Southern Phone Home Phone

Such a shame, this phone company was a not-for-profit purely Aussie service (I think it started out as a rural service). Apart from the fact that I rang 4 times in one day to get another sim card for my son (whose phone was stolen OS) and the systems were 'down', they will not send another sim by priority mail, will not send it overseas and the… Read more

web-site boasts e-sims which they 'no longer do'. Go figure. By the time I receive the sim in Melbourne (up to 10 business days) and then send it OS, my son will lose his job! They are also not taking new customers but the first 'option' when calling is inviting new customers to sign up. We have been with Southern for well over 10 years as a family. The customer service is a failure now too. If anyone asks me "what else can I help you with today" after not helping at all, I'm gonna scream.

ZERO STARS. I am not one for writing reviews, because I feel like it does nothing, but I have had nothing but bad experiences with Southern Phone. When I had an account, I had a discount for 6 months. The second payment, they started charging me the full amount. I send a complaint, did they respond ever? Of course not. Did I get a refund? Of… Read more

course not. Their chat staff stick to their copy and paste robot scripts and don't have any humanity or initiative to say, "oh, we screwed up. Let me urgently help fix this." I have also just cancelled my mums account because of their garbage. My mum is a pensioner. Account was cancelled half way through a cycle. Instead of issuing the last bill early like other institutions, they are making her wait for her refund until the next bill issues. It will have been a whole month before she gets her refund. We all know d#mn well that there are ways to get things done outside of normal cycles, but instead, they stick to their scripts of, this will be done on or before, when we will know that means it won't be done before, they just say it to make it seem like they have done what you asked. They're scammers and a rip off cause the service isn't even good. I hope people stop using them. I know they're cheap but it's not worth it.

Why even be in business ?, from incorrect details on who to call to connect a business nbn service, to clumsy menus over the phone, to then being shipped off to India, to a rude customer service team, that put you on hold and don't get back to you, it's literally impossible to connect a service , DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME , pay the extra $10 per… Read more

month and support Australian jobs , these guys are absolutely terrible at what they do, and I'm not even a customer, and don't bother with the generic cut and paste response southerphone, I'll file it straight in the stiff trash section.

It's been 10 days using home internet service. Totally satisfied so far. Getting internet speeds which we paid. Express modem delivery ( Sydney) good customer service. Highly recommend Show reply

Live chat was breezy – I'm never usually one to leave reviews, but the service I've received has been awesome contrary to most of the feedback left here. I had issues connecting with a new NBN (FTTB) service which was quickly resolved via the live chat agent. I also requested to remove CGNAT and this was taken care of very quickly in the live chat too. Overall, I had no issues with SouthernPhone so far :) Show reply

Excellent service from Giffards' Floorworld – I asked Giffards' Floorworld, Moonah (Hobart), Tasmania to organise vinyl flooring in my house. I was provided with very sound advice and the job was done efficiently and to a satisfactory standard.

Tried to sign up online, requested a modem with the internet plan. Got an email that night to say you've signed up and told us you're providing your own modem. So I called the next day and they checked and said they couldn't see where I had requested a modem. Were quite rude telling me that I had made a mistake even though I told them I had… Read more

checked on the summary screen and it definitely said I ordered the modem. They couldn't just order the modem so had to cancel the service, sign me up again and order the modem with the new sign up. I checked that I wouldn't be charged any extra, initially he said it would depend, when I asked what it would depend on he said how much internet I had used. I reminded him I didn't have a modem. The next day I got the same email to say you've signed up and told us you're providing your own modem!!!! So I called back to check and they said they could see the previous notes and there DEFINITELY WAS a modem on the way. I let them know to check their email wording for future customers but they weren't interested. Then the next day I get a bill for the cancelled plan plus the new plan in advance. So I called again. They told me to wait until I get the modem and are connected, then to call back and they would waive the extra charges. I refused to call back again and the call was escalated. This girl was very nice and said she was embarrassed by my experience so far. She confirmed the modem was on it's way and that she would check up on it over the next couple of days to make sure I got it, she also emailed me a credit for the extra charges I was charged. So just over a week after signing up I went on the chat to check where the modem was or an ETA and they said it had NEVER BEEN SENT and it would be another week before I got it as they could send it today. I then called to speak to someone as they apparently couldn't cancel the service. Initially was refused but finally transferred to the escalation team. They said they could express post the modem to me and have it here before the weekend. We'll see if it ever arrives.

with a 94% negative feedback rating, what could possibly go wrong??????????? in the septic tank we call our telco choices, Southern Phone have floated to the top...................

