Apologies in advance for the lengthy story - but this has been a more-than-two-week saga with Telstra BigPond Cable installation and I thought I'd share for those who care to read.
I used to have Telstra Cable Ultimate 3.0 at my old place. It was great. Installation was a breeze from the ordering process to the tech on site and I have always enjoyed my Telstra Bigpond Cable 3.0 service. I was quite a happy Telstra Bigpond customer having both internet and mobile services and would always brag to my friends about how fast my internet was - both at home and on my mobile including coverage and having no drop outs even though I was paying substantially more for the privilege.
This all changed in the past couple of weeks. I moved to a new place and sure enough - there was an non-terminated coax cable sticking out of the wall through a wall plate. Just the raw cable itself. Great! Surely I can get some form of Cable internet.
The wall plate says "Optus Vision" on it. So I ring Optus who tell me that the cable in question is not an Optus cable but a Telstra cable.
I ring Telstra who tell me that Telstra Cable "may be available" at my premises. I tell them that Optus have just told me that the cable sticking out of the wall is a Telstra cable. The woman on the line says "don't worry about it I have checked another part of the system and I can get past this 'may be' and convert it into an order"
We talk about whether or not I should get a self install or a tech out on site and she says someone will call from another department to determine what kind of install I need.
Almost a week later, I find a package in the mail. It's a BigPond Cable Modem and instructions on how to install it. Being pretty handy with these things, I knew that connecting it would be impossible because the cable sticking out of the wall wasn't terminated. I didn't receive a phone call from this "department" which was supposed to check what kind of install I should have had.
It turns out, there is no such department and the 'self install kit' was sent out instead of the 'professional install kit'. Fair enough - they made a mistake and I call them to discuss.
After arguing with the Philippines for 40 minutes - they finally agree that a professional install is needed. The guy on the line seems to be really helpful and tells us on a Wednesday that he can have a technician out by Friday 10am to 2pm. Awesome! I organise with work to take a day off.
Friday comes. It's 1:30pm and I ring to check where the technician is. "Sorry sir, but there appears to be no booking for a technician. There are no notes on the system."
WTF? I spent 40 minutes on the phone to the activation team (call was logged) but there were no notes regarding the booking??? Nice one.
After arguing with the Philippines for another 40 minutes, they tell me a technician is available on Saturday. I ask to be transferred to an Australian team. They hesitate but find a way to transfer me.
I find myself put through to complaints. They put me on to a guy called Shane who tells me he is sorry the technician missed his appointment - offers me a refundable 4G stick with 10GB of data (that I had to pay for up front) and tells me that the process is more complicated now because they have to cancel the 'self install' order and make a new 'professional install' order.
Cancelling an order takes 2 business days, but he convinces me that once it is cancelled they would be able to schedule the earliest possible technician for me but can't give me an ETA. This meant that the Saturday availability wasn't going to work because I would have to wait until Tuesday just for the previous order to be cancelled (weekends don't count).
I swallow hard and let them off the hook and think to myself - it's OK it will all be worth it in the end.
On the same day I get a text saying "We are cancelling your existing order 1-137236543928" followed by another text saying "We are submitting your new order 1-137950197412". Cool. Things are in motion. I wait it out over the weekend for my order to complete.
Monday arrives and I receive another message "We are now processing the completion of your cable order" and on Tuesday I receive "Hi, your BigPond Cable order is now complete. You may try to connect your modem. For tech assistance call 133933".
Great, so my final order has gone through after waiting 2 weeks since I made my first order and now it's time to schedule a tech. I call through to a guy who tells me it will cost $144 ??? I tell the guy that I have never been told of such a fee in any of my many phone calls to schedule a tech. He puts me through to a case officer, Sapna.
Sapna agrees to waive the fee by offering credit towards my Telstra phone bill, which I thought was fair considering the amount of mucking around I have been doing in the first place. The guy hits some kind of obstacle and says that he can't finalise the booking because the system is telling him the unit I live in is 'maybe servicable'. I told him that the first order I did hit the same problem and he put me on hold to investigate.
He comes back to tell me that it looks like a back end team forced the first order to go through and he will need to contact them again but that they are unavailable because it was already 6pm and he will have to call me tomorrow…
I express my displeasure and my patience is wearing thin - but I agree.
I get a call from Shane, the original complaints guy who tells me that they tried to get the back-end to allow the final order to go through so I can finally book a tech - but that they would now need to talk to the body corporate in the building regarding commercial installation…
WTF?
I ask what he is talking about and why body corporate has to be involved now. I tell him about the cable that's sticking out of the wall and he repeats the whole body corporate scenario and that IT WILL NOW TAKE 4 WEEKS JUST FOR AN ANSWER! He says that there's been a mistake with the way the back end team processed the order the first time, giving the explanation that the "Address they processed all the way through was a different one".
I tell him that it's complete baloney - because I received the package in my mailbox - obviously to the correct address. He tells me that it was accidentally approved at the wrong address again. I ask - which one? He pretends to look through his system and gives me my previous address.
I again catch him fibbing and tell him that the previous address STILL has an active Cable Service and that what he is telling me is rubbish because his system clearly doesn't allow activation of a service while another is already active.
He is at a loss for words, and I tell him to find out what the hell is going on and to stop feeding me garbage and get back to me when he has the right information.
Shane rings back an hour later and says he is sorry for giving me the wrong information before and that the process still stands that body corporate will need to be contacted and the process takes 4 weeks just for an answer and that the answer could still be "No".
I tell him that if I knew it was going to take this long I would never have even applied for the service.
He offers me ADSL in the mean time but I didn't want a phone line and tells me that there is nothing more he can do.
So all in all - a gigantic waste of my time. 2 weeks of mucking around department to department on the phone for probably close to 5 hours all up and for nothing.
Great work Telstra!
Mate let me first begin by saying that sucks.
Also I have been in similar situation except it was trying getting a new connection at a newly built home. However same circumstances having two orders, all the 'maybes' and so forth.
At the end after 5 weeks of going back and forth finally everything was fixed but then I was billed $600 for 2 weeks bill when I didn't even has the service and 2x charges for the technician who supposedly came twice, a technician never came it was only two bookings in the system.
At the end I escalated the case by screaming my lungs out. The case manager gave us $700 credit onto or account.
Never spoke to Telstra again.