My friday night rant...

4 months ago i signed up to what i thought was a 1gig plan at an optus store. We went through the contract with the guy and it was just an itemised summary like

$79 unlimted text cap
$9.95 mobile classic plus plan (or some s*** description that didnt mention the plan in mb)

so while waiting for my dsl, ive been using my phone as a modem with a data monitor on it. at 1000mb (even tho a gig should be 1024) i stop using it. low and behold, $400 bill.

so i call optus, they are s***, say go to the store and dispute. so i go at lunch, see the prick, hes like i would never do that.. etc. i ask him to get the contract, he says its been arcived.

so i say get the original, lets have a look where you circled in pen the mb etc.

prick calls me up tonight saying hes got the contract, definatly signed it etc. so i go back down the store (2min walk away) and say show me the contract.

prick then says its still archived! so i ask "how the f*** have you seen what ive signed and you flat out lied to me on the phone"

tony optus world queen street mall... little prick.

Make sure you file a complaint with Consumer Affairs. Not so you can get any action, you are handling it well yourself, but so they have a complaint documented.

Nuke the store from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

yeah that's bulls***.
so what did he say when you pointed out he lied to you?

people still are with optarse?
they ain't much better than telstra.

T I O

i used to like optus, but i think they've gone to s*** unfortunately :( is anyone else extremely underwhelmed by their 3G speeds/reliability/etc?

optus prepaid mobile goes alright

yeah TIO, ISPs/Telcos HATE the tio

wait, so you signed a contract but didn't get a copy?

using my phone as a modem

The amount of people who get caught out with this is amusing. I'm pretty sure this is a no no :) Bitch and moan and you will get out of it but yes you should take it further.

using my phone as a modem

The amount of people who get caught out with this is amusing. I'm pretty sure this is a no no :) Bitch and moan and you will get out of it but yes you should take it further.

Skitza, read the post again, he hasn't done anything wrong.

I have never owned or paid for a capped plan before, but even I know they have fair/acceptable use policies.

Pinky I can read as I've heard of other people getting done for the same thing, even though yes they have done nothing wrong. I'm interested to see the outcome that's all. It could be just a billing issue in the end but I was under the assumption that using your phone as a modem didn't sit well for carriers, good luck.

wait, so you signed a contract but didn't get a copy?

No he got a copy. What he didnt do was read the contract in the first place.

Well that's what I understood. The guy posts like a 15 year old who just discovered the word c***.

register a dispute with the ombudsman.

I had an issue with Optus also, went to the ombudsman and it was fixed in 24 hours

he used prick (a few times) not c***.

Am I the only one who didn't understand the OP?

Frankly I think it serves you right for using a mobile phone for internet/data stuff. The very first time I saw the 'internet' button on a new phone I bought once I knew it was a scam!!

Got a mate in the US, recieved a $9500 iPhone bill.

PWNED!

(didn't have to pay it in the end)

Frankly I think it serves you right for using a mobile phone for internet/data stuff

So what is the issue with using a mobile phone to do this? I have done this before and have no idea why it is such a problem.

I can't wait til my contract with Optus runs out. Only halfway through :( Their prepaid rocks tho

is anyone else extremely underwhelmed by their 3G speeds/reliability/etc?

I haven't had experience with other service providers, but I have been quite impressed with Optus 3G :/ But, there is a total Optus black whole a few blocks away from my house - can't even get a phone signal.

Got a mate in the US, recieved a $9500 iPhone bill.

I really don't see how this is possible. I feel like I hammer 3G, and I have never got close to using my 250mg/month. People must sit on YouTube all day, everyday for a month to use s***loads of data...

Basically wrong plan, which later was found was "illegal" for the company to allow that plan for iPhone users, that's how he got out of it.

It's like a torrent whore getting a 100mb/month plan that charges 30 cents per mb over or something stupid.

When I was at 3 Mobile, there are also occasions of users doing stupid s***, not realising that it's different from their wired ADSL/cable at home. Had one guy go on holidays to Noosa with one, downloading about 9gb of movies on a 300mb plan. He racked up about $45,000. We waived it for him, as there is this little thing the TIO like to call Unlimited Credit, Financial Overcommitment. Still, it was far more common than it should have been.

I may be wrong on this, but I believe that caps work in terms of

"If you go under this, you will just pay your cap"
"If you go over this, you will pay for everything"

ie:
"so while waiting for my dsl, ive been using my phone as a modem with a data monitor on it. at 1000mb (even tho a gig should be 1024) i stop using it. low and behold, $400 bill. "

If you use 999MB, you'll just pay your 79$ cap
If you use 1001MB, you'll pay for everything at the data rate, which would be ~$400

I know I've seen people on big voice caps go over by a few dollars and get 800$+ bills just for going a little bit over.

If that's the case with your contract, I'd strongly suggest you talk to the TIO. IIRC, that kind of gotcha was disallowed about 4 years ago. You should only be charged for excess and if you're roaming.

The most likely reason is that you roamed onto a partner network, and got stung with stupidly high fees. They can be utterly ludicrous. Telstra's roaming charges used to be almost $2/mb

I was a week late paying the 22nd month out of a 24 month mobile contract. Optus tried to cancel my contract on the spot and charge me a cancellation fee.

