Hang on, your call is important to us

Home Truths column in The Australian, in which I go to war with the illuminati of idiocy otherwise known as Optus. Eventually the forces of good (me) triumph over the forces of darkness (Optus). But the struggle was long and hard and somewhat sanity-sapping. 

Dear Optus,

In a previous article in this newspaper, I called you “an Illuminati of idiocy, your unblinking eye staring from a pyramid of pure stoopid”. It now appears I was too kind.

Our short and turbulent relationship began when, arriving back in the country after 25 years abroad, I acquired a prepaid mobile SIM card at the airport. Why you, Optus? Perhaps it was the slick branding, with your patriotic green and gold logo and your insistent importuning in the affirmative: Optus. Yes.

It’s not that I object to your company being owned by people from a place William Gibson famously described as Disneyland with the Death Penalty (yes, Singapore, I mean you). It’s not that on consumer websites, thousands of people seem to dislike you even more than I do, with a proliferation of “I hate Optus, worst phone company in the world” posts, or that you secretly cut broadband users’ speed, or that you broke the hearts of English Premier League fans with your pallid promises.

After a brief honeymoon, things went sour for us so quickly, Optus. My head is still spinning. I tried to talk to you but you just wouldn’t listen. Surely a “telecommunications” company should have the ability to listen. Didn’t the branding agency that probably charged you millions of dollars for that snappy one-word tagline mention that it’s all about engagement? A two-way conversation? And that doesn’t mean a bunch of backslapping tweets and bleats on Twitter.

Would those millions have been better spent on customer service? Was I being too selfish in asking you to come and connect my home broadband at a time when I would actually be home? Apparently so, for three times I informed you, Optus, that I worked afternoons and you would have to come in the morning, and three times you sent unanswerable emails informing me you planned to come between 1pm and 5pm.

After Peter denied Jesus three times, a cock crowed and they took Christ away to be crucified. After you denied me three times, Optus, I decided to take my business elsewhere.

Unable to get an actual human being on the phone, I visited one of your green and gold, gizmo-laden, deal-dripping stores. There, I informed one of your scant, overworked and distracted staff that I wanted to cancel all business with you. I paid what you told me I owed, not to mention a penalty exceeding $100 to get out of my short-lived contract, and walked away, believing we were through.

It wasn’t you, Optus, it was me.

Why, then, did you decide, from your ivory tower of ill-communication, to continue sending me bills for a broadband service that had, to my knowledge, never been connected or used, to the tune of almost $300 a month? When for all those months I can clearly provide the bills that show I was paying Telstra, who was able to handle the complex task of scheduling a morning meeting to hook me up to home broadband at the very first try, for the very same service?

Why, when I tried to call seeking an explanation, did you put me through several circles of automated telephone response hell, and when an actual human did answer the line, it was someone reading from a script in a call centre sweatshop in Manila, where you have outsourced your customer service, along with your brand’s reputation? Someone who asked inane questions for 30 minutes then put me on hold without warning as I sat for another 30 minutes listening to a grating jingle until I rang off in disgust.

And why, just before Christmas, at a time of celebration and goodwill to men, did you set the debt collectors on to me, charmers with names like the Probe Group who threatened to blacken my credit record and drag me into court for three months of bills for a service I didn’t once use?

Ironically, after three months you disconnected my “service” for unpaid bills, when that was all I wanted you to do in the first place. Another visit to your store resulted, after much investigation, in you agreeing I didn’t owe you anything at all. And yet just yesterday another missive from the Probe Group arrived, probing for even more money you now agree I don’t owe.

It wasn’t me, Optus, it was you. No means no. Optus. No.