Has to be the WORST customer service experience ever- STAY AWAY Joined their Home Phone servicr last week. The intial setup took some time with customer service which is accpetable but next day only to realise they set me up incorrectly. So back on the phone to them and again another 45min and they assured me it was fix. Come yesterday l recieve… Read more

an email and realize they are laending parcel (modeum) to wrong address. Tried to get this rectified only to find it cant and that if the modem once delivered,to the wrong address mind you, to get a stat dec to say l never recieved it….now apart from waisting 4-5 calls with them they are asking to arrange a stat dec on them sending out to wrong address! And the thing is, the actual serice being Home Phone activation hasn’t even started, so what will happen and what l’ll fo through from hereon l can’t imagine. Would give zero stars if possible.

WARNING!! do not use this provider. Multiple customers are losing paid invoices, and customer service is rude and provides condescending responses. such as "Bad luck I can't help you, it's just the way it is" many customers have lost their phone numbers which is a massive inconvenience, imagine losing your phone number which you have had for 20 years. it's a huge ordeal.

This organization is absolutely useless. If there were an option for zero stars, I’d give it. Coverage is terrible, speeds are inconsistent, and getting through to resolve issues is very difficult. Pay a little extra and look elsewhere.

Hopeless – If i could would give 0 stars. Hopeless constant outages i checked my area on their site says operational yet i speak to someone there and they issues have been reported. They are so slow they havent even updated their own system. My advice go anywhere else. Useless company useless staff.

Worst – Worst service in all means. They should give an option for zero stars. Poor network and customer service. Please stay away from this company.

The worst of the worst – I have been served by different companies and in different countries, there were good and bad ones. But this company is the worst of the worst. They write out bills simply by making them up. Also disconnecting from them is a problem, they continued to send me bills even after disconnecting

They make it very difficult to leave them – I tried to end my mobile phone contract with Southern Phone. The account was paid in full. . They asked for my name address date of birth. I gave it to them. They claimed my account had no phone number attached to it which I've had for 5+ years with them. Then they demanded my Drivers License plus another form of ID. I refused to give it to… Read more

them because I do not trust them to keep that information secure. They refused to cancel my account unless I gave them more ID. They said without the ID they will keep billing me for a mobile service they say they have no phone number for! If I don't pay, they will send it to a debt collector and damage my credit rating. Its a $10 per month account! Stay away from them!

Useless technical support – Their sales staff are Australians. That gets new customers hooked. But once that is done, you had to deal with overseas support staff for any issues. That is the frustrating part. They are hard to understand and generally irresponsible - specially their technical support. Sound like they based in India.

Southernphone - a failure in communications – I'm another one being gaslit & run around from at least October, 2023, when the internet & phone kept dropping out. I began a diary about May 2024 until I left them & went elsewhere. The diary revealed that I had had outages upto 11 times/day - but mostly around the 4 times/day, having to reboot. A couple of phone calls to their India call… Read more

centre fixed nothing. At times the entire service was 'out' for a day, sometimes more. I have begun a complaint to the Ombudsman. Southernphone have been fined $244,000 in the courts for failure to attend to complaints. This is a company that are not prepared to do what is right by customers. As for being Australian owned - not even their purchaser AGL is fully Australian owned. https://www.acma.gov.au/articles/2024-05/southern-phone-pays-244000-penalty-inadequate-complaints-handling

Stressful and Frustrating Experience with My VOIP landline – I have now been without a functioning home phone for over 6weeks having explored all router and network options in an attempt to rectify the problem. The issue has been assigned to SP's Escalation Team since late August 24. I have had to work through ALL router configuration settings to assist SP as best as I can for someone in their late… Read more

seventies. There has been nothing identified to date, to determine whether the source of the issue is a router, network, or other? SP have informed me that there will be no adjustment to Home Phone charges until the problem is rectified. As a senior, I frequently rely on my landline as a means of communication, particularly with overseas relatives. I have no indication from SP as to how long I am supposed to endure this intolerable situation for? JANINA

Incompetant company – Asked for my phone number to be disconnected, after they canceled the plan and increased my bill without any notification and continually lied about it. They disconnected the wrong number. Complete incompetence! They are completely useless.

