Pages

Friday, July 22, 2016

What happened to my $20 discount?

Optus billing

The whole world knows that I bought a new phone. (Well, if you aren't already aware of it, that is because you weren't paying attention. That information is public knowledge.)

The plan that I signed up for was the Optus $85 My Plan Plus with a $20 discount per month for the entirety of the 24-month contract period.

Optus Deal[5]

How postpaid works in Australia is different to what the word mean. You have to pay the minimum amount (in my case, that should be $65) in arrears, and if you go above that minimum amount (eg: you used more than 7GB data or made international calls exceeding the 300-minute allowance etc.), the extra amount will be charged in the next billing cycle. You get a few days to actually make the payment, but the bill is "generally" generated at the beginning of the billing cycle.

And last night, I received my first bill for the new plan. I signed up for the plan on the 18th.

And it stated that I had to pay $85!!! There was no mention of the $20 discount.

bil

I quickly went online and got hold of an Optus agent via the Optus Chat Support. I asked him why this was the case and he started talking nonsense such as this $20 was applicable only if I had a 2nd Optus plan etc. I showed my amazement and I think he knew something was up, so he forwarded me to the billing department.

It took a while for the agent from the billing department to figure out which deal I was talking about as well. It was as if the billing department was totally clueless about the existence of this new deal for the Galaxy S7. Finally he found it and he said there was nothing he could do about this particular bill as it was generated by the system. It was impossible to regenerate it. Instead, he said he will credit my account $20 (it looks as if I have already paid $20), so that the actual amount I have to pay is $65. He confirmed that this will be corrected in the next bill onwards. I agreed to this option; there was no other choice anyway.

He told me to pay $65 for the bill, but I don't manually pay the bill. I have set up direct debit and the amount is debited automatically by the bank. I did not want to interfere with this process. I was worried that I will be double charged. I asked whether the direct debit amount will be $65 as well, but he said unfortunately it will be $85, although I will only have to pay $45 for the 2nd month.

Today I received an SMS saying my $20 credit was applied to my Optus Account. When I checked the account, it said I owed them only $65 instead of $85. Perhaps the direct debit will only charge $65. The bill will be paid on the 8th of August, so I have to wait till then to see what happens.   

Capture

There are so many things to learn when you've moved to a new country.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...