Erroneous Billing (re: All Optus Customers Be Aware)
Winston Wong
This is what happened to me...
on a particular day a few weeks ago, a friend of mine rings me up on my
mobile from their mobile. my mobile was off at the time (around 3 something
in the afternoon) so it diverted to my voicemail cos that's my setting for
my phone. later that afternoon i turn on my phone and see the message
telling me i have new voicemail waiting, so i ring my mailbox and listen to
the message that my friend left for me.
when i got the bill, this is what it said:
TIME ORIGIN DESTINATION TEL No.
(other entries before date in question)
3:40pm (blank) Voicemail Retrieval
3:44pm (blank) Voicemail Retrieval
4:48pm [my location] Voicemail Retrieval
(other entries)
as far as i understand, all calls made by me (using my SIM) have an origin,
but strangely enough the 3:40 and 3:44 calls did not. furthermore, my phone
was off from about noon on that day until a few minutes before i made the
4:48 call to retrieve the voicemail i found out i had when i turned on the
phone. nobody else in the world knows my PIN and the phone was 5m away from
me the whole afternoon. so nobody else used it (not that anyone else in my
house does) and even if they got hold of the phone to play with they
wouldn't know the PIN to enter. (i have PIN code request set all the time)
yet the _friendly_ customer service person at optus maintains that those
calls were made from my phone at those times.
so, my question is, if i made those calls, which i didn't and couldn't
possible have (and i record every call i make so i know), why do they not
show an ORIGIN? all other voicemail retrieval entries on all my previous
bills DO. secondly, where are the Div-Voicemail Deposits that should have
appeared to indicate the voicemail message left for me by my friend earlier
that afternoon? i have confirmed with my friend that the call was made from
their mobile so i am waiting for their bill to arrive in order to make
comparisons and to obtain some proof.
it would appear that perhaps the voicemail deposit(s) (there was only ONE
message to retrieve) became voicemail retrievals for some reason. of course,
according to aforementioned helpful optus staff this couldn't possibly be
the case, and that much as i am convinced that i am capable of meticulously
recording my outgoing calls and recalling events that happened a number of
weeks ago (his attitude was quite insulting, even if he did try to sound
nice and diplomatic), i was wrong becase the computer said otherwise and
what the computer says must be right. of course he did not understand the
technical side of how the system works to record the data he was seeing but
no he wasn't willing to inquire a technician to find out if what i proposed
could have happened.
i realise that the monetary amounts involved are fairly insignificant to
most, and after 10 minutes of unsuccessfully arguing my case i was offered a
crediting to my account. but this isn't about the money, it's about a big
company ripping off their customers by way of a few cents here, a few cents
there, multiplied by the number of customers they have. it doesn't take a
great mathematical mind to see how this can be quite profitable if left
unchecked and unnoticed. either that or the equipment is at fault... in
which case one would think i was doing them a favour by bringing it to their
attention. if only they were willing to listen.
and while i'm at it why is it that you can never get an answer from the
person answering your call? ie they always have to ask a colleague? maybe i
just haven't called enough times to qualify for the more knowledgeable
staff... or are the odds just against me?
---
Winston LJ Wong
ICQ 2384493
http://www.uq.edu.au/~zzwiwong
Jason Lee
In my experience with Optus voicemail, I also have to agree that their
system has quite a few bugs in it.
For example: My SIM tells me that my voicemail number to dial is 771, but
when I revieve a message telling me I have mail, it tells me to dial 772.
Optus says that these two numbers are linked so it's no big deal.
If I recieve voicemail at 3pm, my message tells me it was recieved at 4pm.
Optus says it's just a time difference between the southern states and
QLD.
I have't noticed any billing problems on my account yet but my bills are
usually too long and too difficult to remember whether I had made the call
or not.
I have to say that I found Telstra's voicemail had a lot less hassles than
this; even though they ripped me off by not telling me voicemail no longer
had a monthly fee of $6 something.
Jason.
Daniel Meijer
Winston Wong (s33...@student.uq.edu.au) wrote:
:
: TIME ORIGIN DESTINATION TEL No.
: (other entries before date in question)
: 3:40pm (blank) Voicemail Retrieval
: 3:44pm (blank) Voicemail Retrieval
: 4:48pm [my location] Voicemail Retrieval
: (other entries)
What are the call costs that are indicated, and the length of the call?
For instance, if it's a <30 sec call, and you were charged 5c, then
obviously it's a diversion to voicemail regardless of what the computer
printed on your bill. If it's peak <30 secs and you were charged 15c, or
if it was off-peak and you were charged 10c, then it was processed as a
retrieval.
