This post is a call for feedback from you, the TPG community.
Specifically, I would love to hear from any of the other apparently 50+ individuals who, like me, have now been waiting a month for an update on their Internet installation, only to recently be advised that a 'system issue' with Telstra has meant our orders haven't even progressed to the 10-20 business day queue for a Telstra-approved technician to come out and spend 10 minutes setting up the Internet. I am currently in the process of drafting a report to the Telecommuncations Industry Ombudsman, NSW Fair Trading, and - if necessary - the ACCC, and would love to be able to include your experiences.
I ordered my ADSL2+ with home phone line bundle on April 28, 2018. At the time, I was advised that it would take approximately 10-20 business days for a Telstra-approved technician to attend our unit, but that it would likely be less since we live in the centre of Sydney. For the three weeks that followed, I called TPG roughly every 3-4 days seeking an update on the status of our installation, and was told each time that "we are waiting for Telstra to inform us of the first available technician". By the third week, I started asking them each time to contact Telstra Wholesale directly and ask roughly where we were in the queue, and each time they said they would escalate my order.
They lied.
When I called them on Friday, 18 May (3 weeks after I placed my order), I was referred to a case manager who informed me that apparently TPG had just been advised that a 'system issue' with Telstra had meant mine and at least 50 other orders never even made it to Telstra's scheduling system. If they had indeed followed-up with Telstra at any point in the preceeding 3 weeks, this issue would have been immediately identified, as the 7-digit reference number they provided to Telstra at the moment of sending through my order wouldn't have returned anything in Telstra's system and flags would have been raised.
Over the past week, I have called every division of Telstra and Telstra Wholesale available through their hotlines and it seems nobody is aware of this system issue, and to date there remain no open tickets in their system for either my reference number nor my street address. Everyone at Telstra informs me that the only person who can contact the relevant team at Telstra Wholesale is my TPG case manager. I speak to her every day and, despite assuring me she is following-up with them daily, every day I am only informed that there's still no update from Telstra, but assured that "this issue has been escalated and they are investigating it".
This is beyond unacceptable. I fully appreciate that the reason TPG's rates are so cheap is because they have virtually no staff actually based in Australia and outsource their technical installations to Telstra. I also recognise that the primary delay for my installation has been because of Telstra's apparent system issue. That being said, TPG lied to me when they told me they were following-up with Telstra for the first three weeks of our now month-long wait period. They are also now doing what amounts to the absolute bear minimum in terms of pushing Telstra to rectify their system issue and progress our orders. If they were truly advocating for their customers, one would imagine they would simply call Telstra Wholesale, keep them on the line while they re-issue our orders, and get verbal confirmation that the orders have appeared in Telstra's system and were being prioritised to the top of the list. Instead, it's now been a full week and, according to my daily update from my case manager this morning, nothing has changed.
I no longer care for TPG's apologies, and I am not posting this so that I can get any further attention from their customer service team. As I mentioned at the outset, I would instead simply like to hear from any of you who are in the same position as me and feel they have now exhausted every avenue possible for them to see that they receive the basic service they paid for a month ago. I paid $169.94 for Internet on 28 April. It is now 25 May and my order has not only gone nowhere - it has, for all intents and purposes, disappeared.
I hope you all have far better luck, but for those of you who are in the same boat, please share your experiences and I will be sure to include them in my report. If we as paying customers aren't able to generate any kind of action from either TPG or Telstra, perhaps the government will have more success. Thanks!
