My complaint was passed by the International Roaming Customer Experience Manager to their Customer Resolution Team.
Today, in her reply, she said: 1. Calls diverted to voicemail, while the phone is off, is not chargeable. She said in my instance, numerous calls were diverted but not charged.
2. The ones that I was charged for, she said, must have occured while my phone is on. She said "These calls may have been hung up on, or the phone selected ?busy? or ?ignore? or ?reject call? or some other setting your phone may have. We are not implying that you are trying to mislead us, however as you yourself have confirmed the phone was turned on at some stage while overseas to check your messages, this was when these calls were made to your phone, and therefore the charge occurred."
The funny thing is, the amount charged that she talked today, is different from the one previously - clearly the right hand not talking to the left hand. She kept on talking about how as a goodwill, Telecom has refunded my charges.
I have replied her that I do NOT want her goodwill, I do NOT need her goodwill. I have made it clear in strongest terms that her comments that the calls reached my phone when my phone is off, despite me denying it ever happened, as highly offensive.
I have given her the following demands: 1. To acknowledge that it was Telecom's fault, or the Telecom's Overseas Partner's fault - and in no way was it mine. 2. And I want her to retract any reference to 'Goodwill', that the money refunded was rightfully mine. In fact, it was my goodwill that I have not demanded compensation for my time/energy lost in pursuing this matter.
Anything less than the above, I would refer this to the TDR/Disputes Tribunal/Commerce Commision.
I have a strong dislike for people who do not acknowledge their own faults/mistakes - let's see what they reply.
I guess from your post we can now make the assumption that Telecom Policy is to charge for voicemail desposits while roaming if the handset is turned on? Maybe Peter can clarify this, because I'll have to change my blog post if policy has now changed.
Thank you Plambrechtsen. I hope you are also helping AJobbins with his problem of a similar nature; including reimbursing his costs.
SBiddle: I am not sure - by the way their Telecom Roaming people, changing from one tune (that once you are abroad, our system KNOWS you are abroad and you are therefore going to be on international rates) to the current tune; I do not know how much more they are going to oscillate/flicker.
I think the best thing you can do right now is just chill out and wait to hear back. You haven't been left out of pocket, and talk of taking things to the TDR seems rather frivolous.
The people at Telecom who need to know about this do, and if it is something as simple as a random billing issue (which is seems to be) then it clearly takes time to test and retest things to see exactly where the issue lies.
sbiddle: I think the best thing you can do right now is just chill out and wait to hear back. You haven't been left out of pocket, and talk of taking things to the TDR seems rather frivolous.
The people at Telecom who need to know about this do, and if it is something as simple as a random billing issue (which is seems to be) then it clearly takes time to test and retest things to see exactly where the issue lies.
The real frustration is that, among the Telecom guys, other than plambrechtsen who is checking the issue, their Customer Service/Complaints Resolution people are still adamant that Telecom is right - they insist that the problem lies with my end and not theirs, that somehow I left my phone on, that the voicemail diverts occured while my phone is on and I am therefore rightly charged.
Do not forget that this is not my final trip abroad, I will still be making numerous trips in the near future.
Yes, I am not out of pocket, but there are issues regarding principle, as well as the fact that I do not want the same inconvenience in my next trip abroad.
The time when their Customer Services Team/Complaints Team becomes open to the fact that an error may be present on their end, it is the time when they can start finding the real solution, instead of just throwing money on people and claiming 'goodwill' etc, making the right and the wrong completely opposite.
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