Here's how I turned a $480 phone bill into $15 credit! Now that I have your attention, our simple system… um, actually, I'll give you the real info. We all remember the Telstra Phone Saga? yes? good. And we know that we finally have ADSL? excellent. Well… we got a phone bill yesterday, from Telstra. And I took a look. It was Sizeable. ($480 is Sizeable, I think) I wasn't quite expecting that amount. So I looked at it. I read it reasonably carefully. and I found 5 problems with the account for this month alone.
So: Step 1, find mistakes in your bill.
I called our Case Manager, Gloria. Well, no, I attempted to call our case manager Gloria on the Telstra "Ring us direct if you already have a complaint lodged with us" number. It connected, told me there is a longer than average queue, and that if I could hold, that would be wonderful, and if not, please call back on the next business day. Well, I tried to hold, twice, and as soon as the recording stopped, I got the characteristic BEEP BEEP BEEP of being hung up on.
So I called the general Billing Complaints number. I did that 4 times in an hour because at random intervals, I'd just hear "beep beep" usually when I suspect that I was about to be put on hold.
Step 2: get hung up on a few times
finally, I was connected to a consultant who did not hang up on me. in fact, I was on the line for the entire duration of my call. (well duh, but you know what I mean) I explained to her The Saga and the new stuff that happened today and the problems with today's bill.
Step 3 (easy): convince the consultant you're sick of Telstra
finally, the whole process may take 2 hours, but a pay rate of $245/hr is pretty good, imho
step 4: have a glass of wine. (may be enacted concurrently with 1-3)
Dylan Carmichael's Blog 