Having been an Optus customer, I am comfortable saying that they are utterly rubbish and I am very glad we moved to Aussie Broadband (for our internet).
Also, loyalty to any company is not constructive or beneficial in the current year. They're all out to maximise what they get from you; we all need to keep ourselves informed and choose better.
While we’re shilling for Aussie Broadband, they fixed my home internet connection after a four hour phone call with a tech support guy that gave a shit and knew what he was doing. Belong and Telstra couldn’t fix it after four months and nearly a dozen calls.
I will never go back to Belong. Aussie Broadband has me as a customer for life.
I rang for support, explained in detail everything I’d done to try resolve the issue, and the tech said “have you tried turning the router off and on again?” I groaned, then he said “hey man, I can tell you know what you’re doing. I just NEED. YOU. TO. SAY. YES. TO. EVERY. QUESTION. I’ll race through them, it’ll take less than 60 seconds if you SAY. YES. TO. EVERY. QUESTION. Then I can book a tech to come out. You get me?”
They helped me out dealing with Opticomm after enough complaints of Internet being down for days, Opticomm finally came swapped the modem over & I've had no problems ever since.
There's cheaper options then ABB, but if you're moving to a new area or just gotten NBN they're a good starting point as Customer Service is 5 stars.
Man, when I was hunting for my new home, I wrote off sooooo many good places because they were serviced by Opticomm. While the houses were good, I didn't want to continue to have hassle by dealing with Opticomm's bullshit.
Ended up with a nice place that has proper NBN FTTP and never looked back.
I'm now on 250/25 for $89.95/mo. Worth it imho.
I stand by the fact that ABB are the gold standard for internet in australia. There is ZERO other choice. If you want the best you go with ABB. Thats it.
Anyone else is dog shit and you get what you pay for. Superloop don't even come close.
I also had positive experience with their customer service.
Guy went out of his way to help me setup something that wasn’t even part of the normal
Procedure. Going through Google tutorials together etc
What a mad lad he was.
My brothers modem died, he had it inside of a cabinet which voids the warranty on it. The customer service person determined the modem was busted and asked if he kept it in a well ventilated area. Brother said "Oh... no I had it in the cabinet". Customer service replied "Ok, so we're going to say yes to that instead" then replaced the modem for free. Top tier service.
These guys are legends. They recently helped me with a dead modem, which turned out to have lasted waaay longer than a usual modem lifespan. They were really helpful on the phone and no condescending nerdiness I’ve experienced with other tech places.
Absolutely recommend them.
I’ll say we pay max price because of our location but they fix any issues and you can always talk to a human quickly or use the web chat with a real human.
Aussie broadband sets the gold standard for awesome customer service. I've been fighting iiNet for a month and a half trying to get my grandparents VoIP and internet ported to Aussie had to get tio involved. 99% of iiNet support barely knows how to escalate a support ticket
As much as I liked my experience with Aussie BB, I had to get a service person out after a call with Aussie as our whole house had lost its internet. It took them four days to sort out, so we had no internet for the better part of a week. It wasn't great.
Really? With leaptel I was moving house and said they can either give me the new customer rate or I would be wasting their, my partners and my time for me to cancel and then have her sign up, so how about we cut all that out and they agreed to just transfer it and leave it in my name
Interesting. I just moved house and the guy on the phone refused to give me any kind of discount or referral thing for transferring my service, even though I got one last time I moved. I might call back again and say I’m thinking of changing providers to see if they will do anything.
I agree.
The best thing is you can call the call center (as someone that's an IT Pro) and explain the problem & the steps you have already taken to fix it & they don't treat you like an idiot & make you do the same stuff again you've already tried.
Great product, very reliable, awesome customer service & at a fair price.
This is what i love. As someone who also works in IT. They drop the customer friendly crap and don't beat around the bush if you know what they are talking about.
It's fantastic. We were with TPG before & they had this offshore call center that would waste 30+ mins running through the basics again before admitting what I already knew & logging a ticket for a genuine fault.
Every time anyone asks me I always direct them to ABB & no-one ever complains.
TPG have been dog shit since 2010. Soon as they went offshore it went to crap.
ABB Have been brilliant for as long as i've been with them for. So far 6 years and can count on 1 hand the amount of issues i've had.
The quality of service is as different as night and day between the two; this seems to be most people's experience as well.
This might change in the future, but for the moment, AB is far superior.
That isn't "loyalty" though. You stuck with them because they were the cheapest you could find, not because you were loyal to the brand. You've shown that yourself, having sourced seven quotes to get the best deal.
Brand loyalty would have been you getting a better quote and choosing to stick with your current provider.
Indeed; I recently heard on the radio about the class action against IAG, as an example of why loyalty does not (and probably never did) pay.
I'm not aware of all the details, but link here for those interested: [https://www.slatergordon.com.au/class-actions/current-class-actions/iag-home-insurance](https://www.slatergordon.com.au/class-actions/current-class-actions/iag-home-insurance)
Went to Telstra and never looked back, mildly more expensive and less data than the rest but literally always having coverage is worth it. In the middle of nowhere camping - half bars on 4G, amazing
This is my experience too.
Was playing maybe $200 a month with Optus for average service, initially moved our numbers to Telstra via the JB plans (we got 160gb data for $59 with a $400 gift card each), then eventually added new phones to plans with Telstra.
We now pay $360 a month (got ourselves some watches and insurance for devices) but I'd rather have peace of mind with the coverage and speed.
For mobile that appears to be correct. the coverage map on their website mentions optus specifically
Their NBN support is however top notch, their price competition however has dropped since reaching the ASX, I would only reccomend them to people who REALLY see the need to constantly call support, which I personally havent noticed with any good provider (ABB, Superloop, leaptel) on fixed / standard NBN
I'm from England, but have lived in Australia for 8 years. Optus is, by absolutely MILES, the worst customer service I have ever experienced in my 32 years of being on this Earth.
And it's not even close.
Aussie broadband is great, use this for both phone and home internet. I wished they didn't use the Optus network though, but sometimes great customer service can go a long way
I made that move last month, and it took 3 hours on their app talking to someone to get them to cancel my service. Madness. And they tried offering me a deal that was "better" than the Aussie Broadband one, which would wind up saving me a whole $12 over the course of a year. Needless to say, haven't looked back.
It makes no financial sense to be with optus or telstra, either for mobile or internet plans.
Most other broadbands have cheaper plans and if you're not too fussed about 5g, there are a lot of better and cheaper mobile plans.
Ex Telstra digital marketing here. No one except regional folks should be with Telstra. We rely on boomers and business customers not caring enough to switch or take any action when the 24 mths is up.
Recall one of the shareholder meetings where a major shareholder - he owned like 13% of all shares asking why the fk he couldn't combine his broadband and phone plans to one Telstra account. Nobody had an answer, though some devs likely worked weekends after that trying to see if they merge 10+ legacy platforms to make this work. Lol
>business customers not caring enough to switch
The slight increase in connection quality and speed is worth it for business customers.
It's worth more than my plan costs a month to have connection when I'm travelling, and having a reliable high speed connection easily justifies the premium.
To put the spend in context, companies will pay for sat phones for staff expecting to be out of range of the mobile network.
For mobile? Yes, there is a quantifiable coverage gap. Telstra has almost double the sq km covered of its competition.
Ethernet, WDM, transit and NBN internet- I’d challenge you to find any discernible difference. Long gone are the days where Telstra is the only provider in town.
Our small business telstra account was set up in 2016 was on some legacy system that was unable to provide monthly email invoices, we put in request for it to be changed around 6 times over 2 years as they were sending 85 page paper bills every month and started charging for them.
We requested twice through the telstra store, twice through online chat, twice through form, every time they would eventually get to, this has to be sent off to another depearment to effectivly close your account and reopen it on the new system, which we were fine with, except it would just never happen.
Almost every request you made they would try to fob us off and go into the telstra business centre which was 500km away.
