Telstra turmoil

When Rebecca Dovey and Chantelle Woolridge moved into their new home in Sydney's west they wanted a phone connection. Sounds simple enough, but it hasn't been.

Nine weeks later, they still don't have a working landline. They have made fifteen calls to Telstra, had nine service men visit their home, and made three formal complaints, but for some reason, Telstra just can't get it right.

"We've rung Telstra saying 'it's still not working' and they are basically saying 'well, what can we do about it?'," Chantelle says.

On top of all that, they've been billed a $130 connection fee as well as a $55 service charge each time a contractor has turned up.

Telstra bungled things so badly that the girls' number was connected to their neighbour's house ... and he lost his Optus number.

Neighbour Joe was understandably upset. He wants his own number back and is sick of getting phone calls from people trying to reach his neighbours' house.

"We rang up Telstra and they said 'bad luck, go call Optus' and I said 'but it's your fault, your technicians were the one who caused it, who snipped my phone line'," Joe says.

While the girls' case might be an inconvenience, Telstra has been embroiled in another bungle on the New South Wales North Coast, but this time it was a stuff-up that could have cost lives.

On Wednesday, Julie Jones' air charter company was involved in the search for a missing fisherman near Coffs Harbour. He was found alive but, in the middle of the operation, Telstra shut down the company's telephones because of a billing bungle.

"For us to lose our communication when someone is lost at sea and we have pilots in the air and no communication with the command centre puts people's lives at risk," Julie says.

While unable to communicate with search and rescue headquarters in Canberra, Julie also couldn't contact her pilots by phone.

"I was so angry that my heart was nearly jumping out of my chest," says Julie.

"Telstra provide communication services. We expect a level of service, we expect them to deliver what they promise," she says.

msn 17 March 2006