You can say that again!

"Prepare to be amazed", the Telstra advertisement boasts. Well, I certainly am but not in the positive way Telstra intends.

I subscribe to Foxtel (pay television) through Telstra as part of a 'bundled' package that is supposed to deliver a discount per bundled service. After my new television was connected on Monday I called Telstra to order an upgrade in my Foxtel service to its IQ HD+ service. I thought the request should be straight forward but I failed to reckon with Telstra's amazing lack of customer service.

I called a generic 13 hundred number which seemed to be Telstra's sole way of permitting customers to contact it by phone. Every call to this number involves a battle of wits with its automated answering 'voice' which steers you through various gates then places you in a queue listening to mindless music and the occasional Telstra message. Eventually you are put through to an Operator who can be anywhere in Australia (and perhaps overseas too, for all I know).

So what happened?

Operator No 1 asked how he could help me then asked me to provide my telephone number, full name and date of birth for identification and security purposes. He then started to process my order and placed me on music hold whilst he did so. After about ten minutes he returned to tell me their systems were frozen and it might take a very long time to clear. He said that I should call back after an hour and try again.

Hello? Telstra, Australia's biggest provider of Internet systems which it wants all Australians to take up, has frozen systems? I see.

Operator No 1 gave me a so called direct line (an 18 hundred number) to use for my next call.

An hour later I called the 1800 number. After the automated voice, music hold and queue process I got through to Operator No 2. She asked how she could help me then asked me to provide my telephone number, full name and date of birth for identification and security purposes. She then started to process my order and placed me on music hold whilst she did so. After about five minutes she returned and told me that my account had been upgraded to a new system but she only had access to an old system so she needed to transfer me to another Operator.

Hello? Telstra has staff using superseded systems?

Operator No 2 transferred me to another Operator.

After the automated voice, music hold and queue process I got through to Operator No 3. She asked how she could help me then asked me to provide my telephone number, full name and date of birth for identification and security purposes. She then started to process my order and placed me on music hold whilst she did so. After about thirty minutes (I kid you not) she returned to say the systems were going slowly and my order was somewhere in transit. She said she would need to monitor my order the next day and promised to call me late on Tuesday to confirm that it had transmitted and was proceeding.

Hello? Telstra's systems 'go slow'?

I asked Operator No 3 how I could follow through with her and she airily answered just ring 'the same number' I rang to get to her. I knew this was not a goer but was not up to arguing the point with a night of bridge ahead for me.

Late Tuesday, I returned from my day in the Blue Mountains but there had been no call nor message from Telstra. I called the 1800 number again. After the automated voice, music hold and queue process I got through to Operator No 4. She asked how she could help me then asked me to provide my telephone number, full name and date of birth for identification and security purposes. I did so and although I tried to restrain myself I started to complain about Telstra's appalling service. This turned out to be a mistake. Operator No 4 said her area was not the correct one to handle my booking and she promised to transfer me directly to a competent relevant Operator. The phone appeared to go dead. No music, no recorded message, nothing. I assumed that Operator No 4 had cut me off.

Now I was angry.

I looked up Telstra's website for its complaints procedure but amongst endless words of customer service, assurances, promises and the like only an email address or the same 13 hundred number I started with on Monday are provided.

I rang the 13 hundred number. After the automated voice, music hold and queue process I got through to Operator No 5. He asked how he could help me then asked me to provide my telephone number, full name and date of birth for identification and security purposes. I told him I have a complaint but it turned out he sold mobile phones and couldn't handle complaints. He transferred me to another Operator who he assured me would be able to deal with my problem.

After the automated voice, music hold and queue process I got through to Operator No 6. He asked how he could help me then asked me to provide my telephone number, full name and date of birth for identification and security purposes. He then told me Telstra's systems were frozen and he couldn't investigate my order at that moment.

Hello? Telstra's systems are stalled again?

There was nothing I could do but ring back later Operator 5 told me. He added that he had worked at Telstra for a long time and this was the first time he had known the systems to stall. That's funny I said because the systems were stalled twenty six hours earlier when I embarked on what I thought would be a simple order. He sympathised but said he couldn't really do anything at his location whilst the system was down but suggested he try transferring me to another office where the systems might be working.

After the automated voice, music hold and queue process I got through to Operator No 7. I asked her first whether the systems were working at her location. She hesitated momentarily but said, yes they were. She asked how she could help me then asked me to provide my telephone number, full name and date of birth for identification and security purposes. I explained the full story. She said she would look into my order and placed me on music hold whilst she did so.

Ten minutes later, a new voice appeared online asking how she could help me. This turned out to be Operator No 8. I explained that I was waiting for Operator No 7 to return as promised but it transpired she had just transferred me to Operator No 8 without taking any new action herself. I went through the whole sorry story yet again and Operator No 8 (who sounded the most informed of the lot) said the obvious (that the others should not have been transferring me around the country) and she asked me to wait whilst she tried to sort it out.

I was placed on music hold. This continued for over thirty minutes and at times I wondered whether anyone was actually still attending to me. I held on because I had become determined to outlast Telstra.

Amazingly Operator No 8 did return. She told me that my order had been placed but that it was marked with an error message. The upshot of it, according to Operator No 8, was an IT problem at Telstra.

Hello? Telstra has IT problems?

Operator No 8 told me that programmers had updated the computer systems and the changes were corrupting old accounts like mine that hadn't changed with the updates. Operator No 8 went on to tell me that she had emailed the IT unit explaining the problem but that it would take at least five days to resolve and she asked me to call back on the generic line after that time to check progress. Why did I have to call back? Because Telstra had no provision for Operators to initiate calls to customers. I doubted this but by then I was truly amazed; just not the way Telstra had promised.

I will change providers.

In the meantime I have initiated a formal complaint with Telstra. I expect they will amaze me with their response in due course.