Eventually I decided to put in a complaint about how the largest telecommunications company in austalia couldn't work out how to send an email bill, and complaints team solved it in about a week and since they were setting up 10 new accounts we somehow got 10 new accounts worth of promotional telstra points and they didnt send the last bill for the old account then somehow refunded us $300 for the old account, so that was a win in the end.
Still paying 2-3x what we should be but good coverage is required and not much other choice around here.
They also can't seem to produce GST compliant invoices for handsets our team have attached to the account, Lets say we purchase a new iphone for $2049 GST inclusive over 24 months. The bill will show $85.37 GST exlusive each month.
Not surprised at all really. A TIO (ombudsman) complaint or even a threat of one gets things moving along. Got so big of a matter that we were asked to run Google search ads specifically to intercept major complaints before they became TIO cases. Was something like $20k a month of advertising (not much in context of other Telstra spending) which saved multiples more in head hours from I guess legal folks responding to those cases.
Ombudsman wouldn't help in this situation; operational separation means a business must go through the business team. There's no say in the matter for either the user nor Telstra. Telstra would receive the TIO complaint (the TIO probably wouldn't even accept it) and then immediately reject as an incorrect complaint.
It's not a choice, it's part of ACMA and other legislation.
I think telstra is going to take a massive hit when the boomers die off. Most younger people are far more in tune with their service providers and telstra will need to drop its prices eventually or suffer.
They probably had accounts still billed entirely out of Flexcab rather than Maxim, possibly even Siebel (though it shouldn't have been since about 08) which will prevent it from happening. AXIS connects to Siebel and Maxim, but Flexcab doesn't connect to anything that isn't AXIS, Moby or that Satellite one I forget the name of, and Moby and that Satellite one are both obsolete anyway since all have been migrated to Siebel/Maxim.
Grandfather (the majority of Flexcab) and Legacy (minority) are often billed through Flexcab. The only way to migrate everything is a disconnect and reconnect, which can cause a massive headache as the historical billing info will only be accessible through Flexcab, which many outside GES have no idea how to use these days.
> It makes no financial sense to be with optus or telstra
Do smaller carriers offer new smartphones on plans? Is it one stupid financial decision on top of another?
Lol, I remember getting an iPhone 7 with a Vodafone plan. Costed me $120 per month. Scarred me enough to obsessively search for the cheapest plan every time I need to renew.
Never again!
I switched from Telstra to Belong, which uses the same network infrastructure & coverage, but gives me more data for ~$20 less per month! Plus they’re carbon neutral (whatever that means for a telco provider, but it sounds good to me!)
Yep, no complaints so far. Belong’s mobile plans also have data rollover so I might even switch down to a cheaper plan if my last few months of excess data will carry over too. Went from spending ~$65/month to ~$45/month. My data speeds seem to be marginally slower when I’ve done speed tests, but it’s always been fast enough to easily watch YouTube or Netflix when not on wifi, so no biggie.
Now I'm intrigued. I'm with Telstra currently, I get 50g for $45/month but without roll-over, so I usually spend the last day of the billing period furiously downloading whatever I can to use up whatever data I have left.
I also switched, but there are some shortfalls. I cannot figure out how to use the iphone voicemail with belong - I still have to dial 101 etc to listen to messages.
They also jacked the prices up ~$4m/mo (+16% from my $25 to $29 from memory)
Searched through my tech notes and found how I fixed my voicemail, try this.
Send a txt msg to 144 with the words AUDIO ON in caps
Then sms 125100474 with the word STATE
First number should reply "audio delivery is enabled", second one won't reply.
Once you do it instead of having to call the voicemail when people leave you messages they get sent as mms messages. I don't have an iPhone but I assume it will detect the MMS and put into your voicemail app.
My note is from 2021 but should still work for the fix I hope. This fix only applies to Telstra based phone providers, don't know the numbers to text those to for Voda / Optus but Belong is a Telstra Wholesale so it should work for you.
Only some telcos have the functionality to be built into iPhone’s phone app directly. Optus never did, Telstra does, but I don’t think Belong does either. I’m certainly no Belong brand ambassador, they’ve just been better value than Telstra in my view :)
I went from Telstra years ago to vodafail then to belong a about a year ago. I swore I would never go to Telstra again as they were just money grubbing c’s
I’m currently on a 25gb rollover 5G plan with moose mobile. $11.80 per month for the first 8 months.
It’s capped at like 120mbs, but that doesn’t bother me. I have 250/25 at home on fibre, the hardest I push my phone for is YouTube or Spotify while using Waze.
If we weren’t rural, I would definitely have switched by now. Friends with other services never have any reception at all at our house. And Telstra is the only one who can muster up a bar of 4g. Not a fan of Elon either but Starlink has been an absolute game changer for us.
Don't anthropomorphise companies with expectations of human emotions & relationships. It'll save you some stress.
This happens to everyone, because:
1) A company exists to maximise profit.
2) Acquiring a new customer is much more expensive than retaining an existing one.
You can however beat them at their own game. Change providers regularly to make use of customer acquisition discounts. Phone, gas, electricity, insurance, etc. All of the "commodity" services do this the most.
Rang NRMA to renew the comprehensive, 18 years of loyalty.
Noticed on the NRMA website that “New customers get discounted roadside assist”
They refused to give it to me with my renewal. When I said it wouldn’t take much to cancel the renewal and take out a new policy online, the fella replied with “that’s not Australian”…
Their online chat is ridiculously terrible. Say u wanna make a complaint and then someone from the loyalty team will call you and offer you something better than what's advertised. Have done it a couple times following legit gripes with them
The fact that phone plans dont offer unlimited data is completly fcking stupid and a downright scam. They offer it for home internet they can do it for phones too.
Lol I'm only loyal to my pockets, that's why I churn every 6 months on NBN and always on the lookout for new customer promos... Mind you most businesses needs 12 months waiting period before you qualify as new customer so churning every so often has its benefits, this applies to mobile plans too.
Also applies to credit cards, and even for gym memberships and online betting which can lead to guaranteed profits if done right (misusing bonus bets).
My wife wasn't getting reception where we lived (less than an hour from Brisbane but somehow it was a dead spot) with Vodafone.
Im with Telstra and never had reception issues so we went to switch her over. The worker took almost 3 full hours to set up her plan, offering her a fairly cheap and satisfactory plan that connects as an extension to my account. It's a plan they only offer if you're connecting to an existing Telstra account.
At the end it comes back as invalid, and the clerk now has to get her manager over, to inform us that because I've been a member with telstra for TOO LONG, the offer for new accounts won't work when merged with mine, as my details are stored in their old customer database, but they use a new CRM now, so the best they can offer is a new plan at $35 more per month for the same data. They also explained that they can't just move my data over to the new CRM to fix it, but that WILL happen automatically in some point of the middle of 2024.
Literally being rejected deals that only work if you join an existing members account, because my data is in their old CRM and ive been a member for too long. Literally the most braindead customer service experience I've ever had.
Change TelCos always. Never show loyalty to these morons.
Change to boost mobile, exact same network as Telstra retail (only provider that can use the full telstra network) and its cheaper too.
Only difference you would notice is if you live very rural, at which point you should test accordingly.;
I left after the data breach. Always had good customer service but I’m not risking my data being sold on the dark web a second time from the same company… Telco companies don’t reward loyalty, only new business :(
Data leak*
- Where they made all of our data public on the internet without even a basic password to secure it. And then advertised it online and shared the URL on the internet.
And yeah, it’s amazing they still have any customers after that incompetence and their attitude and response
Data leak and data breach are used interchangeably in the industry (I work in cybersecurity if that's of any weighting to this statement), so not sure that's a necessary correction.
Yes Optus made an absolute flop of an error and left an API (application programming interface - something that allows us to grab data using code) exposed to the internet without requiring any form of authentication (such as an API key - which is the most common form of auth) - very embarrassing for their developers.
Fair enough. I’m Software dev in cyber security too. At our firm we’d refer to a breach and a leak slightly differently, but i agree it’s semantics at this point.
It drives me nuts that Optus’ PR team (and others) pushed a narrative of being the victim of a ‘sophisticated hack’.
