Thanks for your timely article John.

Last week I helped an over 80 purchase a prepaid mobile phone so she had backup if her car broke down. She bought an initial one month plan so she could chat to her friends at night to become familiar with it. I was unable to follow up to see if she could charge the phone.

I also noticed that the cheapest prepaid phones did not have easy to read keypads.

I will tell her that 000 always works even if you are out of credit. If you are over 80, fall over and unable to get up then its legitimate to call 000 for the ambulance.

I can sympathise. Telstra is a dirty word. I lost over $120 in pre-paid credits because I attempted to recharge just hours past the expiry of my recharge due date. My written complaint was not even acknowledged.
Then while in NZ recently my pre-paid balance fell below $10 and I received a text message to recharge by calling a Freecall Number. After listening to a pre-recorded message from Telstra at the start of the recharge process, a feature I could not bypass I got as far as keying in my credit card details when the call dropped out. The reason? Telstra was sending me another message. This time to say my balance had dropped below $1:00 and I needed to recharge!
I tried again and, can you believe it...my credit balance ran out completely after just a few seconds.
So, the so-called 'FREE CALL' to recharge is not a freecall if you are trying to recharge from an international location and my credit was chewed up by Telstra's unavoidable pre-recorded message.
This time my complaints have not been addressed even though I spoke with a Telstra 'helpdesk' person at the time using the hotel's landline and later wrote a detailed letter to Telstra Complaints re the circumstances.
I changed to OPTUS. They do have a low usage option of I think $20 or $30 with 180 days to use it. Only problem is my Optus mobile will only get coverage if I stand up on a garden chair in my driveway! I kid you not and no, I don't live in the bush but in a Melbourne inner suburb.

Oh, and don't bother using Optus's online complaints mechanism either because your complaint just gets lost in cyberspace along with the Telstra ones!

Very apt article John and an all too familiar story.

But take some strength from the fact that your call is important to them. :)

Read Laura Penny's book 'Your Call is Important to Us'.

(A great page turner about the service industry's penchant for spinning the image of service as opposed to the reality of service).

Telstra are an enigma or a very puzzling outfit or similar. On one hand the do provide a very good service but then they seem to to a 180.
I got supplied the wrong modem five times despite the fact that I'd told them everytime what my computer details were. They made me change my email address & create a new account everytime I got another modem. Only yesterday I had to call them again because, even though I told them every month since christmas, they kept billing me for all those accounts which I didn't have.
The wireless Next G coverage is way not as reliable as the advertising tries us to believe.
In many countries there's no local call charges & internet access is a lot cheaper too.
I really believe that Telstra could improve without major outlays on infrastructure. Just tell the investors (Australians) not to be so greedy.

I am concerned that Telstra (along with other phone companies) is often an easy target for stories such as these. The same way its easy to be cynical about and target major banks, supermakets, health funds, insurers....you name it.

The money charged for prepaid services is for calls, but also covers the service they are providing - the ability (for 1 month, or 6 months etc) to be able to switch on that mobile and dial any phone number you want. I'm sure it costs Telstra a huge amount of money to build, improve and maintain mobile towers, telephone exchanges and complicated switching and billing systems. No doubt its more expensive to cover Australia's large land mass and spread out populations with a mobile network, than it is for more highly populated small countries in europe and Asia. Last time I checked, Telstra wasn't a charity, so why should they be forced to provide a mobile phone service to someone for one payment of $20 indefinately? If you don't use your bank account, the bank still charges you a monthly fee.

And I worry that the end of your article is rather alarmist, claiming that the service you have been provided could lead to an elderly person finding themselves in serious danger without being able to notify anybody. You state yourself that 000 is a free service and can be called at any time using the mobile provided, so I don't see such a situation as you painted possible to occur.

Have we become a nation of people who want something for nothing? Lets be willing to pay our own way and not expect phone companies, banks, insurance companies etc to be charities or some kind of defacto social security.

RodT,
I think the problem is that they need to EXPLAIN better exactly what it is they are offering when people buy pre-paid mobile phone plans. It is when the confusion arises that Telstra is seen to be unhelpful. I am sure there is a market for a prepaid service where calls are charged at a premium but the minimum fee would keep the service available for, say, a year which could be offered to young people (under 16 perhaps) and those who are disabled or on elderly pensions. That way they could carry a mobile, confident that it can be used to call for help when needed.
Susan P