A colleague, knowing that I had recently fallen foul of yet another telco for thousands of dollars of “excess usage charges”, sent me this link, presumably thinking it might make me feel better.

Instead, it prompted me to recall that this is the fourth time a telco (a different one each time) has gouged, or attempted to, gouge me.

I am unable to use the services of one large Australian Telco because, even though they do not attempt to collect it, they retain a record of a debt in their system. So, if I attempt to sign up for a new service, they accept my application subject to the payment of an eight year old $14,000 debt.

Another luckily collapsed under the weight of its rich and powerful promoters while suing me for thousands in excess usage.

Yet another continued to charge me $500 per month for services which were available from other vendors, and to their new customers, for about $90 per month. In this case I was an early adopter of a new service and ended up paying several thousand dollars more than the provider charged later signups for the same service. They hid behind their “contract” to insist on payment. Continue reading →