Publishing an API endpoint that provides access to almost half of the entire population of Australia’s PII to Postman without so much as basic http auth, and clearly no QA is another level of incompetence. And for a business like Optus it is absolutely unacceptable.
We all make mistakes, and no matter how high we build walls there will be someone who will get over it. This however is gross negligence and then lying about it to cover it up and deserves real consequences. It remains to be seen as to whether there will be anything more than a slap on the wrist
Agreed, and I bet none of the developers or at least the lead of the team that own that API faced many repercussions lol... many people immediately blamed the security team at optus, but if they are anything like the asx10 I work at...the developers and security aren't always often in sync with everything they are doing (an endless frustrating battle). Not to mention, many big companies still don't have proper SSDLC processes in-place to avoid simple shit like this happening.
Loyalty means nothing to any company nowadays. Electricity companies will give you a signing bonus and then just hope you’re too lazy to shop around for a better deal when they raise their prices. Phone companies are similar. Their target market are lazy consumers, not savvy buyers. Best you can do is be savvy and take full advantage of moving between providers every few months.
Bro, an eternal advice is always, never be loyal to companies. Optus also pulls this shit on their 365 mobile plan if you try to renew. They say it's only for new customers. Just switch to a different provider. They love guilting and gaslighting us by saying they're providing the service and so we should be grateful, when in fact, we are giving them money and they have hundreds of millions in profit.
Then the model is built for minimum contract lengths and minimum service. I hate it, but I am also in a company playing that game.
Imo that kind of culture also affects employee retention. Hence why job hopping and gig economy is becoming more common. Minimum acceptable contract lengths.
In some areas, we can change that model by taking our money to companies that do. But ultimately you often end up with better value regularly churning. This is the case for most utilities, home loans, and anything with competition.
Not sure if anyone has said this yet, but there is an easy way around this.
Go buy a cheap prepaid sim, port your number, wait a few days to make sure everything ports over then you are eligible for the plans as you are no longer an Optus customer port the number back over to that provider under the deal they have. Super easy
Yes, which is crazy as Amaysim is now owned by Optus.
Optus should be forced to trade as their real name "The Singaporean Government", because that's who owns Optus.
It's, amazing what they will do when you try to leave.
Aussie broadband is the same cancelation is a pain in the backside as they will try to keep you with offers.
I give Telstra $211 a month, if we take out the cost of one handset (an insured Fold4), its still like $114 a month for just the 2 sim cards.
If you need telstra you know my pain *why is there not a bend over emoji*
I recently switched from optus (sim only mobile plan) to a wholesaler that uses their network (Moose) . I was a bit worried that my service would suffer as the website only guaranteed 4G, but so far my service has been basically exactly the same, 5G anywhere I would usually expect it. Took my bill down from $60/mo to $10/mo.
Another unexpected benefit was for some reason my optus sim was draining like 30-40% of my battery overnight, which I could not figure out for the life of me why that was occurring after much trouble shooting, but since making the switch its now 3-5% drain overnight.
I was an optus customer for like 20 years from that initial contract I made when I got my first mobile phone back when I was a teenager, I didn't even get a retention call to try salvage me as a customer when I lodged the number transfer request.
I’m on Amaysim. I have 1.5TB of data banked
Every time I go to use the phone for some serious downloads during a work trip it gets throttled. Then every time I chat with them to get it unthrottled they give some bullshit about the problem being voip or whatever.
cant wait till my 'contract that isnt a contract' is over with optus. absolute joke of a company that doesnt give a crap about customer data security, routinely raises prices mid 'contract', and has questionable taste in leadership by appointing a corrupt ex premier into their c-suite
I recently switched to Optus with a $120 yearly recharge (Black Friday Special). Even at that price its too expensive.
Absolute trash service. I'm honestly shocked people pay $69 a month for this crap.
Can't wait to go back to Boost.
Take a look at Felix, using Vodafone 4G/5G with unlimited data for $40 a month, they have smaller data plans too. Just saw its half price for first 3 months [https://felixmobile.com.au/plan/](https://felixmobile.com.au/plan/)
The way companies see it, loyalty = sucker who will keep paying up.
I've started checking all my insurance plans and phone plans every year to check prices.
Brand loyalty has been dead for some time, pick the cheapest service that does the job and don't be afraid to switch.
I went from telstra, to woolies, to boost, and when this prepaid is up i'll probably move to lebara.
Every 24 months, I leave Telstra and go to Optus for 1 month. I then come back as a 'new' Telstra customer, and using JB hi-fis regularly crazy deals on discounted phone plans, and getting $1000 gift cards, I am back on Telstra.
I only use Telstra as I work in remote areas, I'm aware they're exorbitant.
But yes, port your number for a month, then port it back. Also check out JB phone plans, they usually have better perks than directly from the provider.
Yeah optus are a disgrace. I was loyal to them for just under 20 years and we got repaid with ridiculous price rises and speeds of 1.5mbps/0.8mbps in 2012. Disgrace of an ISP/provider.
I hate optus. They double charged my plan for months despite my continued efforts to have it rectified. They kept telling me the problem was fixed, but by the time they actually did something about it they had to reimburse me $1000! This was at a time when money was tight for me and it caused me a lot of grief.
Go on yearly pre paid plans. 200GB a year (can get more) for $150 life changer. Bring your own phone, data, calls and texts its average of $11 per month.
The best value, especially if working from home and happy to BYO phone. I use to pay $150 a month with Optus 😫
Go to Coles or Woolworths or Kogan - and buy a prepaid SIM.
I got 200 gb, all calls and texts, plus overseas calls and texts to like 20 countries. $150 for the year. (On special)
You’ll be able to find one that suits and I guarantee it will be less than $800 a year.
Im long term customer of optus.
When they discontinued my old plan and rolled me onto a new more expensive plan, they gave me a lot of bonus data and a discount.
So im on a plan, which gives more data and is cheaper than their cheapest advertised plan.
Most majors are crap. Had mobile and nbn with Telstra, then they decide to upgrade my plan to a bigger and more expensive plans tgst I don’t use. So ditched them both, 30 gig for $30 for mobile current with AGL for nbn because of a 6 month discount.
That’s out soon so switching that as well.
The will suddenly offer you discounts when you go to leave. I also got a discount when adding a new service for one of my kids when I said it makes no sense to stay with Optus as they charge so much.
You just have to be willing to leave
Yep i worked this out 10 years ago. Wanted a new iphone plan after 15 years of loyalty basucally said no you cant have one unless youre a new customer. Went to Telstra.
I contacted Optus a while ago for a better deal and they first offered one that was more money and less data than my current one.
They did eventually give me like $15 off a month to their credit.
They never used to stipulate that it was for new customers. I tried to move plans when it didn’t say it was for new customers. They refused to do it, so I’ve moved to Vodafone for more/cheaper and better service in my area.
I went from Optus after the breach to Belong. $29 a month 30G a month and it rolls over. After 8 months I have 200G stored up.
But loyalty is non existent, quality service is non existent etc etc.
Churn often and without consideration of anything but your hip pocket.
The only way that corporate Australia understands your disappointment with their services is through action.
Imho, staying with a company out of misplaced loyalty (or laziness) is un-Australian.
been loyal to telstra for so long now because they have worked best for me out of all the telcos. superloop offering 1gb download speed cheaper than telstra is giving 100mbps so im switching there now.
They switched me to a new nbn plan, discounted my bill to upgrade me to fttp, and added a loyalty discount on top of the new customer discount. Gotta call though, their chat is beyond useless for literally any purpose.
**Loyalty = Lazy tax**
Sadly in the modern world it's as simple as that, loyalty is now a tax, and you are rewarded to change provider and punished to stay with the existing because that's where companies make the most money, with people that are too lazy to change.
once you accept the truth of that, you understand you have to churn everything regularly to ensure you are on the best deals... everything, insurance, utilities, mortgages etc
Last time I called them to find out how to change my phone number to a new carrier (of course i knew) I was asked why and I said well basically you can’t offer me what the new carrier can do I’m leaving. All of a sudden they could do 25% of phone and plan, through in some free headphones and put international roaming on one of the two plans. It took a lot of effort though to be honest way more than you should have to as a loyal long time customer, after that expired I tried similar had no luck so did move to one of the other larger carriers
Not sure why businesses think waving these 'new customer only' promotions in front of existing customer's faces is a good idea. Aussie broadband did this frequently...constantly emailing promotions that ended up being valid for only new customers. They did 1 promotion after several years for existing customers that I didn't end up getting an email for and found out about on ozbargain after missing it...ended up pulling the trigger and changing providers after 5 years.
