John Linton
I seldom get involved, or even appraised, of the dealings that Exetel has with some of the amazingly hard to please people that become Exetel customers. It isn't that I'm not concerned when customers reach the conclusion that Exetel has failed them in some way - just that I have neither the inclination or temperament to deal with unreasonable people - and I certainly don't have the required abilities.
I sometimes have to become involved when some incredibly unreasonable person somehow comes to my attention which is what happened a day or so ago.
I've seen some trivial complaints in my time in business but I don't think I've ever either seen personally, or been made aware of, a person going to such extreme lengths to claim that Exetel had unfairly and unreasonably overcharged them by 5 CENTS (this is not a typing error - the amount was 5 CENTS) and they were going to go to the TIO, ASIC, Channel 9 and all the other 'usual suspects' as well as spreading the word about how dishonest Exetel is "to every corner of the world".
Breathtaking in its sheer idiocy if this had been one telephone call (which presumably cost more than 5 cents) and a follow up email. But it wasn't - it went on for days and involved the TIO and "other undisclosed government departments".
If this had been some retiree who was looking for some idle amusement on a cold or rainy day I think I could just have understood how someone could be so bored they would find the waste of time and money better than going to a movie or renting a video. It subsequently proved not to be the case.
This complainant (and let me say there was absolutely no "fraud" or any other form of "illegality - just his own inability to understand that an SMS is 160 characters around the world and has been since SMS was introduced as far as I remember) was not a bored retiree but an Exetel Agent who had signed up over 60 ADSL customers over the 2+ years he'd been an agent and who earns more than $200.00 each month in commissions from those sign ups.
This agent spoke with Exetel personnel on several occasions using completely unacceptable words and wrote similarly abusive emails. He then took his 5 cent complaint to the TIO who, quite rightly, took very little notice of what he had to say.
Despite agreeing to refund him his 5 cents of over charge he persisted in abusing the two people with whom he spoke and continued the same abusive attitude in emails. I became involved when I overheard one of the conversations and asked for the ticket number. I couldn't believe what I read there and formally responded to his email by telling him that there was clearly no basis for a professional/commercial relationship going forward and, based on his incredibly negative views and statements about Exetel, he clearly could no longer represent Exetel to his customers.
Apart from the pointlessly trivial nature of his complaint, and the fact that it would be impossible to see how even he could believe he was "purposely mislead" he has wasted a great deal of his own time and cost Exetel a lot of our own time (and therefore money) over an issue which he was completely in the wrong about!
And of course - he'll have to find another ISP to represent and then tell his 60+ current Exetel customers some story as to why he wants them to incur themselves in the cost of changing their ADSL service - if in fact they are prepared to do that.
Isn't business fun?