As I sit here and write this I am ready to kill someone, something, anything. Figuratively of course.
I have been dealing with Telstra all day and I have to say this has been one of the few days where my British upbringing of never expressing dissatisfaction has completely abandoned me.
My big mistake, and I agree there is a fair amount of hindsight here, was signing up with a business plan with Telstra. That is not to say that, to date at least, I have had very little to complain about. The reception has been good, the service fast and reliable. The only time I have ever felt blood starting to bubble was whenever I tried to use their support either over the phone or in person. Like today. And in spades. No, not spades, spade loads are too small. Let’s say in dump truck loads of bile and confusion and frustration, the kind of frustration that makes you want to detonate a hand grenade inside your own mouth to make it all go away.
I won’t make this any more tedious than it needs to be, needless to say a Telstra Business plan is not, currently, able to be linked to the new Apple Watch with LTE. Consumer plans, sure, but a business plan… no.
When I asked the dead eyed, sneeringly disinterested meat puppet behind the service desk what they were going to do to fix this issue I was given several different options, all of which contradicted each other as soon as we scratched beneath the surface of the brochure.
“Yes, you can move your business account to a private account. Just fill in these forms”
“What about all my services and conditions.”
“All the current plans are the same between business and private.”
“So what is the advantage of being on a business plan?”
A shrug of the shoulder and something glib about business really being for businesses that have lots of phones. So I guess my “small” business isn’t really a business.
So, I filled in the paperwork and and handed it in and I was told to sit down and wait for someone else to service me but before I did I made the point to ask again… “this will happen straight away and all my current services will be ported.”
“Yes”
But one scratch on the surface later and “no” it wasn’t going to happen today and “no” your services will not be ported over and in fact you’ll need to move to a new plan.
“But I don’t want a new phone yet… I will need a new phone in December but not now.”
Another shrug of the shoulder. Then a light bulb. “If we fax the paperwork over they can put you on a week to week account and then you’ll be able to pick a new phone when you are ready.”
“Great” says I.
“Ok, but it will take 16 days to process.” Says disinterested Android #2, forgetting. – which is most unlike an Android – that I have just finished saying I need this done today.
Honestly, this could go on for hours, it certainly did for me, but at the end of the day this is what Telstra was offering a business client in 2017.
So it came down to a) wait until – God knows when – for Telstra business to support the Apple Watch S3 or b) sign up for a new contract with a new phone and be locked into it for two years even though you don’t need or want a new phone until December.
A few phone calls later have seen yet another story and yet another possibility come to light that I will explore when I feel like I can unclench my teeth and speak in a fashion that might be understood.
My local Telstra store didn’t give a rats nostril about my plight and never once tried to find a workable or creative solution to the problem. They had a price list and set of guidelines and, like lemmings, followed it right to the edge. And all of this is in the face of me being able to simply wait until the 11th (when my contract expires) and then go to an Optus Sim only plan which is month to month and then deciding on a phone in December.
My hope was to have, by now, written an article explaining how good the new watch is on LTE. But I can’t because Telstra don’t care.
So I will leave you with this thought… If you are thinking of buying a new Apple Watch and you have a business plan with Telstra… wait or better still, go elsewhere.