It's a bit hard when people say "what do you guys think of this billing
situation" but fail to reveal the pertinent parts of the bill! How about
re-posting the full entries, maybe it will shed more light on the subject?
--
||||||||
| ^ ^ |
(| * * |)
-----------oOOo---(__)---oOOo----------
Daniel Meijer - Sydney, Australia.
d...@zip.com.au
http://www.zip.com.au/~dm/
----------------------------------------
Gordon Newell
Have you also noticed, that if you have SureFax, you get charged for
retrieval, and then get charged to have the fax sent to your designated
number - all AT MOBILE RATES. Even though the call (from Optus) to send the
fax (to you) is (generally) is a local call. It makes for very expensive
faxes.
Winston Wong wrote in message <6fj7f6$7ev$1...@nargun.cc.uq.edu.au>...
>This is what happened to me...
>
>on a particular day a few weeks ago, a friend of mine rings me up on my
>mobile from their mobile. my mobile was off at the time (around 3 something
>in the afternoon) so it diverted to my voicemail cos that's my setting for
>my phone. later that afternoon i turn on my phone and see the message
>telling me i have new voicemail waiting, so i ring my mailbox and listen to
>the message that my friend left for me.
>
>when i got the bill, this is what it said:
[edit]
R o b e r t B o z i n o v s k i
s33...@student.uq.edu.au (Winston Wong) wrote:
>unchecked and unnoticed. either that or the equipment is at fault... in
>which case one would think i was doing them a favour by bringing it to their
>attention. if only they were willing to listen.
Contact Paul Kennedy at the Optus Customer Focus Group on 1800 501 032
and tell him that I sent you regarding this billing issue. If you get
nowhere fast, contact me again and I'll give you the direct numbers of
some senior Optus mobile people and talk to them direct. Once again,
tell them that I referred you and see what they say.
In need I'll go to the papers again. They seem to try and make you go
away by ignoring all your calls, and YES, they always think that
they're right and their billing system is 100% accurate when I know it
is not.
R o b e r t B o z i n o v s k i
TELEPHONE
Australia : 0411 119 555
International : + 61 411 119 555
FACSIMILE
Australia : 02 9512 2888
International : +61 2 9512 2888
MAIL
GPO Box 1702
Sydney NSW 1043
Australia
OTHER
E-mail to SMS: RobertBo...@eSMS.com
ICQ: 7777878
Mr. Michael J. Ellis
> I have to say that I found Telstra's voicemail had a lot less hassles
than
> this; even though they ripped me off by not telling me voicemail no
longer
> had a monthly fee of $6 something.
In case you didn't realise, there are TWO different versions of Telstra
MobileNet MessageBank, MessageBank (Social) and MessageBank Business.
By yourself changing to the free version, you are losing the amount of
messages that can be saved, and the length in days that they can be stored
for.
Telstra cannot read your mind and work out which version of MessageBank you
want. Therefore, they give you the better version unless you ring up and
tell them you wish to downgrade your service.
There is no ripping off going on.
It is YOUR job to keep abreast of your service and it's Value Added
Services. On your bill you would have noticed at some time (if you were
paying attention) a notice of the new voicemail options.
Ignorance is no excuse.
Winston Wong
Daniel Meijer (d...@zip.com.au) wrote:
: What are the call costs that are indicated, and the length of the call?
: For instance, if it's a <30 sec call, and you were charged 5c, then
: obviously it's a diversion to voicemail regardless of what the computer
: printed on your bill. If it's peak <30 secs and you were charged 15c, or
: if it was off-peak and you were charged 10c, then it was processed as a
: retrieval.
:
: It's a bit hard when people say "what do you guys think of this billing
: situation" but fail to reveal the pertinent parts of the bill! How about
: re-posting the full entries, maybe it will shed more light on the subject?
my apologies for expecting other people to read my mind/be on the same
wavelength... i did not include the call costs and duration because they
supported the alleged retrieval nature of the calls, ie <30 seconds and i
was charged 15c for each of them, although they were listed as OFF-PEAK
and the off-peak rate is supposed to be 10c/30sec (the optus person
assures me that i have been billed correctly because saturday 7am-7pm is
considered peak, although the bill generation system doesn't seem to
acknowledge this... funny that...)
my previous posting did imply that the charges matched the call type (re:
offer to credit my account) so they were definitely not charged at the
diversion (deposit) rate, though i did not explicitly state so. hopefully
the above information has shed some light on the previously shadowed
areas... and if you still want the full and unedited bill you'll have to
email me later as i do not have a copy of it with me at present.
cheers,
---
mat...@mobileworld.org
In article <01bd5be8$82d55040$ce2324cb@michael-j-ellis>,
Spoken like a true Telstra rep.
