Telco woes

In one of my previous places of employment, the start of Semester 1 always brought great anticipation. Not because we'd be facing a new group of students, but because we'd be facing a new stuff up. Every year, we would kick off the first day with a different mess. Lecture theatres locked. (Apparently, the start of semester took people by surprise.) No room numbers on the timetable. (An issue waved away as trivial.) And numerous problems, of course, with computers and projectors. (Don't ask.) ( Really. Don't ask.) They would always happen, but the variety and novelty of the stuff ups meant that you could not prepare for them.

Which is exactly the same problem I'm facing with Telstra.

In late June May, my landline began to play up. I had to call the fault reporting line from my mobile phone. But there isn't any mobile coverage at home, so I had to go for a drive in order to get a signal.

Having contacted the fault reporting line, I then explained my predicament to an operator at an overseas call centre, who seemed to be confused by the idea that I had to leave the house to ring. Anyway, after some time she put me onto the service technician … and the call was immediately disconnected.

Eventually, the service techie called me back. He did a check and informed me that the line was working perfectly but he would 'reprogramme' it, whatever that means. By the next morning, everything was tickety boo.

Until last week, when it went to crap again. This time I drove into town to talk directly to the franchise, where they are used to dealing with customers inarticulate with fury over Telstra service. I took the telephone with me, just in case that was faulty.

It wasn't.

The service techie went through the whole 'it's not a fault with the line, but we'll reprogramme it anyway' and said he'd call me on that number. But he couldn't get through. Because the line was faulty.

A local technician turned up unexpectedly at some ungodly hour the next day. He worked on the wall socket and then pronounced the line fixed.

It wasn't.

But wait! There's more. Not only is my landline still borked, but Telstra is also now charging me for phone calls that I haven't made. Since 6 July (which was when the most recent fault began), I've been charged for 14 calls that I did not make, including a long distance to Brisbane. I am looking forward to Telstra offering a supernatural explanation for that one because, as we know, there is nothing wrong with the line.

Oh, did you think that was the end of the problems?

They have also resumed charging me for a BigPond dial up service that I cancelled more than six months ago.

What else can go wrong?