Users angry over Kogan Mobile collapse

Users of now-defunct Kogan Mobile have turned to the internet to vent their frustrations, with some emailing sites like Technology Decisions with their comments and others trading barbs in forums over who is ultimately to blame for the carrier’s downfall.

Speaking to TD last week about the collapse of Kogan Mobile, telco analyst Paul Budde said: “Nothing really happened to the customers, they’re not losing money or getting ripped off.”

Objecting to Budde’s comments, one disgruntled Kogan user wrote in to Technology Decisions saying: “Mr Budde has commented that Kogan customers are not losing out and are not being ripped off. I just purchased three Kogan Mobile SIM cards at $20 each. So that is $60 gone. Customer service says no refunds.”

(Kogan’s PR representative told TD that Kogan is refunding all unactivated SIMs. It seems if your SIM has been activated, you are out of luck.)

Some ex-Kogan Mobile users are turning to the incumbents following the discontinuation of their service.

One user wrote in to TD saying: “I gave zero f***s about who the villain was in this story. So I simply went to Telstra after having bad-to-average experiences with Vodafone, and then Kogan. I just wanted decent service.”

Meanwhile, Kogan users have flocked to Australian telecoms discussion forum Whirlpool to discuss the demise of their mobile carrier, racking up 2300+ posts on this topic alone (not including discussions on ispONE vs Telstra, or of other retailers like Aldi) in the last eight days.

Much of the conversation has centred on how users can best manage the disruption to their mobile services, and which service provider they can switch to now that Kogan Mobile is out of the picture. Interestingly, few Whirlpool users seem to lay blame on Kogan, instead saving their vitriol for Telstra or (in true Whirlpool fashion) other customers.

(In the latter case, users are suggesting those customers who over-gorged on Kogan’s “unlimited” mobile service are partly to blame for ispONE’s downfall.)

And in the background, Kogan and Telstra continue to trade tit for tat in the PR battle over the fallout of ispONE’s collapse.

In a post on its official blog, Kogan wrote: “Telstra refers to Kogan’s ‘decision to no longer provide services’ to its customers. Kogan Mobile made no such ‘decision’. As Telstra well knows, Telstra terminated its supply arrangements with ispONE with the knowledge that this would result in the loss of service to Kogan Mobile and its customers. We invite Telstra to specify in detail what ‘decision’ it believes Kogan could have made to continue to provide services, and which alternate enabler, platform and billing system is able to operate on Telstra’s 3G Prepaid Platform.”