I have an iPhone…as you may know.
I have access to the internet and email on my iPhone
I have a $340 bill this month.
But on closer inspection of my bill, it is not my number that has the iphone account, it is some other number.
In fact my phone number still has my old phone contract on it that was supposed to be canceled when I bought the iPhone. As you could imagine, a non data plan account would peak out very quickly when using the internet regularly, thinking that I had half a gig of data usage up my sleeve!
So I have 2 ammounts on the bill, one for some number I have never heard of which is on my iPhone plan for $60, and one to my phone number on my old plan for $247.00
BUT – when I rang the billing enquiries they admitted there was an issue, even that a mistake had been made and put me through to another department…I was cut off in the process.
I rang again…told my story…again. The lady asked why I did not use my new number, “I don’t HAVE a new number!” She asked “why did you not put your new SIM into your phone?”
I did not get a new SIM!! I did not want one! I just wanted a new plan on my old number with a new phone!
“I will need to put you through to sales, this is their problem” …aghh I just got cut off from them!
Finally I get through to a machine…I punched in all my codes and requests…and get through to another machine…we are closed for the weekend…bye bye…beep beep beep.
No Guarantees 
Gee sounds fun, hope it works out. I cut a customer off today at work, and sat and waited by the phone for it to ring again so i could apologise profusely
My empathy – I have found the telecommunications ombudsman works wonders when this pattern sets in.
This is no big deal. Please don’t act too indignant when you finally talk to them on the phone. Optus’s billing is quite a shambles. They run two different incompatible billing systems (one which is not capable of online bill checking via the web and one which is) and they routinely put customers on the old one for reasons known only to themselves. This sort of mistake is par for the course for Optus mobile and iPhone users. It happens to a huge percentage of users. You will find that while Optus’ systems are shambles and they frequently screw up billing, they are actually very nice about resolving it if you don’t mind being patient.
If you fail to get satisfaction, just ask politely for escalation. If you don’t like what you’ve been told by a staff member, just ask another one. Like any big organisation, not every staffer is well equipped to handle your problem, but if you persevere, they will sort you out in the end.
Scott,
Try the telephone industry ombudsman 1800 620 058 with a formal complaint if nessicary.. they give you a special ‘advanced’ (non-indian call centre) phone number to call with premium service, as soon as you have a ombudsman case file number, they bend over backwards to help you!