Australia follows USA with tree-killing iPhone bills

We all remember Justine’s first iPhone bill [video] totaling 300 pages in August last year. It resulted in every website imaginable writing something about the story, and AT&T removing itemised data from their bills and allowing customers to opt-in to e-billing/paperless billing.

When Justine’s video was released I’d been using data on my Nokia 6280 for a few months. I used it to access Twitter Mobile and Facebook Mobile while I was away from my computer. It worked for me, but I had a limit of 3MB. When I started going over that, and being charged excess usage by the kilobyte, I had to upgrade to a larger data option. I started paying $14/mo for 20MB of data; with daily access to the aforementioned sites, I could keep within that ridiculous data limit.

The more I used data, the larger my phone bills became. (Prior to my data usage my phone bills would be 3-4 double-sided pages; after I began using data: ~10 double-sided pages.) Yes, every darn kilobyte was mentioned on paper!

Justine’s video inspired me go paperless on all my bills. I rang my bank; they did it over the phone in seconds. I have an old account with 3 Mobile where I only pay for what I use and I never use it, so I get a bill every few months saying ‘$0 due’; I rang them and they did it over the phone in seconds.

Then I rang Optus — the company I have my mobile bill with. Now, I love Optus; I’ve been with them for over 7 years. They told me I had to go to my Optus online account and check a box to get my bill as an e-bill. No problem. I go to sign in and my credentials fail. Okay, so I ring Optus and they reset my password and send the new one to my phone. I try it. Nada; it doesn’t work. I ring them again and they say it could be due to their whole system and website being upgraded; try back later.
I ring back after about a month. Same deal. I have to do it myself. I get Optus to reset my password again. It doesn’t work. Again

I give it another month or two. Same deal.

This goes on for months.

As my trip to the USA got closer and closer, I picked up my game a little; yes, despite my lovely nature, I can get fierce when I want something done. It can’t be done. I tell them “I’m going to America. No one will be home to get my bills (a lie). I need them send to my e-mail!!” They respond with “… privacy act … blah blah … Let me reset your password … rah rah …” UGH!!!!
Okay. So now I’m actually in America and I’ve called them three times (thank you Skype!) only to receive the same old deal: sign in and you can do it. They ask me if I want to reset my password. While I have global roaming ON, the signal seems to suck, so there’s no way I can get the password on my phone.

I ask them why they can’t do this for me. Privacy. I’m on the phone. I WANT YOU TO DO IT. I don’t care if you see the password; rahhh! They can’t send the new password to any other phone number either. They can’t send it to an e-mail. They pretty much suck at life. Oh, and the system is still being upgraded (10 MONTHS LATER).

The other night I called them again about another matter, and decided I might as well see if
they can set up e-billing for me. Nope. Although, this was the first customer representative to actually say “Sorry” (he was sincere too! — I think his name was Melvin; good guy!) for not being able to set up e-billing on my behalf; he can’t break the privacy policy.

Optus, among other carriers, now have the iPhone 3G in Australia. (The original iPhone was never released in Australia, nor will Apple give support for it in Australia.) Wonderful! A year too late, in my opinion, but still wonderful. Optus has the best value plans; offering up to 3GB of data, unlimited voice calls, and unlimited texting for the largest plan. Cheaper Optus plans have between 100MB-700MB worth of data included; Telstra only offers up to 170MB of data; Vodafone charges a lot more for up to 1GB of data; Virgin just announced 5GB of data for $100/mo.

Back to the environmental issue at hand. My dad showed me this article describing large iPhone bills in Australia due to itemised data.
Who works at these companies? A bunch of narrow-minded twats? If you lived in Australia and even knew about the iPhone prior to it’s official release, you would have known about Justine’s bill-in-a-box. Now Optus and other companies are going to offer paperless billing for the iPhone.

You’d think they’d learn from America’s mistakes, but nope; we’re often just as silly!

Brainstorm: Maybe now that this has been an issue in the news down under, I’ll now be able to get a customer representative to setup paperless billing for my Australian phone (currently suspended and not in use); hopeful thinking.

If not, then I hope they find this post and call me. Bias.