To Whom it may concern,

I am writing to describe the experience I have had with Telstra over the past 3.5 months.

For the past two years I have had a telephone service through a local infrastructure operator, TransACT Capital Communications. With their services becoming increasingly less competitive I decided to move my home telephone back to Telstra, and on June 9 ordered a home connection. This connection was to be established on July 3.

On June 29 I received a voicemail message from a Telstra representative who told me that my order had been ‘lost’ and asked that I phone Telstra connections to resolve the problems.

Later that day I spent 80 minutes on the phone to a Telstra representative, yet was disconnected in the middle of the call and unable to place the order.

Several days later I successfully made the order to connect with Telstra, with a scheduled connection date in mid July. The day after the scheduled connection, when I confirmed that my home connection was still with TransACT, I phoned Telstra to find out why my connection had not been made. I was informed that my connection had been made, and after a lengthy discussion determined that the new number had been ‘connected’, but that the connection had not been made to my home. This component of the connection was due to occur on August 3.

On July 28 I received a bill for one month’s line rental. This was for the connection that had (technically) been made, but had not been provided to me. At this point I again phoned Telstra, requesting that the bill be withdrawn. The operator said that she would cancel the connected service, and confirmed a number of times at my request that this cancellation would not effect the connection due to be made on August 3, also stating that my home telephone number would not change.

On the evening of August 3 I attempted to phone my home to verify that the connection had been made. A recorded message advised that my old phone number was being forwarded to the new number, and a second message advised me that the number had been disconnected.

On August 4 I once again phoned Telstra to find out what had happened, and the operator I spoke to arranged for a technician to visit my home on August 11 to verify once and for all that the connection would be established.

On the evening of August 10 I received an SMS from Telstra advising me that the connection would be ‘auto-activated’ and that a technician would not be visiting the next morning.

On the morning of August 11, just as I was leaving for work, a Telstra technician arrived at my home to make the connection.

At last - At mid-morning on August 11 - more than two months after ordering a Telstra connection, I had obtained it.

On August 12 I received two bills, one for call forwarding from my old number to my new number and the other for line rental from 23 July to 10 August.

Regarding the latter bill, as described above I did not have a telephone connection during this time, attempting to bill me for the absence of a telephone line is reprehensible.

Regarding the former, of the five times I spoke with Telstra to arrange this connection, I was offered number forwarding only on the third occasion, which I declined. I did not request, nor desire, forwarding of my previous phone number to my new number. Furthermore, I was advised on the fourth occasion I spoke with Telstra about this connection that my old number would be retained.

On the afternoon of Friday, August 21 ADSL was activated on the line. I returned home later in the evening to discover that my phone line was no longer operational because a mistake had been made at the exchange. This was resolved on August 23.

Since that time I have received four additional bills from Telstra, three of which were for the ‘number forwarding’ account which I did not request and asked to have cancelled as soon as I received the first bill for it.

The third and fourth bills both included charges for line rental from August 11 - September 10. Because of the substantial amount of time I have spent to date endeavouring to resolve your billing inadequacies, and the inconvenient opening hours of your billing department, I am still attempting to resolve this issue.

In summary, the level of service you have provided to me has been worse that abysmal. I have invested well in excess of 10 hours of my time attempting to firstly obtain a telephone connection and secondly be charged correct amounts for this connection.

In addition to sharing my experiences I am seeking recompense under the terms of your Customer Service Guarantee, and summarise with the following key dates:

June 9: Ordered connection

August 11: Obtained connection

August 21: Lost connection

August 23: Regained connection

Disappointedly yours,

Chris Bennetts-Cash