Why I Switched Telco's
For the past few years I’ve been paying $300 a month to my telco. This includes 2 mobile phones, home phone line rental and data. The mobile component is $120 a month, $99 for my phone and $30 for my elderly mum. While discussing mobile plans with a girlfriend the other day over coffee, she was astounded to find I’m paying so much! I thought I was on a good deal because I do use the phone extensively both for private and work use. 
One of the girls in the Fiftyup office mentioned that she had been paying $50 a month for unlimited everything so I thought it as time to look around.
Earlier this month we launched the Fiftyup Club’s new True Blue Telco offer, the first time the Club has moved into this space so I asked our token Gen Y expert here, Dave Liston what the product offered. Sometimes the best deals are right under your nose.
It ticked a lot of my boxes:
6GB of data ✔
Unlimited National Calls ✔
Unlimited National SMS ✔
How much is it a month? $47 ✔
Lock in contract? NO ✔
On Australia’s most trusted 4G network? ✔
Can I transfer my own number? ✔
Can I bring my own phone? ✔
Offshore Call Centre NO (AUSTRALIAN BASED) ✔
I’m waiting for my new sim card so I’ll have an update in next week’s newsletter…..
The reason offshore call centres matter to me is that I like to support Australian jobs and I find it hard to get answers sometimes from consultants reading from a script overseas.
For example: If there’s one issue bound to get my family wound up it’s internet speed. Two teenage boys who are passionate about online gaming and a teenage daughter who is “insta-famous” apparently means there is little internet capacity left for me.
Now I’m not the smartest person in the room but for the life of me I can’t figure out why I can’t have cable to my house. When I speak to my provider, which I did the other day (via offshore call centre), she said no you can’t have cable. When I asked why she said “because it’s not in your street”. Seems weird to me when a neighbor of mine a few houses down has it. When I mentioned this to the (offshore call centre) lady she said that her information (read cue card) says I can’t have it and that’s the end of that.
So I spoke to my neighbour and she said ‘yes you can get it but it’s best to complain to your local member as he seems to be able to get things done’. What? The only way to resolve this is to complain to my local member?
So I thought I’ll just wait for the NBN, it’s being rolled out everywhere so that should be coming soon…. WRONG! Not due in my area til 2020! What???
Now my monthly telco bill is around $300 a month and includes 2 mobiles, home phone line rental and data. The data/home phone line rental component is $160. I’m hearing ads on the radio for “unlimited data and home phone line rental for $59.95 a month with no lock in contract”. So I ring my provider back and ask if they can match that. She said “No we don’t do unlimited data and our contract period is 24 months”. What?
I’m one of those over-50’s who are too rusted onto their providers because I just don’t have time to compare prices and packages and basically, it can seem all too hard.
(So while I draft a letter to my local member about cable, at least I’m saving on my mobile bill!)
