Frustrating unresolved issue with receiving calls on mobile

[tpapa22]

I discovered last week on Thursday 8 March that people were trying to call me but could not get through, even to voicemail. I had no idea why this was happening, so I contacted Telstra Prepaid on Friday morning to investigate the issue and was put through to Tech Support. Basically I can't receive calls at all, not even to voicemail and the number can't be forwarded. However, I can make calls and send/receive text messages. The technician guided me through several procedures to rectify the situation but nothing worked so it was escalated to Level 3 support and was told I would be called within 48 hours. So I had to wait over the weekend for a call on Monday or Tuesday...that never happened! I called Telstra out of sheer frustration on Tuesday afternoon to get an update, but because the issue has been ticketed, I was told I have to wait for the Level 3 technician to call me, and that I may have to wait 3 to 5 days for a response! I expressed my frustration quite strongly as I rely on my phone for work. People call me to book me for work, so I am potentially losing work because of this issue. The technician told me that he would write an email to the specific Level 3 technician who has been allocated to my issue, so that I would be contacted on Wednesday morning. I got up early on Wednesday and received no call. I am away from home a lot due to the nature of my work, but others in the house have told me that no one from Telstra has called. I have no idea how they expect me to stay a home to wait for a call. It is now Thursday, a week after the issue began and I have nothing from Telstra. I am beyond disappointed and frustrated in the way this matter has been handled. Every time I call, I get told the same story; that I have to wait for the Level 3 technician to call me. Meanwhile, I pay for a service and I can't be contacted. I have started to look around for another provider because this is beyond a joke. Can anyone shed a light on what might be happening? Oh, and I have tried all the suggested fixes available online with no success - putting the SIM card in another phone, resetting the network, cancelling any forwarding service that may have been activated, rebooting the phone etc.

[Jupiter]

If calls aren't even going through to voicemail, then it sounds like an account level issue.

The only thing I could think to suggest that you could do is to get a replacement SIM from your nearest Telstra Store and see if that fixes the problem (assuming that the problem is caused by a corrupted SIM).

[tpapa22]

Thanks for your reply Jupiter. I swapped the SIM card for a new one 2 weeks ago and all seemed to be working well. Perhaps I will have to do this again...or go elsewhere. I'm not sure why this wasn't suggested by the tech person at Telstra as a possible issue, despite it being a new SIM card. I didn't manipulate any controls on the phone itself before the issue began, so you could be right about it being an account issue.

[tpapa22 · Accepted solution]

UPDATE: OK, so after a couple more frustrating days of calling Telstra, lodging a complaint, and Telstra representatives either not calling back or calling to speak at a scheduled time that was actually Eastern Australian time and not Perth time (where I'm based), I was going to escalate this whole debacle to the TIO (Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman). I thought I would call one last time to see why no one called me back this morning (Saturday) as was promised and went straight through to the complaints department, where I spoke to a new case manager, as the one I lodged the complaint with the other day was unavailable. After needing to explain the situation again and the new case manager consulting notes, he advised me that there was nothing he could do (as others had advised me...AGH!) because it was ticketed to a level 3 support technician. I remained as calm as I could and explained that this was not acceptable and I was very close to reporting this to the TIO because I kept on getting the same story with no action. He asked if he could try and fix it and I agreed but warned him that a lot of procedures had already been tried unsuccessfully. The first attempt failed and then he had another idea...WHICH WORKED! He asked me to check with other phones in the house, which also connected when I called my number, and I messaged a friend in another suburb to also call me, which also worked. I asked him what he did and he said he turned on "Voice LTE" as it was on in one system and off in the other (whatever that means). I was baffled over why this troubleshooting procedure had not been tried before. It seemed so simple. The issue could have been rectified with the first phone call to technical support over a week ago. Why it was turned off is also a mystery. Go figure! Apologies for the detail in describing all this, but perhaps this little saga will help someone else in the future who experiences the same issue.
I thanked the case manager for his assistance and customer service. I am much relieved. Now all I have to do is get compensated for being inconvenienced for over a week with this tech issue and this case is closed. Cheers!