Grrr, Telstra!
I just tried to pay our phone bill online. First I tried to use "postbillpay", the payment method that goes via the post office. Telstra apparently don't accept that payment method via credit card, but will only accept bank account based payment through postbillpay. Next step, trying the direct-via-Telstra's-site payment method (which I tried last month and got a "site is currently not working" message of some sort); it went through all the data-collection bits fine, then gave me a blank page when it got to the point of opening a URL with the word 'receipt' in it.
Since I don't want to have to phone them to find out whether the payment went through, I thought perhaps registering (which supposedly lets one view bills) would be a good way to find out whether the bill had been paid. After giving them a bunch of information that I wasn't really happy for them to have (email address, date of birth), it came to the terms of service. The terms of service were even more unnerving than their inability to code their site functionally; essentially "you agree not to steal all our information or do anything naughty" (implication of "you can do those things if you try, so we have to ask you not to", aka. "our security is arse"), so I decided to decline at that point.
A couple of minutes later, I get an email from them with a pin number, including this: If you need assistance at any stage, or did not apply for registration and wish to cancel, please call 1800 266 000.
How does "decline" at the terms of service not equal "wish to cancel" or, indeed, "wish to not have you record all the information I've given you thus far, you fuckers"? Not to mention "wish not to get email from you because I hate you all, unless the email says 'your ADSL service through one of our competitors - that we're not providing even though we said it would be ready a month ago because we're useless - is ready now'".
It's like Verizon all over again.
[10:20]
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