Calling from overseas

[Jo67]

My elderly father recently switched to TPG and while I have been able to successfully call him for the past 2 months since he started his new phone account, the past 4 days I can’t call him from the UK at all as I constantly receive the following Australian automated message: “The number you have dialled is not available from this service - O.C.A. 0163". My sister within Australia is able to call my father locally but my father all of sudden can no longer receive international calls from me in London- which is especially difficult at this time of COVID 19 to not be able to speak with my elderly father who is self-isolating.

[RajenS]

Hi @Jo67 

Welcome to TPG Community!

 Please try   +61 and homophone number without first 0 

Thanks 

Rajen 

[Jo67]

Many thanks anyway for your suggestion but I have been calling my father for 20 years from London and I understand how to dial an international number with +61 and leaving off the zero. The issue is that 2-3 months into him having a new TPG account, he can no longer receive international calls from me and I keep receiving the same Australian automated message as described in my previous message. I received the same automated message again today. I have googled this issue online and other people comment that TPG nor Telstra are able to support them with this issue so I’m concerned about who I contact to resolve this and how to reach my father. He doesn’t own a mobile phone. One online TPG reply commented about them resetting the voicemail/message bank somehow as it can accidentally get wiped? Or resetting the modem? I’m not able to get through to my father’s voicemail at all, only the automated Australian message noted in my previous message - many thanks

[GP_20]

Hi Rajen,
I have the same problem as Jo67 since last week. I am calling from Germany my 99 year old grandmother and the message I get is the same as Jo gets it: "The number you have dialed is not available from this service OCA 0163". Also the same phone can be called from within Australia. My grandmother has been with tpg since October, and once before she had an issue like this. After that it worked relatively ok, although often I had to call a few times to be able to get through. But now not at all.
I have been trying to get in touch with tpg service through chat, but each time after hours of waiting I get disconnected by tpg support staff member. I understand that you are busy at this time but it is getting frustrating and unacceptable.
Could you please find a solution.
Thank you.

[Ziggy74]

Hi everyone, 

My father is having the same problem. He lives in Sydney and has not been able to receive international calls to his landline for over 1 week now. He has friends in Greece and the USA who have not been able to contact him since Saturday 25 April, 2020. His TPG NBN and land line calls were working fine prior to this date.

- We ruled out hardware issues with his handset. We tried 3 handsets and they all were not able to receive  international calls yet they all worked fine at my  place.

- We ruled out the problem being with the people calling from overseas as I got them to contact me (I am with optus) and they all had no issues calling my land line.

- I contacted TPG via online support the first time and they kept insisting that the problem was with the person overseas.

- I contacted TPG via online support again and they escalated the issue to an engineer when I told them that the same people from overseas were able to contact my optus landline number and not my dad's landline number.

- I tried calling TPG and managed to get through to phone support and waited and waited for 2.5 hours before deciding to hang up on them.

- I received a voice message in my message bank reinforcing again that the problem was with the people overseas. I just keep going round in circles.

It's really frustrating because we all know there is an obvious problem but TPG are not taking it seriously!!! I feel I have hit a brick wall and my next step is the Tellecommunications Industry Ombudsman - https://www.tio.com.au/making-a-complaint. 

If anyone else has similar problems, please post so we can try to gain some traction.  

Thanks

[Ziggy74]

Hi everyone, 

I have great news. I was able to get TPG to fix the problem my father had receiving international calls to his landline.

A few days ago I contacted TPG support online and got a service person called Stanley. I had to explain yet again the issues my father was having. Stanley asked me a series of questions to establish where the fault could be. He even made me go and check to ensure my father was using the correct power supply to the router. 

There were two things that differed from previous customer support calls.

1. Stanley had taken the number of one of the callers from overseas who couldn't get through to my father's landline and

2. Stanley said he was going to contact TPG's VOIP support team to check for the issue. In previous attempts, I was getting baseless excuses from the internet support team blaming the overseas caller regarding this issue. 

The following day the problem was rectified and people from Greece, Germany and the USA were abe to contact my father's landline. 

I received a follow up call which I missed with a message saying to check and see if the service was working. I have yet to receive an explanation to the problem. 

Anyhow, just happy that it got fixed. Hoping this explanation can assist the other folk out there with problems they may still be experiencing :-) 

[GP_20]

Thank you so for taking this issue further and letting us know. I have to add that in last couple of days I was able to get through to my granny, but I am not sure what happened as TPG never conntacted me. It would be good to know in case it happens again.