid of AUSTRALIAN staff and moved their call centre to South Africa of all places. Very difficult to understand their staff.
Don't these dopy companies realise that customer service (especially insurance and the Telcos) is critical to retaining their existing customers. Its much cheaper to keep existing customers (and they often charge more than competing for new customers) than advertising for new ones !
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Cheers Bruce
The amazing things you see when nomading Australia
If you are after a good prepaid service then you can't beat Boost, they are the Jetstar of Telstra, they use the full Telstra service at discounted price. We pay $40.00 per 30 days to get unlimited calls and txt anywhere in Australia. This also gives us 3Gb of data plus we get another 2 Gb every weekend from midnight Friday till midnight Sunday so you get 11Gb of data, we use our phone for WIFI hotspots. Have the best of both worlds. If we are house sitting and we can link up to their internet we can then recharge for $20.00 you get from memory $500.00 of phone and Txt and 1.5Gb of Data. If you do have problem with system you can go online to a 24/7 help line or ring the help line, were you speak to Phillopinos. Still one of the best services I have used, we have been with them for over 3 years now and no complaints yet.
The BOSS and I are high data users - probably about 30G a month. Apparently Telstra are doing a new deal which is about the best value, but not sure if pre-paid or postpaid (and I hate being on a 2 year contract with a Telco)
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Cheers Bruce
The amazing things you see when nomading Australia
