GoTalk gobbles up another broke company

GoTalk, the company that purchased the poorly administered, financially incompetent Wild I&T has decided to take the cousin of the company, Koala Telecom.

Koala Telecom has 2500 customers, and has a long running bad reputation.

Some items worth highlighting:

– VoIP server downtime. Koala, when I started OzVoIPStatus was so unreliable, that I had no choice but to get them up there for comparison. The VoIP offering was down so much that the time it was up would fit on one hand.

– Account System Insecurity. Koala back last year had several flaws in the online patchwork system they call their members area.
The system was prone to hacks and privacy abuse, in fact, many months ago, and for months after discovery, it was possible to view customers invoice details, and prior to that, the credit card information was readable.

– Poor System Security. When Koala was unstable, there were countless times where users were able to discover flaws in their system security, flaws which exposed that they couldn’t administer their own linux systems, and relied on WebMin to do so.

– ISP was a near failure. Koala as an ISP had many, many complaints about speed issues, and billing issues, and data accounting issues. There were many, many complaints, you’d have to wonder why anyone even thought of signing up.

But, just like the cousin, Wild I&T, Koala Telecom are splitting their internals up a bit differently to make sure they aren’t forced out with nothing at all.

They’ve setup two companies, the Koala Telecom retail company (where they would obviously have got ALL their customers), and they have UTS (Unique Technology Solutions), this company apparently owns all of the assets, such as the network infrastructure.

The only real item on sale to GoTalk is the customer base and the hope the customers won’t disconnect in 15 seconds as a result of the changeover.

One can see by the Wild I&T fiasco that the customer retention rate after such exposure is very low, many customers soon see the light that there is little to be gained by staying with an ISP that has its finances mismanaged.

ISPs like Koala Telecom setup, and they sit in business for a year or two, and this works for the most part, after that initial timeframe, they fail to meet the operating finances required to grow the business.

Or better yet, they piss it all up on $3.5 million on LCD TV’s that require ridiculously long contracts and still take all decade to move.

Koala had several flaws.
They were only attractive to the leech customer, no retail customer in their right mind goes with an ISP that is no name and has a very short (and according to Google, Whirlpool Forums and OzVoIPStatus) a very shaky and unreliable operation.

What happens when you don’t give a Koala it’s leaves? Well, it essentially doesn’t eat, and when you starve something for long enough, it gets weak and hungry.

The big laugh to be had out of the whole Koala crash is a comment made on Whirlpool Forums by Leslie, Curtis’s lap dancing, questionable competence technician, who had this to say just moments before the news about Koala’s finance mismanagement:

Koala Telecom is not insolvent and this thread needs to be closed.

Any further posts stating Koala Telecom are insolvent or closing down will be taken as defamatory and slander and legal avenues will be pursued to ensure this stops.

Regards
Leslie

Leslie, as can be seen by your alternative behaviour on whirlpool, which included posting as another user, in favour of the company you worked for, and this recent comment, you truly have a lot to learn about business ethics, and ethics in general.

You can’t sue for rumours over insolvency, but further, it’s actually bad to be representing a company (as you were) and stating they are not insolvent, when clearly, at the time of the news, they were (as can be seen by the Administration news).

Curtis who seemingly owns (but denies) ownership of the companies claims he is General Manager of all 3. Well Curtis, someone pays you, and if you aren’t getting paid, what on earth are you doing there?

It’s obvious to anyone with half a brain you are intentionally setting this up so that you don’t fall owner of it all, but reality hits back hard. Someone at the top of the food chain is responsible, that someone is the one responsible for all this. In the absense of any known registered owner, one can only assume you as General Manager were responsible for mismanaging the finances.

The trick to growing a business?
Give the customers what they want. The customer is always right (even when they are not).

Customer support at the ISP went downhill.

They bought Powerband Networks, and those customers who would have otherwise had a good deal, are now faced with the same shock that any idiot who bought into Koala will face. GoTalk, and the possible change of plans, or the same problems (that still continue) with TIO complaints and users churning fast!

One would question, with so many TIO complaints, wouldn’t buying an ISP of the Wild or Koala nature (financially mismanaged) be worth it in the end? The TIO isn’t free!

Oh, and to clarify, when I said better ISP, I did NOT suggest Bigpond. Go with Exetel. Go with Optus. Go with Netspace (and they ARE BAD!).

Oh, and on the topic of Netspace: They’ve counted usage incorrectly. I emailed them on Saturday, and it’s now Tuesday night, and they still haven’t responded (aside from the automated ticket).

I took advantage of that response to confirm my 30 days notice. I am churning away from the incompetent bunch to Exetel, cheap, good value, and are still in business (THEY ARE VIABLE).

Enjoy!