Feed up customer – As I am 78 years old & have been using Southern Phones for 16 years as they advertised you would be speaking to a person with an Australian accent & now I have a lot of trouble understanding the current accents I encounter when I have to contact Southern Phones for help with my non existence WiFi service I am having so much trouble with in East… Read more

Bowral! Also my land line is not connected to my new modem of 12 months! I am seriously considering moving to another provider as I am totally unsatisfied with my WiFi after changing to Fibre to the Premises & an increase on my monthly charges with no difference in my services! A very disappointed & unsatisfied customer☹️

From Great to Horrible – This company has gone from great to being horrible especially since the call centre is now overseas. My son's internet has been off-line since the start of the month and has had nothing but excuses why it isn't working. Turns out that it was an NBN fault which the fixed. However the tech said that we would have to ring Southern Phone to… Read more

reconfigure the modem. One tried to help the next said they don't do . Nothing but excuses. We did get a woman to ring today and l asked her to ring son after 4pm when he gets home. Call came at 2.54. Of course nobody home. Hopeless service

Where is my 5G??? – I Should of read the reviews before i joined Southern Phones. Was promised 5G but I only get 4G. When speaking to customer service from their call centre in India they said at my billing address there is no 5G which i was fine with because my phone jumps on to my wifi network. But when i said to them what about when i travel for work and go to… Read more

the major cities i.e Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney i still only get 4G, there reply is (which doesn't make sense) because at my billing address i don't have 5G????

incompetant – Do not use southernphone, Run. they do not answer their phone only indian call room. took a month for them to find my payment even though I had a receipt # from them. Thanks for your payment! Customer Care to howard@southernphone.com.au Today at 4:16 PM Southern Phone Bill Explainer ACC163973 Log In To My Account My Account Thanks for your… Read more

payment! Hi HOWARD, Thank you for your payment of $55.00 that was processed on 02-02-2024.

Your receipt number for this payment is PAY7168332.

If you need to update your payment method or banking details for future payments, please visit My Account.

Thanks, Southern Phone Company howard@southernphone.com.au to Customer Care Today at 8:19 PM not even an apology for your mistake and wasting 1/2 hour of my time on the phone

DO NOT USE SOUTHERN PHONE ABSOLUTELY HOPELESS – Writing on behalf of my mother who 84, is hard of hearing despite hearing aids and very frail. Struggles to even use only the phone function on a mobile. In July 23, we requested for Southern to cease broadband but to keep the current home phone. Checked this with the operator 3 times and was reassured we would have the home phone. Then home phone… Read more

was disconnected a week later. Called Southern back and requested for a home phone advising that the reason we want one, is that NO mobile phone reception in the house at all. You have to go outside to use a mobile. Then we are sent a modem with a SIM card using the mobile network. Tried from start to September to date to get them to send a normal modem. NO, they do not do this even after going through their complaints process from October to December. We also paid for a phone expert to come out to get it working and he confirmed that is was a mobile modem. None of the operators appear to be Australian either, we can't understand their accent half the time either. In the meantime, we are being charged monthly for a service we are not receiving. Tried to cancel the home phone last month, just got another bill for nothing!!!!! They were meant to refund all the charges, so much for that. They used to be a good company, not anymore since they outsourced their call centre.

Going to go to the Ombudsman as this seems to be the only way to get 'telcos' accountable.

HOW HARD IS IT TO UNDERSTAND NO MOBILE PHONE RECEPTION AND YOU SENT THE WRONG MODEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

APPALLING CUSTOMER ASSISTANCE – Since this supposedly proud 'Aussie Company' boasted it was owned by and employed thousands of Australians, sold out to other organisations the customer service I have been receiving with ANY issue I might have, be it major or minor, being dealt with by the Southern Phone customer service team, (I believe, based in Mumbai?) is beyond… Read more

comprehension. In other words, it is appalling. I have no issue whatsoever with the lovely people trying to assist me in any way apart from the fact that they are obviously not trained or cognizant with the issues/enquries and problems they are being confronted with from people like myself, and no doubt, many others. Quite frankly, I've had quite enough and will now 23/2/2024 be looking for a more professional provider for my communication/acct enquries & other issues. Thank you. Regards, Jane Staunton

Deteriorating service – These guys used to be great, but since AGL bought them out they have been steadily going downhill, and now becoming very frustrating to deal with. Call centre staff are a lot less knowledgeable, a lot of mistakes are happening that they can't explain the cause of, and staff don't seem to care and give unsatisfactory responses. Looking to switch… Read more

providers for both home phone and mobile services, getting too fed up. Such a shame, they used to be miles better than their competitors, now they are mediocre at best.

