Recently, I received a letter from Virgin about my “unreturned modem”. This is what it said at the bottom in bold:
“Please note that if the Modem is not returned by May 23, 2008 you will be charged $400 for the Modem as per the conditions of your agreement with Virgin Broadband”.
Did any of you receive the same letter? I’d be interested in hearing from you. If you are new to Mr Feedback, check out my earlier posts: here, here and here.
Sadly, I had the receipt from Toll Priority who collected the modem in the pre-paid satchel. I promptly rang them up, and informed them of their mistake. The call centre guy did not seem surprised, and said it was an “oversight”. Bloody oathe it is! Hopefully this is the last I have heard from Virgin Broadband. These guys are a joke!
you will find I have a number of problems with them, which thank fully are resolving.To cut a long story short, I am with their wireless internet and cap plans - which I have bundled together. I still receive two bills. Has anyone actually read the bills they send? They are so confusing, you feel like giving up and paying them the figure prominently displayed on the front page. I decided to investigate a little bit more.
Broadband bill: $30.74 (cool, I got a credit for previous over charging) Cap Plan bill: $94.29 (see the break down below)
The breakdown Recurring charges: $33.05 + $44.54 = $77.59
* This is fine, because they have charged in advance for the next monthly billing period
Total included cap used: $182.81, which has been credited back. Thank you Optus.
So far so good.
18 Mar - Delivery fee - $9.04. Hang on a second! What’s a delivery fee?
I did not get a handset, nor did I get any deliveries. I did get an sms to say my pre-paid has been transferred to a post-paid service. Is that the delivery fee they are talking about?
I settled the deal by ringing them and asking them what is this delivery fee? The questions they asked me were:
* Did I buy / receive a new handset? NO.
* Did I receive any Optus packages? NO.
* “Let me put you on hold while I verify your details”
* ” I am sorry about this billing error, I will re-credit it back and you only have to pay $84.34”
Deal done. So check your bills carefully people. I am not saying it’s an Optus problem, but computer generated bills can be wrong so its prudent to check them. What I do not understand is, when a company sends out a bill to a customer who has had lots of problems with the company, one would think it is important to check/re-check the bills they send. I guess, it’s just cheaper to let the customer do all this - ‘yes Optus’.
Click on the image for a bigger / clearer picture. If the image is scaled, click on it once more to zoom in. This happened when my modem told me I have full HSDPA bandwidth.
Update(06/04/08): It seems Optus is very slow for web browsing, despite getting reasonably good results on official speed test results. This seems to be consistent problem - investigate here. Comment if you are having trouble too.
Update (12/04/08): When you type “optus wireless broadband slow”, you get the 7th result as this. Read what it says straight after: “We’ve noticed your internet connection is slow…”. This is a Google gimmick, not an Optus fault, but still funny! Click on image for larger view.
I wrote to Optus through their online contact form on 27th Feb 2008 and 2nd March 2008 regarding a couple of questions about my wireless broadband. I got a reply from them on 11th March 2008 and 12th March 2008, respectively.
This is what the Support Acknowledgement email stated:
Thank you for your E-mail titled ‘Optus Wireless Broadband customer enquiry’,
your enquiry has been passed to our Email Support Team.
At Optus, we are committed to giving you better customer service than you
can get from any of our competitors. Optus Wireless Broadband Support commits
to providing 24 hour* turnarounds to customer queries.
Email Support cannot process account enquiries, cancellations, changes to
billing details (credit card/address), or enquiries related to passwords.
In these cases the account holder should call Optus Customer Support on
1300 553 937 (7am - 11pm, 7 days).
This is an automatically generated E-mail.
* 24-hour turnaround may not be achieved during major network outages due
to circumstances beyond Optus’s control. There may also be a small
number of cases where it is not possible to resolve a customer query within
24 hours.
Optus Wireless Broadband Customer Support Group.
** I guess, I fall in the category of the *. Too bad, one of the queries was in relation to traveling abroad using their roaming broadband service. A bit late for me. Classic!
On the plus side, I did get a letter from Optus acknowledging their mistake, and that I would be credited with $10 in my next bill for overcharging me.
I emailed Virgin’sGot a Gripe service about my bill of $85. Read my previous post here. I have not received a reply. I am not surprised considering it’s Easter Long Weekend. I called them today, and after 40mins (at 10am in the morning) I was able to speak to “Alex” about my bill. Alex put me on hold, and presumably spoke to his supervisor. Eventually, he was able to report that Virgin will cancel my bill out of good will, but in the future if this happens again - I will be required to pay the bill.