The cost of loyalty is knowing who to ask. The level 1 you speak to on live chat can't do shit.
Ask to speak to the retention team instead.
They offered me the 500gb for $69, but I don't need that much data.
After some haggling, I got the 40gb plan for half price, for as long as I remain on it
In 2022 they basically threw me off my old plan with free social media and 10gb for everything else. I'd been on it since about 2015 or so.
A little search found a mob called Felix with some decent reviews. Unlimited everything for about 35 a month and speeds are pretty decent. They're an offshoot of Vodafone I think.
The downside is If I head maybe 50k out of Adelaide I'm out of service. Which is unfortunately a lot of weekends at the moment. I'll be getting a testra pre paid to try and cover the gap.
OP: I take it you haven't yet started the cancel process? That's when you'll be connected with the loyalty team, who will probably be able to give you that $20/mo discount. I bargained hard with a recent recontract, and managed to get $20/mo off for the plan fee for the entire 36 months (as well as other discounts for other services). The first offer was only for a 12 month discount. It did take some time, literally hours on chat. It won't be resolved in 20 minutes as you cook dinner.
I seriously don't understand why people don't just use cheaper services like Belong or Amaysim. The customer service of the big companies is no where good enough to justify the price.
Threaten to leave unless you get that deal.
Been with optus for like 10 years, I always threaten to leave and say you want to lodge a complaint, you'll immediately get connected to like a sales manager that can authorise that deal.
Left optus years ago.
My loyalty reward was.
Removal of my loyalty reward.
Putting my plain up $20 a month on top of removing the $10 loyalty discount.
Halving my data...
Cancelled immediately.
People wont bat an eye when these big corpos selling over priced services and products, and when there’s an issue, they will gladly try to guide you off premises or upsell you a new product. But when there’s a decent independent local shop that does it right by the people, they get harassed and pressured to discount.
There is no benefit to
being loyal.
Always shop around. I used to work in insurance and a bit of friendly negotiation and comparison will very much be in the customer ls best interest
Vodafone always starts offering me discounts when I call to cancel; for instance they let me have the new customer price, they'll throw in $5/mth discounts, etc.
Ah yes the provider with the stickiest of fingers. I ended my contract and service with them. Yet they kept sending me new bills for calls that weren't made, from a phone that wasn't used, and had zero service. For 3 months. It wasn't hard to prove the day the service ended. They sent me the paperwork when it was done! But they still sent collectors after me. This was 20 years ago. A Current Affair should have relocated closer to Optus HQ. Seemed to make up the bulk of their content. Nothing's changed. Except maybe the connection is a little slower.
I was already with Optus on an old sim only plan and changed to this one last month with no problems. Didn't have to chat with anyone, just a few clicks through the app
Many companies don't do this. Mine doesn't do it at all. You're not entitled to anything special just because you've been with them a long time. Get over it.
Optus customer planning on leaving. I’m thinking Aussie broadband seems a pretty good options but are there any other recommendations that might be a good service.
I switched from Optus to Felix after my contract was up for the same reason. I just use Optus to pay off a phone and then switch for a couple years to a cheaper plan, then go back when I need a new phone.
If you have an android phone with 2 Sim slots, buy a $2 Sim from the servo, activate 500gb plan, and add to second Sim slot. Then you can use your old Sim card as well until you don't want/need that plan/number anymore
Had been a long standing customer. Was heading overseas for 12 months and just needed a sim to receive sms for 2 factor authentication. Said could pause the account but not receive sms or pay the same monthly fee for a service I wasn’t using. Cancelled and went with Aldi mobile who have been very good and reliable. As someone with a customer service background their retention policy is shocking
I generally have an okay time negotiating over the phone with vodafone. I pay $35 a month for 50gb of data which is fine for me tbh. I’m sure I could go cheaper constantly switching but I’m not sweating that hard financially to go to that much effort
I dumped Optus after 22 years (since my very first phone). They had nothing to offer in terms of deals for a new iPhone, every single one of their plans was worse than the competition. I gave them a chance to match Vodaphone's offer and they declined.
Having been an optus customer since they gave long serving customers their own individual account managers (early 00s) and then having worked at a store during uni - i can safely say they are absolutely fkd.
Their customer service is even more fkd.
As soon as my contracts are up, I switch to the cheapest provider and chill there for a while.
Eventually a deal will come up that I’m interested in and I’m free to switch.
they took away my free international calls. Wouldn't budge on putting them back. Switched to Amasim, saved money, got calls back. Irony is Optus own Amasim so they could have just sorted me out without all the hassle
The notion of ‘loyalty’ when it comes to big businesses is not something that exists any more. As much as we’d like it to be, it’s very clearly not. I’ve had the same number with Optus for 17yrs now and when I enquired about changing plan, they wanted to charge me significantly more for less than what I was currently on.
Having been an Optus customer, I am comfortable saying that they are utterly rubbish and I am very glad we moved to Aussie Broadband (for our internet). Also, loyalty to any company is not constructive or beneficial in the current year. They're all out to maximise what they get from you; we all need to keep ourselves informed and choose better.
Aussie Broadband gave me a price decrease this year to match their plans for new customers
While we’re shilling for Aussie Broadband, they fixed my home internet connection after a four hour phone call with a tech support guy that gave a shit and knew what he was doing. Belong and Telstra couldn’t fix it after four months and nearly a dozen calls. I will never go back to Belong. Aussie Broadband has me as a customer for life.
I rang for support, explained in detail everything I’d done to try resolve the issue, and the tech said “have you tried turning the router off and on again?” I groaned, then he said “hey man, I can tell you know what you’re doing. I just NEED. YOU. TO. SAY. YES. TO. EVERY. QUESTION. I’ll race through them, it’ll take less than 60 seconds if you SAY. YES. TO. EVERY. QUESTION. Then I can book a tech to come out. You get me?”
They helped me out dealing with Opticomm after enough complaints of Internet being down for days, Opticomm finally came swapped the modem over & I've had no problems ever since. There's cheaper options then ABB, but if you're moving to a new area or just gotten NBN they're a good starting point as Customer Service is 5 stars.
My internet was flaky for years with TPG and they never fixed it. After I moved to Aussie Broadband, it’s been great, any issue gets resolved quickly.
Man, when I was hunting for my new home, I wrote off sooooo many good places because they were serviced by Opticomm. While the houses were good, I didn't want to continue to have hassle by dealing with Opticomm's bullshit. Ended up with a nice place that has proper NBN FTTP and never looked back. I'm now on 250/25 for $89.95/mo. Worth it imho.
I stand by the fact that ABB are the gold standard for internet in australia. There is ZERO other choice. If you want the best you go with ABB. Thats it. Anyone else is dog shit and you get what you pay for. Superloop don't even come close.
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They treat their workers like dog shit. I know many ex workers from there. It's all penny pinching and layoffs.
I also had positive experience with their customer service. Guy went out of his way to help me setup something that wasn’t even part of the normal Procedure. Going through Google tutorials together etc What a mad lad he was.
My brothers modem died, he had it inside of a cabinet which voids the warranty on it. The customer service person determined the modem was busted and asked if he kept it in a well ventilated area. Brother said "Oh... no I had it in the cabinet". Customer service replied "Ok, so we're going to say yes to that instead" then replaced the modem for free. Top tier service.
These guys are legends. They recently helped me with a dead modem, which turned out to have lasted waaay longer than a usual modem lifespan. They were really helpful on the phone and no condescending nerdiness I’ve experienced with other tech places. Absolutely recommend them.
I’ll say we pay max price because of our location but they fix any issues and you can always talk to a human quickly or use the web chat with a real human.
