The Telstra debt collection letter
As billing issues go at Telstra – this one is definitely not the largest that I have had to deal with. It is though the first time I have been sent straight to debt collection for something that should be fairly easy to resolve.
The debt collection letter was sent early August and I immediately called Telstra to find out what the heck it was for. I had no knowledge of that account number, nor even having an outstanding debt.
After six transfers, I ended up with an operator who at least could see what had happened. It was for a pre-paid SIM that I had transferred in to my business account.
The account that had been sent to debt collection had been created for three days – obviously to facilitate the transfer. However, it wasn’t closed out properly – and somehow generated an account termination charge.
The billing system was intelligent enough to never send out a bill for this account, but not smart enough to prevent it being picked up by Telstra’s own debt collection company – Specialised Recoveries.
I was told because it was an issue across two billing systems – a senior specialist would have to resolve the issue – and that I should get a call within 10 days to tell me it was all fixed.
A few weeks later, now with time on my hands, I called Telstra just to make sure the issue had been resolved. Sadly – no. Not a single thing had happened on the account since my initial complaint.
A new complaint was lodged, and assigned to a customer service rep – Ben. I missed his call (because he was calling from a hidden ID) immediately tried calling back – but he was busy. I tried three more times during the day -never with any luck.
Knowing just how poor Telstra customer service has become – and how reluctant they are to do anything without TIO involvement. I went over to the ombudsmen site and completed the complaint.
I tried calling again today to speak to Ben, but because it’s now a TIO issue – I can’t speak with him. I have to speak to a different person – who wants another ten days to investigate.
To my mind – this is one of the simplest things to resolve. It’s obvious the service is still active – under my business’ account number. It hasn’t been disconnected, and this bill should never have been generated – nor sent to debt collection.
To date – I have now spent eleven hours chasing Telstra for this. Yet, I will receive no compensation for my time. I’m almost keen for them to take me to small claims, to which I will counter charges for my time.
Today I received a telegram. I held it with great excitement and couldn’t wait to open it. I had not seen nor heard of telegrams being sent for a good number of years. Heck, weddings don’t even read them out anymore.
