John Linton ..........I received a fax mid-morning yesterday from Telstra Legal accusing Exetel of using false and deceptive and misleading words on a one third size A4 flyer used by Exetel agents in around 100 country towns around NSW, QLD and VIC and, absolutely flabbergastingly, an incidental image on our web site! I have decided not to reproduce the Telstra 'letter of demand/cease and desist' because although it contained no restrictions or proscriptions that I could see I really am sick of Telstra's letters of demand regarding my personal rights of what I can and can't say/write in my capacity as a "private citizen". However, you can probably gather the gist of what was written to us from my reply:
("Telstra Legal Person"), 21st August 2009
Telstra Consumer Legal,
400 George Street,
Sydney NSW 2000
Reference: Your (Faxed) Letter Dated 21/8/09
Dear Madam,
We have received the above referenced letter.
We disagree that any potential buyer of an HSPA service could, in any way, be deceived by anything that is said, or implied, on Exetel’s web site which has so many disclaimers and qualifications as to render any description of any page as being, in any way, false or misleading let alone deceptive as being ridiculous.
Similarly we doubt that any reader of the flyer you reference (which is only available in some 100 country towns where the HSPA service is viable) could ever be persuaded to buy an HSPA service (where coverage was not available) based on either the flyer or the sign up procedure requiring them either to get an agent to submit an order or by themselves ordering from the web site which requires both an agent and an individual to check for coverage on the order form sign up process.
The order acceptance process similarly checks for availability and coverage and rejects orders that do not have coverage and available capacity.
This is assuming that someone was stupid enough not to check in the first place.
Personally, I think your ‘complaints’ are frivolous to the point of stupidity – but then you work for a company that continues to display in its every action, total contempt for Australians generally and other communications companies particularly.
I recently spoke with “the ACCC” or, not actually being able to speak to an organization, to the General Manager of Compliance and Regulatory about your June 10 letter and your company’s attitudes generally and referenced your previous complaint. I have little doubt that the ACCC would not regard any complaint you made as set out in either of your letters as being anything but vexatious and quite frankly I am inclined to test my view.
Because, as usual, your company is far too litigious and has far too much money allocated to your anti-competitive practices, tiny companies (such as Exetel) have to make the commercial decision to simply do what drones like you waste your time writing. so:
- On the billion to one chance that some mentally deranged person would think that a pretty picture on a web site is somehow some sort of inducement to order an HSPA service where coverage is not available we will replace the image.
- On the trillion to one chance that some hopelessly confused person believes that ‘almost anywhere’ means that they can use an HSPA service everywhere we will destroy the remaining copies of the flyer and advise the 100 or so agents to whom they were sent to destroy any stock remaining in their control.
One day, should you ever develop a conscience, I hope that you continually look back on your time doing what you are now doing and cringe with embarrassment, perhaps even self disgust, at how you wasted this period of your life.
J Linton
(for Exetel Pty Ltd)
Personally I would have preferred to tell the writer of that letter to go **** herself, but having been a touch condemnatory of people who let their anger get the better of their fiscal responsibility to their shareholders yesterday that would have been not quite sensible. It is just yet another example of that might(y) (dollar) is right and if you don't have spare money you just better suck it up.
Never mind - just one more person to add to the fantasy list of people you'd like to run into in a dark alley sometime and see how tough they are without a giant corporation's money behind them.
I sometimes wonder what it must be like to work for Telstra Wholesale and wonder whether those people know how much they are so badly regarded by their customers. I used to wonder whether it is just me that holds such a low opinion of them but based on my conversations over the past 15 years with quite a wide variety of people who have dealt with Telstra Wholesale in its various guises I get the impression that those people's views were overwhelmingly negative. I was reminded of this today (shortly after I received the letter) when I had to go into the city to do a brief presentation to one of our major suppliers business sales force on what a wholesale customer wants from its suppliers and being pathologically afraid of being late I was 20 minutes early. This allowed me to hear the last part of the presentation by the CEO of a much, much larger wholesale customer of the carriers who described Telstra Wholesale in far more scathing terms than I have ever used - I was reminded that my views are not exclusive.
However fighting with Telstra is as pointless as Michael Malone's 'crusade' - at least I have learned that it's more sensible (even though the taste in your mouth is GodAwful) to eat s*** than pay the legal bills involved in disagreeing with the supplier you pay $A1.5 million a month to for the privilege of continually being called a criminal and a moron.