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One of the benefits of owning your own online publication, is you get to go after the pricks you want to go after. And as pricks go, there’s no bigger ones than Telstra, a company that has been screwing me and Christ knows how many other Australians since before it was even known as Telstra.

This story actually starts a few years ago, when Telstra told me there was no phone line to the unit I rent on a small island in Queensland. I would need to stump up between $700 to $1,000 to get a phone line installed. I couldn’t afford that much to run a phone line to a rental property, so instead I just stayed on a very large mobile data plan.

It cost more money – $115 a month, in fact – but I figured that’s the price you have to pay to (a) live on an island, and (b) do business with Telstra.

So that’s what I’ve been doing for a few years. Every few weeks or so (mostly on a Tuesday for some reason) mobile coverage crashes on my part of the island, so I just go about other things that don’t require connection. Generally speaking though, it’s worked okay. In fact, sometimes, when there’s not a tourists about, you get very fast mobile speeds.

The problem with doing everything online via mobile is that a lot of devices – particularly anything created by Apple – don’t let you update or set up unless you’re connected to WiFi. And in fact you can’t even dlownload things you’ve purchased on some devices, if the file size is too large. Which is why I would have to wait until I travelled to the mainland (to someone’s home) if Iwanted to do any basic updates, or even download iBooks or podcasts.

Eventually, this got tiring, locked away on the island during COVID-19 for months on end (that’s not a comp[laint by the way, at least not about Minjerribah) it recently finally got the better of me. So I resolved to stump up the cash and get a landline installed.

And this is where Telstra’s competence – or rather lack thereof – really starts to shine, and becomes quite entertaining… if you suspend reason, accountability, and basic commonsense.

As it turns out, there’s always been a phone line to my unit. I didn’t have to get one installed at all. When the NBN technician arrived it took, literally, three minutes to switch the on the phone line (and with it an internet connection) at my unit.

Which obviously both pissed me off, but also made me pretty happy. And there was even better news – the tech did a speed test on the line, I was getting around 118 megabits per second, which is not bad (it’s absolute shite by global standards, but it’s lightning fast by Malcolm Turnbull’s NBN standards).

When I’d signed up for the NBN, I’d suggested I wanted as quick a speed plan as possible, because of my work. They put me on a 50 megabits per second plan, but told me it could be upgraded if more speed was available.

And so yesterday, I rang NBN to ask to get the plan upgraded. And of course they informed me I couldn’t. At least not straight away. For some unknown reason I must serve one month on a slow plan before I upgrade. Which of course makes no sense at all, and is not what I was promised, but after three years of getting fucked and over and ripped off by Telstra, I was more than prepared to wait another month.

At the same time, I decided to start getting the financial benefits of my new found Telstra freedom by reducing my mobile data plan to the smallest available – $45 a month (a saving of $70 per month. Huzah!!!) Not quite the cost of the NBN line ($90) but I no longer have limits on the amount I can download, and the service is theoretically faster and more stable.

So that’s what I did yesterday – I reduced my mobile data plan. This morning I get a ‘quote’ emailed from Telstra (which notes ‘This is not a bill’), informing me that Iwill soon be paying $172.87 per month… so, long story short, a lot more for a lot less.

Obviously, this is what they call in the retail space ‘fucking stupidity’. So I contacted Telstra. Obviously, them being a phone company and all does not mean it’s worth risking trying to ring them, so I logged on online to get my issue resolved. Here’s what I wrote:

“I’ve put NBN on at home. I want to reduce my monthly mobile plan (it has a huge amount of data I don’t need). I inquired to change my plan – the quote that’s come back is more than I was originally paying. I want to know why?”

And here’s the exchange between me and someone Telstra describes as ‘Expert’ (expert in precisely what remains unclear… although I’m going to suggest it’s either ‘irony’ or ‘comedy’):

Expert – 11:04: Please give me 2 minutes to search your account.

You – 11:05: Okay. FYI, the Telstra order number is 1-3084734598601

Expert – 11:06: Thank you for the information. May I confirm if the mobile number in question is 0407555328?

You – 11:06: I’ve already given you that. Yes

Expert – 11:09: Thanks for confirming it. Sorry for asking it again. Upon checking, you are already on a Small Plan. We regret to inform that the Small Plan is the less expensive plan that we’ve got.

You – 11:10: You’re not able to understand or fix my problem and I’m not explaining it again. Can you escalate me to your supervisor please.

Expert – 11:12: I’m sorry to hear this. Let me arrange a callback request for you as my supervisor is not available at the moment. May I know your preferred callback time, please?

You – 11:12: Right now.

Expert – 11:14: I will inform the team to call you immediately. However, please allow an hour as the callback might still engage on a call at the moment. We apologise for the inconvenience.

You – 11:15: Hahahahahahahaha. That’s genuinely brilliant. Thank you.

Expert – 11:35: By the way, here’s the case number for your reference 21261332. Again, we apologies for the inconvenience.

I didn’t believe for a second, obviously, that they would call me back within the hour. I don’t even think they’ll call me back. It’s now just going on midday. I haven’t had a callback yet. They have 14 minutes left. I’ll update readers when and if I do.

The post ‘Someone Will Call You Back Immediately. Please Allow An Hour’: And Other Real But Hilarious Things Telstra Says To Its Customers appeared first on New Matilda.

This post was originally published on New Matilda.