I only got paid $60 that week. I needed to get credit ($30 and I only had 6 cents on my account) and save the rest for Friday (Dec 1) for when I would go to the show with my boyfriend. I also needed food and other stuff so I thought "hey, I'll go to the Optus shop and get a $10 text saver card". Text saver cards allow the user to recharge their phone and have 70 pre-paid text messages at a really low cost, lower than the standard rate.
So, off I went to the Optus Shop, paid $10 for a text saver card (which was really a reciept, the code printed on it) with my debit card and recharged my account, or so I thought. I needed to text my dad to pick me up so I did. I got a message back saying "This feature is unavailable from your service due to rate plan restrictions or insufficient fund. Dial 555 for balance information." Huh what? So I texted "BAL" to 9999, which is supposed to be a free text. I got the same message back again. Pissed off, I tried once more and got the same result. That was extremely irritating.
Once at home, I called Optus and after talking to their freaking voice-recognition machine for ten minutes (they must do that to get more money) I got put through to a person who was obviously off-shore. I asked why the hell I couldn't use the credit I damn well paid for. He said that the old text saver cards put 50 cents on your balance and allowed you to use the service you paid for. Now, to use the credit one pays for, you need a minimum of 20 cents in your account. I got so pissed off that I almost had a brain anneurism and hung up.
So basically, I'm stuck $10 out of pocket, which I could have used for food, put toward my new phone or spent on my boyfriend, and I still don't have any way to text anyone because my "text saver" won't work unless I've got 20 cents or more in the account, which I don't have. Therefor, the credit I bought is useless and a ripoff. In order to use my text saver credits, I need to recharge my balance fully which is a minimum of $30, and then there's no point because by next week the credits will be almost expired and I'll already have $120 credit thanks to the Turbocharge option. So truthfully, I'll have paid $40 to use 70 text messages worth $17.50, if I paid for more credit.
Optus is always screwing up for me, like stealing my credit and saying I used it when I clearly did not, withholding MMS' I'm meant to have recieved and stuffing up my services and GPRS settings, and this is the last damn straw. I'm changing back to Telstra or some other telco. I'm so fucking fed up of Optus' shit.