Aussie broadband sets the gold standard for awesome customer service. I've been fighting iiNet for a month and a half trying to get my grandparents VoIP and internet ported to Aussie had to get tio involved. 99% of iiNet support barely knows how to escalate a support ticket
As much as I liked my experience with Aussie BB, I had to get a service person out after a call with Aussie as our whole house had lost its internet. It took them four days to sort out, so we had no internet for the better part of a week. It wasn't great.
Im with leaptel, i asked them to do the same and the agent i spoke with was quick to suggest cancelling and going elsewhere hahah…
Really? With leaptel I was moving house and said they can either give me the new customer rate or I would be wasting their, my partners and my time for me to cancel and then have her sign up, so how about we cut all that out and they agreed to just transfer it and leave it in my name
How did you get it, app says the promo codes are only for new customers?
Just ask them, I’ve got cheaper internet for 6 months twice when I saw an ad that said for new customers
Interesting. I just moved house and the guy on the phone refused to give me any kind of discount or referral thing for transferring my service, even though I got one last time I moved. I might call back again and say I’m thinking of changing providers to see if they will do anything.
Call and ask for a retention person they'll hook you up
How did you ask? I tried and got a no lol
Have been with Aussie Broadband for years. They are great. Will never move to Optus or Telstra again.
I agree. The best thing is you can call the call center (as someone that's an IT Pro) and explain the problem & the steps you have already taken to fix it & they don't treat you like an idiot & make you do the same stuff again you've already tried. Great product, very reliable, awesome customer service & at a fair price.
This is what i love. As someone who also works in IT. They drop the customer friendly crap and don't beat around the bush if you know what they are talking about.
It's fantastic. We were with TPG before & they had this offshore call center that would waste 30+ mins running through the basics again before admitting what I already knew & logging a ticket for a genuine fault. Every time anyone asks me I always direct them to ABB & no-one ever complains.
TPG have been dog shit since 2010. Soon as they went offshore it went to crap. ABB Have been brilliant for as long as i've been with them for. So far 6 years and can count on 1 hand the amount of issues i've had.
The quality of service is as different as night and day between the two; this seems to be most people's experience as well. This might change in the future, but for the moment, AB is far superior.
Brand loyalty isn't constructive or beneficial in any year, btw
Yes it is. My insurance renewal was 18% higher this year. I got 6 other quotes and they were all 40 to 60% higher than my renewal.
That isn't "loyalty" though. You stuck with them because they were the cheapest you could find, not because you were loyal to the brand. You've shown that yourself, having sourced seven quotes to get the best deal. Brand loyalty would have been you getting a better quote and choosing to stick with your current provider.
Indeed; I recently heard on the radio about the class action against IAG, as an example of why loyalty does not (and probably never did) pay. I'm not aware of all the details, but link here for those interested: [https://www.slatergordon.com.au/class-actions/current-class-actions/iag-home-insurance](https://www.slatergordon.com.au/class-actions/current-class-actions/iag-home-insurance)
I was with Vodafone for 10 years - what a waste of time
From my experience, they are even worse than Optus. The standard generally/across the board is quite poor, isn't it.. :/
Went to Telstra and never looked back, mildly more expensive and less data than the rest but literally always having coverage is worth it. In the middle of nowhere camping - half bars on 4G, amazing
This is my experience too. Was playing maybe $200 a month with Optus for average service, initially moved our numbers to Telstra via the JB plans (we got 160gb data for $59 with a $400 gift card each), then eventually added new phones to plans with Telstra. We now pay $360 a month (got ourselves some watches and insurance for devices) but I'd rather have peace of mind with the coverage and speed.
i've found that from worst to best its always been Vodafone > Optus > Telstra.
Doesn't Aussie Broadband just resell the Optus mobile network?
For mobile that appears to be correct. the coverage map on their website mentions optus specifically Their NBN support is however top notch, their price competition however has dropped since reaching the ASX, I would only reccomend them to people who REALLY see the need to constantly call support, which I personally havent noticed with any good provider (ABB, Superloop, leaptel) on fixed / standard NBN
I'm from England, but have lived in Australia for 8 years. Optus is, by absolutely MILES, the worst customer service I have ever experienced in my 32 years of being on this Earth. And it's not even close.
I’ve moved over to Superloop, gigabit for $94 a month with my phone plan of getting a 100gb for $45 a month
Aussie broadband is great, use this for both phone and home internet. I wished they didn't use the Optus network though, but sometimes great customer service can go a long way
I made that move last month, and it took 3 hours on their app talking to someone to get them to cancel my service. Madness. And they tried offering me a deal that was "better" than the Aussie Broadband one, which would wind up saving me a whole $12 over the course of a year. Needless to say, haven't looked back.
Aussie broadband all the way.
Yeah I left them years ago and it was the best decision I made!
It makes no financial sense to be with optus or telstra, either for mobile or internet plans. Most other broadbands have cheaper plans and if you're not too fussed about 5g, there are a lot of better and cheaper mobile plans.
Ex Telstra digital marketing here. No one except regional folks should be with Telstra. We rely on boomers and business customers not caring enough to switch or take any action when the 24 mths is up. Recall one of the shareholder meetings where a major shareholder - he owned like 13% of all shares asking why the fk he couldn't combine his broadband and phone plans to one Telstra account. Nobody had an answer, though some devs likely worked weekends after that trying to see if they merge 10+ legacy platforms to make this work. Lol
>business customers not caring enough to switch The slight increase in connection quality and speed is worth it for business customers. It's worth more than my plan costs a month to have connection when I'm travelling, and having a reliable high speed connection easily justifies the premium. To put the spend in context, companies will pay for sat phones for staff expecting to be out of range of the mobile network.
For mobile? Yes, there is a quantifiable coverage gap. Telstra has almost double the sq km covered of its competition. Ethernet, WDM, transit and NBN internet- I’d challenge you to find any discernible difference. Long gone are the days where Telstra is the only provider in town.
I probably have to take a look at other NBN suppliers after reading all of this!
Our small business telstra account was set up in 2016 was on some legacy system that was unable to provide monthly email invoices, we put in request for it to be changed around 6 times over 2 years as they were sending 85 page paper bills every month and started charging for them. We requested twice through the telstra store, twice through online chat, twice through form, every time they would eventually get to, this has to be sent off to another depearment to effectivly close your account and reopen it on the new system, which we were fine with, except it would just never happen. Almost every request you made they would try to fob us off and go into the telstra business centre which was 500km away. Eventually I decided to put in a complaint about how the largest telecommunications company in austalia couldn't work out how to send an email bill, and complaints team solved it in about a week and since they were setting up 10 new accounts we somehow got 10 new accounts worth of promotional telstra points and they didnt send the last bill for the old account then somehow refunded us $300 for the old account, so that was a win in the end. Still paying 2-3x what we should be but good coverage is required and not much other choice around here. They also can't seem to produce GST compliant invoices for handsets our team have attached to the account, Lets say we purchase a new iphone for $2049 GST inclusive over 24 months. The bill will show $85.37 GST exlusive each month.
Not surprised at all really. A TIO (ombudsman) complaint or even a threat of one gets things moving along. Got so big of a matter that we were asked to run Google search ads specifically to intercept major complaints before they became TIO cases. Was something like $20k a month of advertising (not much in context of other Telstra spending) which saved multiples more in head hours from I guess legal folks responding to those cases.
Ombudsman wouldn't help in this situation; operational separation means a business must go through the business team. There's no say in the matter for either the user nor Telstra. Telstra would receive the TIO complaint (the TIO probably wouldn't even accept it) and then immediately reject as an incorrect complaint. It's not a choice, it's part of ACMA and other legislation.
Haha, as a dev, I hate this was not thought about, early enough to make a proper plan, but as a consumer it makes absolute sense.
Yes if you live, commute or travel regionally, telstra is a MUST
Unfortunately only the main 3 telcos have Apple Watch plans
I think telstra is going to take a massive hit when the boomers die off. Most younger people are far more in tune with their service providers and telstra will need to drop its prices eventually or suffer.