Appalling customer service – If I could give them a negative star I would. After signing up online and opting to use my current number, after following the activation instructions, my service from my previous service provider was not cut off. I called about the issue and the woman on the other line was incredibly unprofessional. I would compare it to talking to an eight year… Read more

old with an attitude. She gave me little information about what was happing, was short with me and gave me whining responses when I ask questions. By the end, I was left confused over what had should have been a simple solution to a simple issue. Just terrible!

Bad customer service, higher bills, not competitive – Spent a lot of time trying to resolve an issue of incorrect plan assigned and higher bill. It had been very long and at the end of the day southern phone made it my fault. Basically saying that the customer who signed up for the wrong plan for less speed and higher bill. Sounds funny. I actually joined during promotion period. Thats the promotion I got :) switching to another providers, not time waster

Internet outages and call centre in India – Twice in the past week our internet and voip phone have been out for most of the day. No text from Southern Phone to inform us as they have done in the past. Rang Southern Phone and spent a considerable amount of time speaking to a technician in Mumbai India who couldn’t tell me any more than I already knew. Our internet was down. In the past I… Read more

have always spoken to very helpful call centre in Australia. We have been with Souther Phone for over 5 years. We are now considering changing providers

Updated review: After a week conversing with Southern Phone representative Matthew, I am happy with the outcome and advice to update our old modem through Southern Phone who will configure the new modem before sending.

Horrible ISP customer service – I had an issue with my NBN connection for the past month and a half, needing to reset my modem every hour. I used the only chat and got some guy named Ragdeep or Jagdeep, can't remember but it was "Somethingdeep". They tried to tell me that my modem needed replacing as it was over 2 years old (30 months old there abouts) and then they got really… Read more

nasty towards me when I mentioned I work for a tech firm, and that I refuse to accept that a modem needs replacing every 24 months, and that Australian Consumer Law states that electronics need to last for the "reasonable lifetime" of said item - in particular any telecommunication device needs to last a minimum of 36 months as that is an expected contract period for said accounts.

They then tried to tell me it would be the cables, and that I needed to get all my cables replaced. They got nasty again when I refuted that, stating that cables could last up to 70 years especially when they are no plugged in and out on a regular basis.

There was no resolution to my issue, so I have continued to restart the modem every hour minimum, sometimes it just wouldn't work and I would have to hot spot off my phone...

Long story short, I was playing around in the modem settings and I noticed the internet time was not picking up on Daylight Savings correctly...having worked in tech I know that this can cause issues with software licencing, so I set the time to a different timezone 1 hour ahead of Melbourne, and it now works

Thanks a lot Ragdeep Jagdeep whatever your name was, I nearly spent thousands because of your incompetence

Absolutely appalling 'service' – I have all of my phone accounts (2 mobiles plus a home phone) with Southern Phone. I receive a monthly bill for the same amount each month. Today, I noticed an additional charge on my monthly bill for $12, listed as a 'service and equipment' charge. Tried to access my phone account 'portal', only to be told my credentials were incorrect. I… Read more

know they were correct as I have them written down and haven't had a problem before. Then tried to call them. What a nightmare. A couple of false starts navigating through their robot answering service to find myself talking to somebody overseas .... yep, another company that would rather use overseas call centres than employ Australians. After waiting on the phone for ten minutes, the operator finally transferred me to a company person in Australia. She said she was unable to determine what the additional charge was about and would arrange a credit on my account. No guarantee that it won't simply appear again on next month's bill. Southern phone is a company started by a group of local councils, using government grant money. They sold out to AGL a couple of years ago and the level of service is now abysmal. I've wasted two hours and a good deal of stomach acid on these wonderful people this morning.

Landline non-existent – Constantly having our landline stop working, due to local exchange apparently. It is vital to us in a poor mobile blackspot (also provided by Southern Phone). Takes many days to repair and difficult to contact them so I am paying for a service I frequently, and dangerously, don't receive.