I asked Alex why this has happened. His explanation was sketchy, but he told me something to the effect of this: “Normally calling cards are compatible with fixed land lines (i.e.: Optus and Telstra) therefore you will only be charged for the initial local call. With Virgin, because it is not a fixed line and uses mobile networks to route calls it will automatically switch to international rates despite using calling cards. Virgin is not compatible with calling cards.”
I explained to him that there are a lot of things on Virgin’s website which are very unclear, and if people are going to be hit with massive bills for using calling cards then they should make it very clear. He agreed with me that the website is very vague, and improving it is Virgin’s priority. So, let’s keep a tab on the site to see if improvements are made.
So Virgin’s advertising campaign which emphasis free local/national calls is flawed, and in its terms and conditions it does not specify about using calling cards for international phone calls. So beware! If you signed up with Virgin thinking you can use it for calling cards, then unfortunately you are wrong. Virgin might make some calling cards compatible in the future, but it not available now.
I would certainly research their broadband plans, and ask as many questions before signing up. If you are within the 30 day period, then seriously consider canceling if have been using it with calling cards for international calls (thinking its a free local call initially), and make contact with them immediately.
Moral of the story: Ask as many questions, and document all your questions for your record. Here is a good overview article on wireless broadband, and the main players.
If you had a similar issue with Virgin’s Broadband at Home service, then add it to the comments section of this post or email me about it.
This is a follow up from my earlier post about my Optus nightmare. In Summary, Optus never transferred me from a pre-paid to post-paid mobile service. In fact, had I not written my letter - they would not have done it ever! So I received a call from someone at Optus on March 18th (which was good because I told them to contact me after March 15th as I would be overseas), but I was driving so told him to call me 10-15 minutes later. A few hours later, I got another call. Surprise, surprise!
This is what has happened. I wrote an “frustrated” letter to Optus customer relation team (March 3rd) -> they have told one of their members to call me back. Basically, the guy had minimal idea of my problem, so I had to explain it to him all over again. Did I also mention that Optus sent me a bill for my wireless broadband? Yep, they did. The bill was for $75.13.
Anyhow after 52 minutes on the phone, my pre-paid service was transferred to post-paid service. He told me it will happen in the next 4 days, but luckily for Optus it occurred within 30 minutes. Now the process will be:
* The guy sends an email stating the transfer has been completed
* In that email he mentions”my problem”, and asking them bundle the service
* In that email he mentions I have been overcharged for my broadband, therefore a credit is due
He told me to pay this bill, and a credit will be issued for the next bill. Hmmm, I do not like this idea but it’s their policy it seems. Anyway, I am happy that someone called me to sort his out rather than me waiting on the phone for ages.
The interesting thing was, the guy who called me was an Indian living in Melbourne. Even he agreed that telecommunications services in Australia was pretty bad. In contrast, during my Indian stay recently - I was connected to Airtelwithin minutes, and pre-paid recharges were done within seconds. That’s right, within seconds!!! This is despite me being a foreigner. No fuss, no calling anyone! Furthermore, Airtel has a system where an sms is sent after each phone call/sms highlighting exactly how much money is left, and when the expiry is. Compare this to my experience, and you see my point!
So for now, my pre-paid transfer story has ended, but my bundle story is still ongoing. I will keep you all updated about this, so stay tuned!
Hang on, but I used a calling card to make the international call. As per Virgin broadband note to self, all local/national calls are free. The calling card had a local number, which I dialed first before connecting to the international number. When I do the same using any other land line, I get billed for a local call (plus whatever I use on the calling card). So, why doesn’t Virgin do the same.
It seems the more you dig into Virgin’s broadband scheme, there are surprises everywhere. I hope this is a billing mishap. As usual, I will not be paying this bill until I receive a valid explanation from Virgin. To my defence, I called them straight away and waited for 65 minutes before the guy who answered cut me off (he must have pressed the wrong button or something)! So I have emailed them at support@virginbroadband.com.au. I will keep you updated!
After my Virgin Broadband experience, I was searching for a more flexible internet service provider. Optus “unplugged” wireless broadband seemed like an attractive option, but they require a bundle with another Optus product in order to obtain competitive rate plans for the wireless broadband.
As I already had a prepaid mobile with Optus, I thought I will transfer it to a post-paid service (49 cap plan) and take advantage of the 8pm - midnight 20 minute free calls to other Optus mobile holders. My family, and friends are all on Optus. Sounds too easy right - WRONG!
I wrote a letter to Optus customer relations group on March 3rd (see below) and am waiting for a reply. I will keep you posted about the progress of this matter. For now, stay away from Optus. (Some portions are blanked for privacy reasons). Read the rest of this entry »
This is a follow up from my earlier post about my 
Maybe 7.5/10 was a bit generous
After my 