They only give you the better version so that they can make more money, as for
reading some tiny little note on the bottom of a bill what a load of crud.
Another example of Telstra arrogance.
Matthew
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading
Jason Lee
>In case you didn't realise, there are TWO different versions of Telstra
>MobileNet MessageBank, MessageBank (Social) and MessageBank Business.
>want. Therefore, they give you the better version unless you ring up and
>tell them you wish to downgrade your service.
>There is no ripping off going on.
>It is YOUR job to keep abreast of your service and it's Value Added
>Services. On your bill you would have noticed at some time (if you were
>paying attention) a notice of the new voicemail options.
>Ignorance is no excuse.
I don't think so. I think you forget that "I am the customer".
I was told of the change to Business, but was not told of the cheaper
options. How on earth can you expect the customer to keep on asking about
new services ?
Jason.
D Scott
Mr. Michael J. Ellis
> my apologies for expecting other people to read my mind/be on the same
> wavelength... i did not include the call costs and duration because they
> supported the alleged retrieval nature of the calls, ie <30 seconds and i
> was charged 15c for each of them, although they were listed as OFF-PEAK
> and the off-peak rate is supposed to be 10c/30sec (the optus person
> assures me that i have been billed correctly because saturday 7am-7pm is
> considered peak, although the bill generation system doesn't seem to
> acknowledge this... funny that...)
<snip>
Just another reason why NOT to buy Optus.
mat...@mobileworld.org
In article <01bd5cad$cd0caee0$a12324cb@michael-j-ellis>,
What as opposed to buying Telstra? I would prefer Optus over Telstra anyday
for honesty and accuracy.
I can think of millions of reason not to use Telstra as can many others.
Brendan Selby
From news.uwa.edu.au!tartarus.uwa.edu.au!bj Wed Apr 1 14:48:07 1998
Path: news.uwa.edu.au!tartarus.uwa.edu.au!bj
From: Brendan Selby <b...@tartarus.uwa.edu.au>
Newsgroups: aus.comms.mobile
Subject: Re: ALL OPTUS CUSTOMERS BE AWARE!!
Date: 1 Apr 1998 04:58:03 GMT
Organization: The University of Western Australia
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Message-ID: <6fshgr$rud$1...@enyo.uwa.edu.au>
References: <351c328...@news.uq.edu.au> <6fs7jb$ifc$1...@enyo.uwa.edu.au>
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Xref: news.uwa.edu.au aus.comms.mobile:2627
Brendan Selby <b...@tartarus.uwa.edu.au> wrote:
: I have a couple of these on my latest bill from Optus too. After the
: Div-Mobile bit the number is my own in international format. This would
: indicate that I have diverted a call to my own phone ??!! The cost of
: these calls is very small (10 c total) but I would still like to know why
: they are there. I assume it has something to do with how voicemails are
: retrieved.
I just contacted Optus and they explained how they think this happened. It
will occur if you have your phone set to divert to your voicemail on busy
and then call your own mobile number from your mobile. This would normally
give the busy signal but due to the diversion it diverts to your
voicemail. The voicemail box treats it like a voicemail retrieval though
and not a message being left because the call is coming from your own
mobile phone. Hence you pay for a retrieval and also a diversion.
Below is an extract from my bill. This sort of thing actually happened
twice. I have only shown 1 example. The xxxxxxx was my mobile number.
23 Feb 2:59pm Nedlands Div-MOBILE 6141xxxxxxx 0:30 PS 0.05
23 Feb 2:59pm Nedlands VOICEMAIL Retrieval 0:30 PS 0.15
--
__________________________________________________________
o o Brendan Selby (b...@tartarus.uwa.edu.au)
* Perth, Western Australia
\_/ Home page: http://www.student.uwa.edu.au/student/bj/
Mr. Michael J. Ellis
> I just contacted Optus and they explained how they think this happened.
It
> will occur if you have your phone set to divert to your voicemail on busy
> and then call your own mobile number from your mobile. This would
normally
> give the busy signal but due to the diversion it diverts to your
> voicemail. The voicemail box treats it like a voicemail retrieval though
> and not a message being left because the call is coming from your own
> mobile phone. Hence you pay for a retrieval and also a diversion.
Not offense Optus, but who really calls their own mobile number ??? And for
what reason would you do that ???
R o b e r t B o z i n o v s k i
Dean Hollister <de...@odyssey.apana.org.au> wrote:
>What seriouls upsets me wrt Telstra, is the appalling treatment they give
>to small business and even large business customers. Sadly, I doubt this
>will ever change.
They're too big and too nasty.
