A couple of months ago I grabbed a Kogan Mobile voucher from Groupon. Really good price. When my Telstra plan expired, I went to activate with Kogan… and during the process it just kept saying "Invalid voucher". There was a long wait on the phone for help (and no live chat or email options) and I had to leave for work, so I just paid - and then I wrote to them to explain what happened, included a print out of the voucher, and asked for it to be credited as my next recharge.
A month later, I need to recharge. It just so happened that in the meantime I had bought a new handset from Kogan, which included a Kogan Mobile recharge voucher (which can be used by new and existing customers). Went to recharge. It says… "Invalid voucher".
On hold as I type this…
While I wait, here's some more Kogan fun:
A few years ago, I bought a Kogan Agora phone. It would suddenly turn off, and then not appear to charge (and could not be turned on) for days at a time. I'd have to leave it plugged in to a charger for 2-3 days, it would then light up as though it was charging, and after a few hours could be started and used. I had it fixed under warranty, but within two weeks of having it back it started again. I had it fixed a second time. (Each of these times took a couple of months.) A few weeks later it started again. They refused to give me a refund or replacement, at the time I couldn't be bothered dealing with it, and went to Woolworths and bought a phone for $19 instead.
Jump a couple of years and I bought another Kogan Agora phone. The version of Android included was not as recent as the one advertised on the website. I asked about it and they said they were not planning to update it. After a couple of months of having the phone, the screen would freeze and this could only be fixed by resetting it using the volume and power buttons. This would happen 7-8 times a day.
I contacted them, they said they'd need to examine it. As I knew from the last phone that this would take months, I said I'd like to return it for not being as described (the wrong Android version). I returned it. No time frame was specified, so I assumed a "reasonable time" as per the ACL. Once they received it, they sent me an email saying it would take around 3 weeks for the technical issue to be examined.
I immediately replied asking why I needed to wait for the technical issue to be examined, since that had nothing to do with why I returned it. They acknowledged the question but didn't answer it. After 3 weeks I contacted them again. They said it would take a few more weeks. I challenged this, saying 3+ weeks was not a "reasonable time" given the reason I returned it. They said I agreed to up to 6 weeks. (I did not. The only time time was mentioned was after they received it back.)
6 weeks passed. No update. I contacted them and said I would need, at this point, to purchase a new phone. I gave them a week to respond. They acknowledged the letter but did not reply. I bought a new phone (the cheapest I could - $9, I think?) and asked them to compensate me for it. Acknowledgement, no reply.
Jump ahead… 5 months. They tell me they have confirmed the technical issue, and it can't be fixed. They no longer sell the same model. They offered me a refund or the new model which replaced it. I immediately asked for the refund. No reply for several weeks. Eventually, I said I'd just take the new model. They responded within minutes.
Got the new model. Within a few months it stopped charging. Sent it in to be fixed under warranty. Got a replacement sent back to me. They then did an OTA OS update. The update activated within the OS features the phone is capable of using but which can't be accessed in the Settings. I keep getting error messages when the phone tries to use some of these features since they're not set up, but can't set them up as the Settings options aren't there.
Contacted their support. They kept copying and pasting from Google the instructions to activate/deactivate those features on Samsung Galaxy models. (I found the same results.) After five months of back and forth, they agreed to let me send a video showing how their instructions were nonsense. They should have known this. They manufacture and sell the phone.
They then asked me to send the phone back to be examined.
I have refused. I'm not going months without a phone, only for them to - if they agree it can't be fixed - hold it for ransom for weeks until I agree to a replacement I don't want.
Instead, I bought a Samsung Galaxy S9 from them. This included the Kogan Mobile voucher which is apparently an "Invalid voucher".
Sigh.
why did you buy yet another Kogan Agora when you had problems in the first place and knew how bad they were?