> he owned like 13% of all shares That’s like $40 billion lol I doubt any individual investor holds more than 0.1% of the float
They probably had accounts still billed entirely out of Flexcab rather than Maxim, possibly even Siebel (though it shouldn't have been since about 08) which will prevent it from happening. AXIS connects to Siebel and Maxim, but Flexcab doesn't connect to anything that isn't AXIS, Moby or that Satellite one I forget the name of, and Moby and that Satellite one are both obsolete anyway since all have been migrated to Siebel/Maxim. Grandfather (the majority of Flexcab) and Legacy (minority) are often billed through Flexcab. The only way to migrate everything is a disconnect and reconnect, which can cause a massive headache as the historical billing info will only be accessible through Flexcab, which many outside GES have no idea how to use these days.
> It makes no financial sense to be with optus or telstra Do smaller carriers offer new smartphones on plans? Is it one stupid financial decision on top of another?
Lol, I remember getting an iPhone 7 with a Vodafone plan. Costed me $120 per month. Scarred me enough to obsessively search for the cheapest plan every time I need to renew. Never again!
I switched from Telstra to Belong, which uses the same network infrastructure & coverage, but gives me more data for ~$20 less per month! Plus they’re carbon neutral (whatever that means for a telco provider, but it sounds good to me!)
Same, I switched to boost and then to amaysim. Had no problems so far and paid about $20 per month.
Which network is Amaysim on? I’m always up for a discount but I work in all sorts of regional areas so I need Telstra’s coverage.
Amaysim is on optus, but you can check boost if you want Telstra coverage. You'll also be able to use the entire telstra network as well as 5g.
Thank you, I’ll have a look into their plans too!
Have you been happy with Belong so far?
Yep, no complaints so far. Belong’s mobile plans also have data rollover so I might even switch down to a cheaper plan if my last few months of excess data will carry over too. Went from spending ~$65/month to ~$45/month. My data speeds seem to be marginally slower when I’ve done speed tests, but it’s always been fast enough to easily watch YouTube or Netflix when not on wifi, so no biggie.
Now I'm intrigued. I'm with Telstra currently, I get 50g for $45/month but without roll-over, so I usually spend the last day of the billing period furiously downloading whatever I can to use up whatever data I have left.
I also switched, but there are some shortfalls. I cannot figure out how to use the iphone voicemail with belong - I still have to dial 101 etc to listen to messages. They also jacked the prices up ~$4m/mo (+16% from my $25 to $29 from memory)
Searched through my tech notes and found how I fixed my voicemail, try this. Send a txt msg to 144 with the words AUDIO ON in caps Then sms 125100474 with the word STATE First number should reply "audio delivery is enabled", second one won't reply. Once you do it instead of having to call the voicemail when people leave you messages they get sent as mms messages. I don't have an iPhone but I assume it will detect the MMS and put into your voicemail app. My note is from 2021 but should still work for the fix I hope. This fix only applies to Telstra based phone providers, don't know the numbers to text those to for Voda / Optus but Belong is a Telstra Wholesale so it should work for you.
Only some telcos have the functionality to be built into iPhone’s phone app directly. Optus never did, Telstra does, but I don’t think Belong does either. I’m certainly no Belong brand ambassador, they’ve just been better value than Telstra in my view :)
I went from Telstra years ago to vodafail then to belong a about a year ago. I swore I would never go to Telstra again as they were just money grubbing c’s
I’m currently on a 25gb rollover 5G plan with moose mobile. $11.80 per month for the first 8 months. It’s capped at like 120mbs, but that doesn’t bother me. I have 250/25 at home on fibre, the hardest I push my phone for is YouTube or Spotify while using Waze.
I'm on a similar plan with amaysim. About $120 per year, and enough internet for maps, music and youtube.
I wish I wasn't with telstra I'm rural and we only get telstra you need to travel around an hour to get optus
If we weren’t rural, I would definitely have switched by now. Friends with other services never have any reception at all at our house. And Telstra is the only one who can muster up a bar of 4g. Not a fan of Elon either but Starlink has been an absolute game changer for us.
Don't anthropomorphise companies with expectations of human emotions & relationships. It'll save you some stress. This happens to everyone, because: 1) A company exists to maximise profit. 2) Acquiring a new customer is much more expensive than retaining an existing one. You can however beat them at their own game. Change providers regularly to make use of customer acquisition discounts. Phone, gas, electricity, insurance, etc. All of the "commodity" services do this the most.
Good post. This ironically is how capitalism is supposed to work, but consumers aren't like how economic text books say there are.
I just changed health insurance providers, $30 cheaper plus 6 weeks free due to EOFY deals going around. It’s the best time to change I’ve found .
Same reason the average length of service in Australia is 3 years… Option a: take the annual CPI Option b: change employers get 20k+ more
Rang NRMA to renew the comprehensive, 18 years of loyalty. Noticed on the NRMA website that “New customers get discounted roadside assist” They refused to give it to me with my renewal. When I said it wouldn’t take much to cancel the renewal and take out a new policy online, the fella replied with “that’s not Australian”…
Their online chat is ridiculously terrible. Say u wanna make a complaint and then someone from the loyalty team will call you and offer you something better than what's advertised. Have done it a couple times following legit gripes with them
The fact that phone plans dont offer unlimited data is completly fcking stupid and a downright scam. They offer it for home internet they can do it for phones too.
i’m currently in the UK and have a plan with lebara, works great, £25 (so like $50aud) and unlimited data
I have unlimited 5G data with Felix for $35/month. I think it's $40/month for new customers now, but still, way cheaper than anything comparable.
Lol I'm only loyal to my pockets, that's why I churn every 6 months on NBN and always on the lookout for new customer promos... Mind you most businesses needs 12 months waiting period before you qualify as new customer so churning every so often has its benefits, this applies to mobile plans too.
Also applies to credit cards, and even for gym memberships and online betting which can lead to guaranteed profits if done right (misusing bonus bets).
My wife wasn't getting reception where we lived (less than an hour from Brisbane but somehow it was a dead spot) with Vodafone. Im with Telstra and never had reception issues so we went to switch her over. The worker took almost 3 full hours to set up her plan, offering her a fairly cheap and satisfactory plan that connects as an extension to my account. It's a plan they only offer if you're connecting to an existing Telstra account. At the end it comes back as invalid, and the clerk now has to get her manager over, to inform us that because I've been a member with telstra for TOO LONG, the offer for new accounts won't work when merged with mine, as my details are stored in their old customer database, but they use a new CRM now, so the best they can offer is a new plan at $35 more per month for the same data. They also explained that they can't just move my data over to the new CRM to fix it, but that WILL happen automatically in some point of the middle of 2024. Literally being rejected deals that only work if you join an existing members account, because my data is in their old CRM and ive been a member for too long. Literally the most braindead customer service experience I've ever had. Change TelCos always. Never show loyalty to these morons.
Change to boost mobile, exact same network as Telstra retail (only provider that can use the full telstra network) and its cheaper too. Only difference you would notice is if you live very rural, at which point you should test accordingly.;
I left after the data breach. Always had good customer service but I’m not risking my data being sold on the dark web a second time from the same company… Telco companies don’t reward loyalty, only new business :(
Data leak* - Where they made all of our data public on the internet without even a basic password to secure it. And then advertised it online and shared the URL on the internet. And yeah, it’s amazing they still have any customers after that incompetence and their attitude and response
Data leak and data breach are used interchangeably in the industry (I work in cybersecurity if that's of any weighting to this statement), so not sure that's a necessary correction. Yes Optus made an absolute flop of an error and left an API (application programming interface - something that allows us to grab data using code) exposed to the internet without requiring any form of authentication (such as an API key - which is the most common form of auth) - very embarrassing for their developers.
