John Linton .....beyond spending $29 million a year of communications provider's scarce financial resources giving employment to otherwise unemployable people?
Has the TIO made any positive contribution to any person or organisation at all? The answer is yes, of course....though that's very hard to quantify in any way at all let alone whether more progress could have been achieved by spending less money with more directional control and more effective planning. But, apart from day to day expenditure on what is effectively a 'moaning post' has it actually delivered any lasting benefits by its continual hiring of completely inappropriate personnel and a subsequent very high staff turnover constantly ensuring there is no knowledge or competence to deal with the situations with which they are confronted resulting in their meat axe approach to every situation.
Now that Exetel has finally run out of patience, after over twenty four months of Exetel/TIO dealings and over the past year - twelve months of Extel lawyer/TIO lawyer dealings, with the deliberate delays in dealing with the specific examples of TIO incompetence and sheer stupidity in dealing with what their own organisation's constitution requires them to do we have had to ask our lawyers to file the required documents asking a judge to order the TIO's employees to obey the mandated processes their constitution states must be adhered to. In simple terms this means:
1) The TIO cannot take any action against the complained about company unless the company is actually the provider of the service to the complainant.
2) The TIO cannot take any action against the complained about company unless the complainant has first detailed the complaint to the complained about company and given that company a reasonable amount of time to rectify the matters complained about.
3) The TIO cannot take any action against the complained about company, other than to advise them of the complaint, unless the company being complained about has then been given the mandated time to remedy the complaint.
In 80% of the 330 fines imposed by the TIO over a twelve month period (one of the lowest in the communications industry in both absolute numbers and percentage of total customers) one or all of these specific conditions of the TIO's constitution were clearly breached. This is ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the actual customer complaints were either totally fabricated lies or trivial beyond the ability of any even semi reasonable person to comprehend. I can have no idea if such a percentage is typical across the total number of complaints but I would have no reason to believe otherwise (I don't believe that Exetel is singled out for specific 'punishment').
If a court upholds this view then ANY organisation in ANY field of operation that operates at an 80% level of incorrectness is a rogue/criminal organisation that if it were operating in a commercial environment would be closed down by the authorities with the directors tried and jailed for perpetrating massive fraud via threats and coercion. Inappropriate words? I don't think so. However it is irrelevant what I think - it only matters what a judge decides.
Does Exetel have any recommendations to improve the situation? Yes we have been submitting them for over three years. Has the TIO taken any notice of them? No That's why the only recourse to achieve any improvement is to ask a judge to do it.
PS: Good to continue to be reassured by Whine Swan that all Australians are benefiting from Australia's booming economy:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/going-for-broke-the-insolvency-story-in-australia-20101204-18kxd.html
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