Despite plan and product warnings, if customers ARE still getting angry or disappointed by the plans offered by Telstra (or any company), then obviously the warnings are not sufficient, or the plan itself is designed to attract extra charges.

I would add the following comments:- Upsell or seed plans are implmented by small allowances for data, such as plans recently on the market offering broadband for $19.95 with a 200 Meg limit. It is obvious as the consumer skills develop during use, that their data usage will increase.

Companies then get to double dip, by applying penalty clauses and then selling a bigger plan and tell the customer they can have a plan which avoids such charges. This makes the company look caring by providing a another alternative, but in reality is probably what the company should have offered in the first instance anyway, knowing full well the vast majority of peoples needs for internet access increase, not decrease.

Like Sol says, Do it ONCE, Do it RIGHT for the customer, FIRST time! Contracts, such as plans, are an inivtation to treat in legal terms. It is not the signatory alone who bears responsibility, but both parties, as defined by law.

Do not hide costs in plans. Statements like free calls then find out there is a fixed cost which includes free calls .in my experience the standard cost exceeds my current cost

How about sending someone around to the High Schools proactively informing High School students and introduce an Industry maintained web page about the latest scams. Once these children have Mobiles they are all potential high end users and as a rule are very chatty between themselves. Get them introduced into using say an Alert Web page, about the latest Scams, with information about what to look for and where. They will do the rest.

Most are on PAYG or controled services of one kind or another which means, that they are acutely aware of their costs and probable their parents as well. I believe it is part of Telstra's Social responsibility to be proactive in informing our users. As much as this might hurt our income it will in the long run boost our reputation and profile. We can't just say it is always the third party's fault as we will be seen as unethical by the general public. Like selling guns to the enemy.

On the subject of plans, most Telco's could do with being honest about mobile plans. The latest marketing tactic is to offer capped plans. Thse plans are complex for the average customer to work out the real per minute charges. A cap plan of say $69 might include $400 of calls.

Ok, so far the customer looks like the winner, but lets look further to the real insidious nature of these plans. If the average customer pays the $69 and uses $69 of calls, the Telco makes a huge profit, as the capped section is really operating as a pseudo pre-paid account. The cost incurred happens at day 1, when the customer starts a new month.

The $69 is billed to the account. That means that call dollars from $69 to $400 have not been used yet, and will be forfeited if you dont use them. If the customer uses the full $400 then they pay exactly for what they get. Use less, and you are pre-paying for calls you have not used.

***example provided by my Telco ***

Plan Cost $69.00
Cap Limit $400.00
Call Rate $0.60 / Min. (if given as per 30 secs, double it).
Call minutes = Cap / Rate = 666.6 minutes.
Cost per minute is total minutes / Cap charge, and in the example from my Telco, if you divide 666.6 minutes by the plan cost of $69, you get about $0.10 per minute. Now this figure is not precise, as you have to factor in flagfall charges which reduce your call minutes, but gives a ball park figure.

If I spend $25 one month, I expect to get the same rate as when I spend $400 in a month, anything else is varying the price on a month to month basis and could easily be seen as misleading or deceptive by a consumer who is unaware of the real per minute cost variations. Under the current rules, one month I could pay $0.40 per minute and the next month $0.10 per minute dependant upon call minutes used.

Sorry, not good enough, deceptive and misleading. No Honest and forthright company should use capped plans unless they explicitly show average call cost per minute based on EACH billng month, so you can see exactly what value you really get, rather than being befuddled by caps and limits which do not relate to your cost per minute of using the service. I expect other Telco's to work it out similarly.

Senator Coonan, hope your reading this and understand the real issue. Either No Caps, or legal requirement to show average call cost on a per month basis per bill. Show the cost, Show the real cost, Show it up front!

Greg, I think that statement is absurd. The plan is outlined in plain english in the contract, and only those who would sign a contract without reading and fully understanding the commitment would have issues with it. I find its akin to the lack of accountability of people to their actions, and makes we wonder if I shuld put a disclaimer outside your front door reading: "Warning. This is the outside world. It is not deemed safe by and as such, we take no responsibilty for loss, damage or other such harm to your person" Of course, you'd probably want to sue someone if the sign faded a year on and you couldnt read it that day and something bad happened..... Lets not turn this place in to the litigious society that is the US of A.