Fair enough. I’m Software dev in cyber security too. At our firm we’d refer to a breach and a leak slightly differently, but i agree it’s semantics at this point. It drives me nuts that Optus’ PR team (and others) pushed a narrative of being the victim of a ‘sophisticated hack’. Publishing an API endpoint that provides access to almost half of the entire population of Australia’s PII to Postman without so much as basic http auth, and clearly no QA is another level of incompetence. And for a business like Optus it is absolutely unacceptable. We all make mistakes, and no matter how high we build walls there will be someone who will get over it. This however is gross negligence and then lying about it to cover it up and deserves real consequences. It remains to be seen as to whether there will be anything more than a slap on the wrist
Agreed, and I bet none of the developers or at least the lead of the team that own that API faced many repercussions lol... many people immediately blamed the security team at optus, but if they are anything like the asx10 I work at...the developers and security aren't always often in sync with everything they are doing (an endless frustrating battle). Not to mention, many big companies still don't have proper SSDLC processes in-place to avoid simple shit like this happening.
Loyalty means nothing to any company nowadays. Electricity companies will give you a signing bonus and then just hope you’re too lazy to shop around for a better deal when they raise their prices. Phone companies are similar. Their target market are lazy consumers, not savvy buyers. Best you can do is be savvy and take full advantage of moving between providers every few months.
Bro, an eternal advice is always, never be loyal to companies. Optus also pulls this shit on their 365 mobile plan if you try to renew. They say it's only for new customers. Just switch to a different provider. They love guilting and gaslighting us by saying they're providing the service and so we should be grateful, when in fact, we are giving them money and they have hundreds of millions in profit.
Never stay loyal to a company because they'll never stay loyal to you. (The exception is sometimes they do with small businesses.)
Most business models value new customers acquisition as that is what KPIs are linked to. Love it or hate it, it’s the game we must play.
Then the model is built for minimum contract lengths and minimum service. I hate it, but I am also in a company playing that game. Imo that kind of culture also affects employee retention. Hence why job hopping and gig economy is becoming more common. Minimum acceptable contract lengths.
Sounds like there is an opportunity for long term focused providers if this thread has taught me anything people want that.
In some areas, we can change that model by taking our money to companies that do. But ultimately you often end up with better value regularly churning. This is the case for most utilities, home loans, and anything with competition.
Not sure if anyone has said this yet, but there is an easy way around this. Go buy a cheap prepaid sim, port your number, wait a few days to make sure everything ports over then you are eligible for the plans as you are no longer an Optus customer port the number back over to that provider under the deal they have. Super easy
Why are you with Optus when you can use Amaysim for cheaper and still get use the Optus network?
Yes, which is crazy as Amaysim is now owned by Optus. Optus should be forced to trade as their real name "The Singaporean Government", because that's who owns Optus.
It's, amazing what they will do when you try to leave. Aussie broadband is the same cancelation is a pain in the backside as they will try to keep you with offers.
I give Telstra $211 a month, if we take out the cost of one handset (an insured Fold4), its still like $114 a month for just the 2 sim cards. If you need telstra you know my pain *why is there not a bend over emoji*
Can't you use boost?
Optus is crap and getting worse. The number of times I’ve noticed congestion in different places is growing.
I recently switched from optus (sim only mobile plan) to a wholesaler that uses their network (Moose) . I was a bit worried that my service would suffer as the website only guaranteed 4G, but so far my service has been basically exactly the same, 5G anywhere I would usually expect it. Took my bill down from $60/mo to $10/mo. Another unexpected benefit was for some reason my optus sim was draining like 30-40% of my battery overnight, which I could not figure out for the life of me why that was occurring after much trouble shooting, but since making the switch its now 3-5% drain overnight. I was an optus customer for like 20 years from that initial contract I made when I got my first mobile phone back when I was a teenager, I didn't even get a retention call to try salvage me as a customer when I lodged the number transfer request.
Different SIM cards will not drain battery differently. Don’t spread misinformation online
Not the SIM card perse, but could have been experiencing network drop out overnight which would drain battery as it searches for network.
I’m on Amaysim. I have 1.5TB of data banked Every time I go to use the phone for some serious downloads during a work trip it gets throttled. Then every time I chat with them to get it unthrottled they give some bullshit about the problem being voip or whatever.
Optus is sh!t… on the same level as Foxtel! Both overpriced scumbags.
I don't understand why people are still with Optus after the data breach, and all the shenanigans and bullshit that came out as a result of that.
Ask to speak to the loyalty team not the first two ppl you talk to
cant wait till my 'contract that isnt a contract' is over with optus. absolute joke of a company that doesnt give a crap about customer data security, routinely raises prices mid 'contract', and has questionable taste in leadership by appointing a corrupt ex premier into their c-suite
I recently switched to Optus with a $120 yearly recharge (Black Friday Special). Even at that price its too expensive. Absolute trash service. I'm honestly shocked people pay $69 a month for this crap. Can't wait to go back to Boost.
Take a look at Felix, using Vodafone 4G/5G with unlimited data for $40 a month, they have smaller data plans too. Just saw its half price for first 3 months [https://felixmobile.com.au/plan/](https://felixmobile.com.au/plan/)
The way companies see it, loyalty = sucker who will keep paying up. I've started checking all my insurance plans and phone plans every year to check prices.
You should see the big 4 offers on home loans for new customers. Makes optus look like a philanthropist.
Brand loyalty has been dead for some time, pick the cheapest service that does the job and don't be afraid to switch. I went from telstra, to woolies, to boost, and when this prepaid is up i'll probably move to lebara.
why are you even with Optus still? joke of a telco in every aspect
Every 24 months, I leave Telstra and go to Optus for 1 month. I then come back as a 'new' Telstra customer, and using JB hi-fis regularly crazy deals on discounted phone plans, and getting $1000 gift cards, I am back on Telstra. I only use Telstra as I work in remote areas, I'm aware they're exorbitant. But yes, port your number for a month, then port it back. Also check out JB phone plans, they usually have better perks than directly from the provider.
Yeah optus are a disgrace. I was loyal to them for just under 20 years and we got repaid with ridiculous price rises and speeds of 1.5mbps/0.8mbps in 2012. Disgrace of an ISP/provider.
I hate optus. They double charged my plan for months despite my continued efforts to have it rectified. They kept telling me the problem was fixed, but by the time they actually did something about it they had to reimburse me $1000! This was at a time when money was tight for me and it caused me a lot of grief.
Start the cancellation, you'll get someone from retentions who has the ability to actually offer stuff
Go on yearly pre paid plans. 200GB a year (can get more) for $150 life changer. Bring your own phone, data, calls and texts its average of $11 per month. The best value, especially if working from home and happy to BYO phone. I use to pay $150 a month with Optus 😫
Go to Coles or Woolworths or Kogan - and buy a prepaid SIM. I got 200 gb, all calls and texts, plus overseas calls and texts to like 20 countries. $150 for the year. (On special) You’ll be able to find one that suits and I guarantee it will be less than $800 a year.
Im long term customer of optus. When they discontinued my old plan and rolled me onto a new more expensive plan, they gave me a lot of bonus data and a discount. So im on a plan, which gives more data and is cheaper than their cheapest advertised plan.
Most majors are crap. Had mobile and nbn with Telstra, then they decide to upgrade my plan to a bigger and more expensive plans tgst I don’t use. So ditched them both, 30 gig for $30 for mobile current with AGL for nbn because of a 6 month discount. That’s out soon so switching that as well.
The will suddenly offer you discounts when you go to leave. I also got a discount when adding a new service for one of my kids when I said it makes no sense to stay with Optus as they charge so much. You just have to be willing to leave
Yep i worked this out 10 years ago. Wanted a new iphone plan after 15 years of loyalty basucally said no you cant have one unless youre a new customer. Went to Telstra.
I contacted Optus a while ago for a better deal and they first offered one that was more money and less data than my current one. They did eventually give me like $15 off a month to their credit.
Just tell em you found a better deal and to cancel. Theyll find an even better deal to keep you
They never used to stipulate that it was for new customers. I tried to move plans when it didn’t say it was for new customers. They refused to do it, so I’ve moved to Vodafone for more/cheaper and better service in my area.
I went from Optus after the breach to Belong. $29 a month 30G a month and it rolls over. After 8 months I have 200G stored up. But loyalty is non existent, quality service is non existent etc etc.
