Home > Latest News > TPG Service Beyond Bad, Now They Are Directing Calls To The Tax Office

TPG Service Beyond Bad, Now They Are Directing Calls To The Tax Office

TPG is well known for their arrogance and inability to communicate with technology media at any level, but their customer service takes the cake, raising questions as to why anyone let alone Vodafone would want to partner with them.

4Square Media has been a customer of TPG for more than a decade but trying to get someone to actually answer a simple support call is nigh impossible and begs the question, why are we bothering?

We had a recent network problem and all we wanted was a support person to ping our router to see that we were actually on the network and had a broadband feed.

This is a network connection that we are paying over $450 a month for, but four calls later we are still scratching our heads trying to find someone in their organisation to answer one simple question.

After initially calling the Customer Support Number on our monthly invoice we were told the wait time for a support call was over 30 minutes.

After finally getting through and after supplying our account number, we were told that we had the wrong support department and that we would be transferred to another department, after waiting again we were told that again this department could not help so we were told that we needed to be transferred to yet another person.

The person who answered the call and after being given an account number said that she could find an account for 4Square Media despite the prior two people finding the account in seconds.

“I am sorry I cannot help you, you will have to call this number”.

“Make sure you hit the number 2 key after dialling the number’ she said.

She then gave us a number which we checked twice with her.

The number 1311 423 turned out to be the Australian Tax Office.

Even a visit to their online support page for business generates a ‘Page Not Found Response’.

Though for some reason TPG’s Twitter account is much better at attending to customers, perhaps for reasons of publicity rather than actual customer service commitments.

As a media organisation that writes all day about technology, we are well aware of the shocking reputation that carriers in Australia have when it comes to customer service but TPG is in a league of their own and is well known for their questionable actions.

Back in 2017, the broadband provider was fined $360,000 by the Australian Communications and Media Authority for not unsubscribing customers who requested to stop receiving marketing messages.

ACMA investigated complaints against TPG and found that during April this year, the internet provider’s systems were not properly processing unsubscribe requests.

Consumers complained to the authority that despite having requested not to receive any further marketing communications, TPG continued to send short message service (SMS) text messages to them.

Under Australia’s Spam Act 2003 law, consumers must give their consent to receive commercial electronic messages.

Recently the ACCC appealed a Federal Court’s decision to dismiss its case against TPG Internet Pty Ltd (TPG) for alleged false or misleading representations it made about ‘pre-payments’ customers had to make on its pre-paid internet, home telephone and mobile plans.

The ACCC had alleged that, from March 2013, TPG made false or misleading representations about ‘pre-payments’ of at least $20 which customers had to pay upfront to cover potential usage outside what was included in their plans.

The ‘prepayment’ was automatically topped-up to the original amount, usually $20 when the prepaid balance fell below $10. This ‘prepayment’ was non-refundable even when a customer cancelled their plan, meaning TPG almost always retained at least $10.

“We alleged that by representing this was a ‘prepayment’, consumers were misled by TPG into thinking they could use all the money they had prepaid for out-of-plan services when this was not usually possible,” ACCC Chair Rod Sims said.

Do you have a TPG support story if so we would love to hear from you, send your story to [email protected]

 

 

 



You may also like
Vision Network to Undercut NBN Wholesale Pricing in 2024
Major Aussie Telcos Want Netflix & Others To Pay For Streaming Infrastructure
TPG User Says Company Holding Them To ‘Ransom’, ACCC Investigates
Federal Court Blocks 22 Pirated Movie Sites
Telstra-TPG $1.8B Deal Blocked: Victory For Optus, ACCC