I talked to the TIO and after some prodding I found out optus was trying this on a lot of low-fee customers. Optus s*** themselves and cleared the issue EXCEPT they never updated the credit agencies. If you have an issue like that make sure you check your credit report afterwards. One might not be bad but if this happens a few times it can do bad things to your rating.

yeah TIO, ISPs/Telcos HATE the tio

It costs the ISP/Telco money when there is a complaint lodged against them.


Obviously you can be bitter at Optus for poor service after you've received the bill, but you probably should have been completely clear with the salesman before you signed the contract.

I just bought a phone through optus, and the sales guy was excellent... spent ages going through the contract with me etc. I knew exactly what I was entitled to.

On Optus, they are charging you to send you bills as of this month, call them and get them cancelled if you dont want to be wasting more money.

I just bought a phone through optus, and the sales guy was excellent... spent ages going through the contract with me etc. I knew exactly what I was entitled to.

I'm sure that's what they'd be trained to do, but I'm also sure the majority of people are idiots and don't want to hear about all the detail, and so the sales people just bit by bit get used to not being thorough. (Not saying that's an excuse for either party.)

On Optus, they are charging you to send you bills as of this month, call them and get them cancelled if you dont want to be wasting more money.

They had better f***ing not charge me for a bit of paper, or I'll call them and threaten to cancel everyone in our family's contract.

There is nothing worse than companies trying to save money but use the s***ty excuse of "going green". Take woolworths for example. Bring your own green bags to save the environment! WRONG its bring your own bags so we can save money.

There is nothing worse than companies trying to save money but use the s***ty excuse of "going green". Take woolworths for example. Bring your own green bags to save the environment! WRONG its bring your own bags so we can save money.

Trying to SAVE money by going green is an excellent idea; it's a commonly-stated core goal of Google, especially in the context of datacentres.

Trying to rape people by suddenly adding a charge so you can get the same paper invoices you've been getting forever is really lame though. They should take $1 or so off the cost of your monthly fee IF you stop getting paper invoices. That would make a lot more sense.

Yeah google's case, the consumer doesn't make up that difference. In the case Woolworths and probably Optus, they use the excuse and then make the consumer pay.

Optus ARE charging for paper bills now, 2$ per bill.

Optus are the worst bunch of jerks in the whole world. every time i have to deal with them its non stop bull s*** and apathy.

I was going on a trip to hawaii, called up tuesday before i left, to turn on global roaming. On the saturday i left, i called to make sure i'd be able to get/send mms as well, and was informed that global roaming wasn't turned on. so i asked them to turn it on. "Oh, we cant do that, thats a different department, and they don't work weekends".

Lost me as a customer then and there, now my contracts up, outa there.

I've had to call them (because their website is the most poorly designed thing i've ever seen), about business phones numerous times over the last 3 years. The first time i've got an english speaking person was when my contract was at an end and "did want to upgrade my handset? !? !?".

But alot of phone companies don't like people using their mobiles as modems because of all the extra traffic that generates. And i presume they'd rather have the person on an internet plan where they can charge them twice, for the same thing. (presuming they'd go on the lowest broad band plan which is like, $30?).

But for alot of them (read, optus in australia) don't have the network capacity to support alot of users using their mobiles as modems. The data through put chokes up the whole network.

Trying to rape people by suddenly adding a charge so you can get the same paper invoices you've been getting forever is really lame though. They should take $1 or so off the cost of your monthly fee IF you stop getting paper invoices. That would make a lot more sense.

Its funny how this really only works for big companies dealing with the public though.

My customers would lolcake at me if I told them I was going to charge for a paper invoice - I'm just happy to get a bloody remittance.

Optus ARE charging for paper bills now, 2$ per bill.

Optus are the worst bunch of jerks in the whole world. every time i have to deal with them its non stop bull s*** and apathy.

Haven't Telstra charged for paper bills for a while now?

I may be wrong on this, but I believe that caps work in terms of

"If you go under this, you will just pay your cap"
"If you go over this, you will pay for everything"

As someone said already, that is incorrect. For at least the past several years in the communications industry, caps have always been "a cap" up to a certain point.

eg $30 phone cap that gives $150 credit. Any amount below $150 costs $30, any amount above $150 is billed at a normal rate. So if you spend $200, you would run a bill of $80. The people you've seen who've "just gone over" and ended up with $800 bills must be smoking crack.

http://personal.optus.com.au/web/ocaportal.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=Template_wRHS&FP=/personal/customerhelp/aboutmyaccount&site=personal

My Account is only available to Optus Pre-Paid Mobile customers and other Optus customers who have a 14 digit Customer Account Number starting with '8'. Your Customer Account Number is located in the top right hand corner on the front page of your Optus bill.

They are starting to push ppl on other contracts to the paperless bills but if they do you can leave/cancel the contract with no penalty.
Id love them to hit me with it because Id thought Telstra was the worst Tele company but they got nothing on Optus.

They charge me $0.50 to pay the bill at the post office.
Id rather pay that then give those clowns access to my bank account.
My father is still waiting for a refund from Optus PayTV after he returned the box in October last year. They are now claiming to only owe him 2.50 even though they have it clearly marked on the bills as service in advance.

Seriously stay away from Optus.