And although the time of the message broadcast was unusual (6.27am on a
Sunday morning), I received the message twice on the same number, one
minute apart (did anyone else?). The first message was empty, whilst the
second arrived intact.
Interestingly, I left the message in my message bank, but it was deleted
yesterday without my intervention (though it is entirely possible that the
message was set to 'self-delete' by Telstra). Being a Telstra message, I
had assumed that the message was at no cost, but of course access to
MessageBank is charged for each access.
The lame excuse on ABC AM, from the Telstra Marketing Manager, was indeed
very lame - his response was about the poorest response that I have heard
from a marketing perspective for a long time. The reporter did ask if it
might have been 'more appropriate' to send the notice via the usual monthy
bill, but the marketing manager's response was predictably 'no'. The word
'spam' and 'user pays' was mentioned more than once in the conversation by
the reporter, but fell on deaf ears at the Telstra end.
I doubt if I'll get a refund, let alone a double refund for accessing the
first dud message. As the reporter pointed out, few will object to paying
an extra 22 cents (or 44 in my case) - and it may not amount to an issue
worthy of ACCC intervention.
Undoubtedly, it was the best way for me to consider just-around-the-corner
number portability in a rather different light. Great marketing,
Telstra...
iT
>>> <hartr@redhat.com> - 21/08/01 12:39 PM >>>
...
This morning's news item informed me that I and all other users have
been CHARGED by Telstra for receiving this voicemail (a tidy some
amounting to sever $100k apparently for Telstra). Telstra have defended
this action as the best way to give information on the new service to
its subscribers.
For those messagebank users that haven't noticed (and for those not
subscribed), when you call messagebank you also receive a reminder about
this new service - and so Telstra's lame excuse that sending the
voicemail was the best way to tell its subscribers of the new service
appears to be rubbish.
Apparently the ACCC is investigating...
-- Robert Hart hartr@redhat.com Red Hat Asia-Pacific, Unit 15, 23 James St, Brisbane, Qld 4006, Australia Tel +61 (0)7 3872 4808 Fax +61 (0)7 3257 4800
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.1 : Fri Aug 31 2001 - 03:10:04 EST