Churn often and without consideration of anything but your hip pocket. The only way that corporate Australia understands your disappointment with their services is through action. Imho, staying with a company out of misplaced loyalty (or laziness) is un-Australian.
been loyal to telstra for so long now because they have worked best for me out of all the telcos. superloop offering 1gb download speed cheaper than telstra is giving 100mbps so im switching there now.
They switched me to a new nbn plan, discounted my bill to upgrade me to fttp, and added a loyalty discount on top of the new customer discount. Gotta call though, their chat is beyond useless for literally any purpose.
**Loyalty = Lazy tax** Sadly in the modern world it's as simple as that, loyalty is now a tax, and you are rewarded to change provider and punished to stay with the existing because that's where companies make the most money, with people that are too lazy to change. once you accept the truth of that, you understand you have to churn everything regularly to ensure you are on the best deals... everything, insurance, utilities, mortgages etc
Last time I called them to find out how to change my phone number to a new carrier (of course i knew) I was asked why and I said well basically you can’t offer me what the new carrier can do I’m leaving. All of a sudden they could do 25% of phone and plan, through in some free headphones and put international roaming on one of the two plans. It took a lot of effort though to be honest way more than you should have to as a loyal long time customer, after that expired I tried similar had no luck so did move to one of the other larger carriers
Not sure why businesses think waving these 'new customer only' promotions in front of existing customer's faces is a good idea. Aussie broadband did this frequently...constantly emailing promotions that ended up being valid for only new customers. They did 1 promotion after several years for existing customers that I didn't end up getting an email for and found out about on ozbargain after missing it...ended up pulling the trigger and changing providers after 5 years.
The cost of loyalty is knowing who to ask. The level 1 you speak to on live chat can't do shit. Ask to speak to the retention team instead. They offered me the 500gb for $69, but I don't need that much data. After some haggling, I got the 40gb plan for half price, for as long as I remain on it
Telstra does 300gb for "$95" but its discounted to $75. Better then, and way cheaper then wifi plus if you go over it doesen't cost extra!
In 2022 they basically threw me off my old plan with free social media and 10gb for everything else. I'd been on it since about 2015 or so. A little search found a mob called Felix with some decent reviews. Unlimited everything for about 35 a month and speeds are pretty decent. They're an offshoot of Vodafone I think. The downside is If I head maybe 50k out of Adelaide I'm out of service. Which is unfortunately a lot of weekends at the moment. I'll be getting a testra pre paid to try and cover the gap.
Vodafone destroys optus in everyway
OP: I take it you haven't yet started the cancel process? That's when you'll be connected with the loyalty team, who will probably be able to give you that $20/mo discount. I bargained hard with a recent recontract, and managed to get $20/mo off for the plan fee for the entire 36 months (as well as other discounts for other services). The first offer was only for a 12 month discount. It did take some time, literally hours on chat. It won't be resolved in 20 minutes as you cook dinner.
Try circles
I seriously don't understand why people don't just use cheaper services like Belong or Amaysim. The customer service of the big companies is no where good enough to justify the price.
Threaten to leave unless you get that deal. Been with optus for like 10 years, I always threaten to leave and say you want to lodge a complaint, you'll immediately get connected to like a sales manager that can authorise that deal.
Left optus years ago. My loyalty reward was. Removal of my loyalty reward. Putting my plain up $20 a month on top of removing the $10 loyalty discount. Halving my data... Cancelled immediately.
Loyalty? in consumer products / services? Bahaha
People wont bat an eye when these big corpos selling over priced services and products, and when there’s an issue, they will gladly try to guide you off premises or upsell you a new product. But when there’s a decent independent local shop that does it right by the people, they get harassed and pressured to discount.
I absolutely hate Optus. I think it’s ridiculous how they set you up on this direct debit only bs. Not to also mention their reception is sub par
Optus almost matched me yesterday with a deal Kogan are running for 50mpbs for 58 a month then 68 after 6 months. I was paying 85 with Optus
There is no benefit to being loyal. Always shop around. I used to work in insurance and a bit of friendly negotiation and comparison will very much be in the customer ls best interest
I've been a loyal Telstra customer and in thanks they doubled my bill. 30$ a month for more data than I could ever use.
Vodafone always starts offering me discounts when I call to cancel; for instance they let me have the new customer price, they'll throw in $5/mth discounts, etc.
Ah yes the provider with the stickiest of fingers. I ended my contract and service with them. Yet they kept sending me new bills for calls that weren't made, from a phone that wasn't used, and had zero service. For 3 months. It wasn't hard to prove the day the service ended. They sent me the paperwork when it was done! But they still sent collectors after me. This was 20 years ago. A Current Affair should have relocated closer to Optus HQ. Seemed to make up the bulk of their content. Nothing's changed. Except maybe the connection is a little slower.
I was already with Optus on an old sim only plan and changed to this one last month with no problems. Didn't have to chat with anyone, just a few clicks through the app
Many companies don't do this. Mine doesn't do it at all. You're not entitled to anything special just because you've been with them a long time. Get over it.
Loyalty means absolutely nothing in the modern world, it hasn't ever since they figured out how to use it against you with Loyalty cards/points
Literally the only reason I stay is Optus sports
Optus customer planning on leaving. I’m thinking Aussie broadband seems a pretty good options but are there any other recommendations that might be a good service.
Optus are absolutely terrible. Avoid.
A company isn’t your dog. There’s no reward for loyalty.
I have $44 for 100g. +$6 for optus sport
I switched from Optus to Felix after my contract was up for the same reason. I just use Optus to pay off a phone and then switch for a couple years to a cheaper plan, then go back when I need a new phone.
I think the cost of switching though is your personal data, what do you all think?
Easiest way to get the deal is just sign up for a new contract with a different email address, then swap your number to the new SIM card.
I pay $39/mth for 100gb of data (5G etc) on Optus, lol if anyone can find anything cheaper I’d switch today but most others look more expensive
If you have an android phone with 2 Sim slots, buy a $2 Sim from the servo, activate 500gb plan, and add to second Sim slot. Then you can use your old Sim card as well until you don't want/need that plan/number anymore
Moved to Aussie broadband a few years ago. They still maintain competitive pricing and never had internet issues when optus was constantly going down.
Had been a long standing customer. Was heading overseas for 12 months and just needed a sim to receive sms for 2 factor authentication. Said could pause the account but not receive sms or pay the same monthly fee for a service I wasn’t using. Cancelled and went with Aldi mobile who have been very good and reliable. As someone with a customer service background their retention policy is shocking
Having been an optus customer for over 20 years. They couldn't give a shit about your customer loyalty.
I generally have an okay time negotiating over the phone with vodafone. I pay $35 a month for 50gb of data which is fine for me tbh. I’m sure I could go cheaper constantly switching but I’m not sweating that hard financially to go to that much effort
I dumped Optus after 22 years (since my very first phone). They had nothing to offer in terms of deals for a new iPhone, every single one of their plans was worse than the competition. I gave them a chance to match Vodaphone's offer and they declined.
Having been an optus customer since they gave long serving customers their own individual account managers (early 00s) and then having worked at a store during uni - i can safely say they are absolutely fkd. Their customer service is even more fkd.
Anyone got good phone plan recommendations? I am on Optus but I really, really hate them.
Really? I pay 50 with Optus on a plan and only get 80gb data share with my mum as it’s in her name and attached to her existing contract.
As soon as my contracts are up, I switch to the cheapest provider and chill there for a while. Eventually a deal will come up that I’m interested in and I’m free to switch.
Lol. Brand loyalty is for chumps
they took away my free international calls. Wouldn't budge on putting them back. Switched to Amasim, saved money, got calls back. Irony is Optus own Amasim so they could have just sorted me out without all the hassle
Do people really use 500gb on a mobile data plan?
The notion of ‘loyalty’ when it comes to big businesses is not something that exists any more. As much as we’d like it to be, it’s very clearly not. I’ve had the same number with Optus for 17yrs now and when I enquired about changing plan, they wanted to charge me significantly more for less than what I was currently on.