I agree. The best thing to be done to protect consumers is to tell them to read carefully, and ask them if theres anything they dont understand. You can't hold everyone's hand....

I tried to post about a scam which involve Tel$tra itself. This did not get posted. Instead I receieved a call from an external communications manager from Sensis Stephen Ronchi who wanted to investigate my claim. i also received an email from Linda McGregor who wanted my surname to publish that. After quite a number of email requests she called me but refused to give me her number. She stated that TelStra wanted to be able to publish a response to my claim at the same time as publishing my scam. In other words try to do a face saver. Sensis has stolen money from my bank account without my authority on three occasions and I am not even a customer! i have had no responses to emails that I have sent to Sensis. I have attempted to speak to the Financial controller about their lack of checks in their procedures and the fraud potential but have not yet been able to do so. When will the holier than thou stuff stop and when will Tel$tra think about its customers and even non customers that it rips off?

nowwearetalking Editor: For the record, we did receive a posting from Ed Reynolds on 29/5/06 on this issue, written under a pseudonym.  As per our discussion guidelines, we only publish comments under full names and that broadly stick to the feature discussion topic.  We have referred his complaint to Sensis for investigation.  As Ed Reynolds states, we called and emailed him to advise him of our actions. 

We will continue to monitor the progress of the complaint and advise Mr Reynolds accordingly.   Nowwearetalking is happy to forward complaints, but this is not a forum for personal issues.

Telecommunications scams, spam, phishing, pharming, media reports and the theft of my car number plates has convinced me scams, spam and identity theft is affecting the community everywhere.

A lot of these scams and spam originate beyond our shores. Is our government doing enough with foreign governments to put a stop to this? Our government as we all know sets the rules, regulates and is so vocal about Telstra. When is the government going to do more, use its diplomatic channels to Reach every country on earth to stamp this out. We all did with the Y2K bug, now its time to eliminate telecommunications scams and spam and protect our customers.

For Telstra, ISP's, business and government professionals who have stepped into the ring to win against telecommunications scams. It’s an early twenty first century cyber noir, with elements of Netforce and Blade Runner. Use the real website and not the phishing e-mail. Know the real deal and not the scam.

Education is the key to defeat telecommunications scams. Why is it people respond more to phishing e-mail than ones letterbox junk mail? I agree with Stan Milosevic's comments about proactively informing high students as this can span to other internet users being their friends, family and extended family, Our senior citizens who love and use internet just as much as young folk. We have the strength to hold everyone hand and there will be a day on the calendar of your pc and 3G phone where we will defeat this

Passwords should never be entered from the keyboard. The downloaded form (or whatever) should have radomly positioned digits/characters displayed, and the user should use the mouse to select the correct password from this display. This would foil key loggers.

First I would thank Aaron Mead for his comments, its good to see different points of view here. However let me point out one thing. I was formerly a billing officer for a Telstra Premium product. I did all the billing and payments.

From that position I can clearly tell you that Telstra has refunded many thousands of dollars for the very reason that the contract or agreement was too complex for the average customer, Yes even those that read it.

One example was a single phone bill where more than $13000 was waived for this very thing. If it were a simple world and you could read it and be bound by it, fine. But this is not a simple world, and any contract is only enforceable where it is deemed fair and reasonable on both sides.

Language barriers, and particularly customers with poor education background often cannot understand contracts, and sign them because they find these matters too hard to deal with. In court cases (Yes i have been there for the very subject) a magistrate can completely or partially void an agreement or contract if he or she deems it was improperly executed.

Aaron rightly says we cant hold everyones hand, and that is true. But people and companies do owe a duty of care in these matters, and there are an awful lot of people in Australia who dont have good education or comprehension skills. Just because a customer has language or comprehension problems is never an excuse to throw the signed contract back at them. That is simply poor customer service.

I dont care if people agree or disagree with me, but the point is value, honesty, and plain language are strong features of a correctly managed corporate governance system. Ensuring what you do is fair, honest, open and friendly to your customers.