R o b e r t B o z i n o v s k i
TELEPHONE
Australia : 0411 119 555
International : + 61 411 119 555
FACSIMILE
Australia : 02 9512 2888
International : +61 2 9512 2888
MAIL
GPO Box 1702
Sydney NSW 1043
Australia
OTHER
ICQ: 7777878
Brendan Selby
Actually there are a couple of reasons why one might do it.
1. To make a dummy call to enable the volume to be adjusted. On my handset
I can only adjust the vol. whilst actually on a call.
2. To discharge the battery.
3. To get cheaper rates on calls. Sometime ago there was a discussion
about how to divert your phone ("on busy") to the number U wish to call
and then call your own number. U only pay diverted call rated then.
Michael Ellis
: > Just another reason why NOT to buy Optus.
: What as opposed to buying Telstra? I would prefer Optus over Telstra anyday
: for honesty and accuracy.
Yeah, we know it's April 1st Matthew.
: I can think of millions of reason not to use Telstra as can many others.
Then why are you contactable during business hours on TELSTRA?
End of story mate.
R o b e r t B o z i n o v s k i
Brendan Selby <b...@tartarus.uwa.edu.au> wrote:
>1. To make a dummy call to enable the volume to be adjusted. On my handset
>I can only adjust the vol. whilst actually on a call.
>
>2. To discharge the battery.
No offence to you, but they are pretty dumb reasons to be paying
Octopussy money.
Winston Wong
R o b e r t B o z i n o v s k i (mob...@poboxes.com) wrote:
: Contact Paul Kennedy at the Optus Customer Focus Group on 1800 501 032
i finally got around to calling them last friday but got an answering
service, and they rang me back on monday. this time basically all i had to
say was that i thought there was an error on the bill and what i think
happened and the person promptly thanked me for taking the time to bring
the matter to their attention, that it would be passed to the billing
department and that i would be getting a $10 credit on my next bill.
if this is a genuine gesture towards solving the problem then good for
optus and the much friendlier service at the customer focus group. if it
is just to placate the customer with money then i will just have to go and
claim my $10 everytime there is a discrepancy of a few cents on my bill.
incidentally i looked at my friend's bill just this morning and there is
definite proof that those alleged voicemail retrievals on my bill (which
should have been voicemail deposits) correspond exactly (timewise) to a
mobile diversion on my friend's bill.
thanks for the phone number robert, and i'd encourage all other people
with similar problems/errors to grab the cash while it lasts! but don't
stop any efforts in keeping your service provider accountable.
R o b e r t B o z i n o v s k i
s33...@student.uq.edu.au (Winston Wong) wrote:
>if this is a genuine gesture towards solving the problem then good for
>optus and the much friendlier service at the customer focus group. if it
>is just to placate the customer with money then i will just have to go and
>claim my $10 everytime there is a discrepancy of a few cents on my bill.
I am certainly not suggesting that this is how Optus operates, but
people generally don't give you money for nothing. Let's just say that
if there are three of us in this news group with an Optus billing
error, how many others out there?
R o b e r t B o z i n o v s k i
TELEPHONE
Australia : 0411 119 555
International : + 61 411 119 555
FACSIMILE
Australia : 02 9512 2888
International : + 61 2 9512 2888
happy
R o b e r t B o z i n o v s k i wrote:
>
> s33...@student.uq.edu.au (Winston Wong) wrote:
>
> >is just to placate the customer with money then i will just have to go and
> >claim my $10 everytime there is a discrepancy of a few cents on my bill.
>
> I am certainly not suggesting that this is how Optus operates, but
> people generally don't give you money for nothing. Let's just say that
> if there are three of us in this news group with an Optus billing
> error, how many others out there?
>
Optus got my bill wrong by $7.
After complaining they creddited my account by $0.70 and that took 3
months
(I was told I was going to be contacted with the reason for the error)
R o b e r t B o z i n o v s k i
happy <ho...@atinet.com.au> wrote:
>Optus got my bill wrong by $7.
>After complaining they creddited my account by $0.70 and that took 3
>months
>(I was told I was going to be contacted with the reason for the error)
I would be very interested in discussing the details of the error with
you. Can you fax me a copy of the relevant portion of the bill? I
promise not to reveal or discuss any other details to anyone else
without your express permission.
R o b e r t B o z i n o v s k i
TELEPHONE
happy
I was told over the phone 3 months later that after a discussion with
their supervisor that the $0.70 was the correct amount overcharged.
my optus bill say that the call was a local/offpeak call and I was
charged at longdistance/offpeak.
Im on a $25 plan with local call free to the value of $52, so I had to
ask why.