However, I have barely any access to the internet at all, am unsure at time of writing whether my connection is even sufficient to upload this post, and am considering going on an insane massacre of random Telstra employees. Seriously. I happened to run into a Telstra employee at the pub the other night, and it took all my inner restraint to not throw my drink all over him and then ram an olive in his eye. That and I decided that DRINKING the drink would help the whole situation more.
In the posts which I once wrote and then accidentally deleted in a fit of database cleaning, I babbled on about how much Telstra screwed me around when I first moved to the middle of bumfuck. No phone, no internet for over two months. It was hell on Earth, let me tell you. Well, when my phone was FINALLY connected, I swore blind that I would not have my internet connected through Telstra’s ISP, Bigpond, thanks to their propensity for fucking things up and charging exorbitant fees for ridiculously lame connections. So, I went through Internode, and comforted myself with the fact that I would never have any issues, and my internet would always be sweet.
Well.
Telstra own the phone lines. They own all the bloody equipment. Internode merely rent the equipment from Telstra. This is because Telstra own everything in the whole damn country, and there is very little we can do about it. This also means that Telstra are very adept at sneaking their little wormy fingers in there and making a god damn mess of everything that ever was in the whole world.
They dropped my ADSL codes from my line. Fuckers.
Here’s an approximation of the chain of events.
1. “Gee, I wonder why my download speed has dropped to SIX FUCKING BYTES A SECOND. I can’t do jack shit with this! What the hell?!?!” Cursing, swearing, etc.
2. Talk to tech savvy friend, together we go through router settings, etc. No dice. Tech savvy friend says “WTFBBQsauce I have no bloody idea, call Internode”
3. I call Internode. Speak to lovely man, have a lovely chat, they put in a restoration request to Telstra after they notice my codes are missing.
**Please Note: Internode dude very confused as to how I can connect to them at all. None of this makes sense to anyone. Weird.
4. Telstra say “Stuff you biatches, you aren’t getting those codes back on the line”. Internode ask why, Telstra say “PrivacyLOL”, and won’t help any further.
5. Internode get back to me, quote “PrivacyLOL”, and ask me to call Telstra and find out if someone has ninjaed my line by accident and put their codes on there. They apparently can’t do this thanks to “PrivacyLOL” issues… which kinda makes sense, but causes much frustration.
6. I ring Telstra faults. They commiserate, agree that it’s loopy as all hell, but tell me they can’t do diddly squat, and I have to deal with Sales. They also say there’s NO codes on my line, so no one ninjaed me.
7. I call Sales. Sales basically say the phone company equivalent of DIAF, and put me though to Bigpond.
8. I talk to Bigpond. They get irate as soon as I mention my issue, ask me why I am even TALKING to them, I explain that I was put through to them by Sales, and I was directed to Sales by Faults, and I just want some fricking help god damn it! He tries to sell me a Bigpond connection, I get jack of it and hang up.
9. I call Internode back. They reiterate that they can’t do jack shit, and that I have to deal with the nasty little minions that Telstra are. I get mildly frustrated and explain that Telstra are NOT HELPFUL AT ALL. He says he can’t do diddly… again. Thing is, Internode deal only with Telstra Wholesale. I am not allowed to talk to Telstra Wholesale as a consumer, so I have to call Telstra Retail. I have to somehow convince Telstra Retail to put on my notes or whatever that it was not my damn fault that the codes dropped off, so that Telstra Wholesale can look at the notes, see it was not my fault, and reinstate the damn codes. If they don’t do this, I have to pay $120 reconnection fee, which is bullshit.
10. I call Telstra back. I actually get put through to someone helpful, who puts me through to someone else helpful, and then it seems like something is going to get done! He looks at my account, says ‘yep, you are right, you haven’t done anything wrong at ALL!’ and says he will put this down on my account notes. Hope Springs Eternal!
11. I call Internode back, say ‘Huzzah, success!!’. They are happy too. The world is a happy shiny place.
12. Three days later. I get an SMS from Internode saying ‘Restoration denied by Telstra’. WHAT. THE. FUCK. I call Internode, surprise surprise, I have to ‘Call Telstra’
13. Since I am now FUMING mad… I call the Ombudsman. They put through a complaint, and give me the head of technical support at Internode’s number.
14. I call the tech support dude. He says they can’t fix it, it’s a Telstra issue, and the best thing to do is to pay the $120 fee, then get Telstra to pay me back. He says to call the Ombudsman back and say this is what I have done.
15. I pay $120. Apparently my net will be fixed in 5 days.
16. I call the Ombudsman back. I tell them everything that has happened, they say that’s not right, and they elevate the issue to an investigation. That will take 6-8 weeks to even start.
I want my $120 back. I want internet that fucking works. I have a god damn gaming addiction that needs feeding damn it! Hell, I can’t even get on Facebook properly!
… I so hate the world right now. Or at least the technical side of it.
