PHONE FRUSTRATION

THANK you Ian Cole (Nothing can replace connectivity. Mercury October 20). If there were to be a competition for the worst, most frustrating, hair pulling, gnashing of teeth telephone help line my vote would go to Telstra. It seems almost impossible for a mere mortal to speak to a human being about their Telstra issues. Every which way you turn, every question the robot asks you inevitably leads you round in a time consuming and frustrating circle back to where you started! In the interim you may have received unhelpful and incomprehensible SMS messages, pressed this that and the other number – and got nowhere!

All these huge conglomerates want is for the hapless consumer to “use their website” regardless of whether the consumer is computer literate!

Chris Needham, Kingston