Dial 000 for Telstra

My family bought me a mobile phone for emergency use as I live alone and if something happened I needed to be able to call someone.

I decided to go with “prepaid” calls and so I paid for $20 of credit. But when I tried to make a call I received a message saying that I was out of funds. Although puzzled I did not query this. However, I decided to check it out and so paid for another $20 credit and made sure that I made no calls.

Then recently I had to make an emergency call from my backyard, only to receive a message saying "I was out of funds". I knew I had not made any calls.

Fortunately in this instance, I managed to get to the house and make my call from the house phone: I finished up in hospital on that occasion.

When I left hospital I decided to follow this matter up as I believe it has serious implications for aged and other pensioners living on their own like myself.

Poor staff training

After being referred to different centres and being told "oh I am not trained to answer this query, I will need to refer you to another centre”, eventually I was connected to a young lady who seemed to know what she was talking about.

She said I had been put on the wrong plan. With the one I had you lost your prepaid credit if you did not use it within a month. I should have been put on the one where if you paid $30 it would extend coverage for six months or if you paid more it would be useable for up to 12 months. These options were more expensive but would extend the coverage for the periods she mentioned.

I asked why my daughter or I had not been advised of this and she replied that all consultants were trained to give the information and should have given it.

I told her that this had not happened and when I had tried to get an answer previously all the Telstra consultants were interested was in selling me another, more expensive, plan.

I kept saying that they were missing the point. I had paid for a service I was not getting and no matter what new plan they put me on it would result in the same outcome. I had paid for a service that did not do the job that was requested. One plan she suggested was to pay $15 which would give me $20 of calls. I told them that they could give me a $1 million of calls but if I did not use it within the month I would lose it and still be unable to make an emergency call when I needed to.

And I would then need to pay another $15 the next month.

I was then told that I could call 000 for emergency at any time. I said I understood the triple 0 system but a person may not need to call the ambulance, fire brigade or police. The emergency may only require a call to a member of the family. There is no need to take up time of these valuable, under resourced and understaffed services.

I wasted almost 24 hours trying to get answers, getting passed from one centre to another.

Finally, “the young lady who seemed to know what she was talking about” was unable to help further as Telstra’s computers were down and she couldn’t access my account.

I then tried the Telstra centre in Geelong only to be told "Oh we are not required to pass on this information, we are a retail franchise and our job is to sell services".

A very poor exercise in marketing I would think, leading to unsatisfied customers.

The six or 12 month plans or prepaid offers from Telstra were more expensive than I needed and wouldn’t offer me the service I needed i.e. to be able to make the odd emergency call if required.

The important issue is that there are many people living in isolation who may require an emergency contact, apart from all the parents who wish their child to carry a mobile phone, for emergency use only, without paying monthly bills for calls that aren't needed or made.

In my own case I pay this $20 out of my pension and I have a rapidly diminishing purchasing power.

It seems obscene that a large corporation Like Telstra can take money from the weak and most vulnerable sectors of the community to add to its already high profits.

In my case the inability to make the call could have been serious if I had been unable to get to the house to use the phone.

I do not see people for sometimes two or three weeks and if, for example, I had fallen and perhaps broken a leg or something else I would have been unable to call for assistance and could have laid there for days, especially now in the middle of winter.

I have followed this up and spoken to many other people living in similar circumstances and this is a major concern and fear for them.

I have urged them to take it up with their local Member of Parliament and suggested that a secure service could be set up that would protect and safeguard pensioners, disabled and others who may need to call someone urgently.

There is also the question of why big corporations like Telstra are allowed to take money from the most vulnerable in our society and provide nothing in return.

I visited Telstra's website and my conclusion is it has to be the most user-unfriendly site you can imagine. It purpose is to only sell, sell, sell and it does not provide clear details of any of the "services" it offers.

I have suggested to those who do not use Telstra that they need to check with their communications providers to see what they provide. If their services are little different from Telstra then there should be a government inquiry or commission held.

It appears to me there is an abuse and misuse-use of Telstra’s power in the market place. The question is what is the government going to do about it or is it so set on supporting companies like this that it will do nothing?

I understand Australia is one of the most expensive countries for mobile phone services. When one considers that many, if not most, users use a mobile phone in lieu of a house phone it should be possible to reduce the price of mobile services.

Privatisation is failing consumers and providing a tool for companies to exploit people.