Ferrier Hodgson hopes its efforts will help clear the One.Tel landscape, currently strewn with, contractual liabilities, continuing direct debits, and bill disputes, for customers.
Customers have a choice between a 24-hour automated hotline on 1 300 300 370, or a hotline staffed by operators during business hours on 1 800 816 227.
"Customers with concerns or difficulties in relation to their One.Tel account should contact one of these two numbers rather than Telstra, Optus, or Dingo Blue, who will be unable to assist them," Ferrier Hodgson partner and joint One.Tel administrator Steve Sherman said.
Sherman confirmed that the administrators had also taken out full-page advertisements in national newspapers to help clarify the situation.
"Many customers have had difficulties in cancelling their direct debit or credit card authorities for One.Tel, and we're working hard to resolve this issue," he said.
"If no monies are owed to One.Tel for services received, the Team will cancel those arrangements as soon as possible. However, the cancellation process cannot be completed for customers who still owe money to One.Tel for past services, or for those who are in dispute over their bill.
Termination fees have also been troubling customers left in the lurch by One.Tel and many fixed line and Internet customers have been wrongly charged for future line access, even though the service could not be provided.
Sherman said the sheer volume of inquiries and correspondence had created delays in dealing with some individual issues.
"Again, we apologise for any inconvenience, and we thank One.Tel customers for their patience during this difficult time," he said.
I called Onetel a few days ago to double check my credit card will not be debited from now. Since I cannot connect I expect I will not... But no matter which prompt I followed via the automated phone system, I received a short message on the topic I assume was related to my problem, though I couldnt figure out how. Then they hung up. I called numerous times and the best I could get was write a letter to us to stop us debiting your account. A bit scary!
Anyway, I expect telstra will be making even more money from the useless (I found) phone prompts of OneTels administrators continually hanging up on me, causing me to redial them.