Has anyone had the experience of transferring a Telstra account to another person?
An example may be when one purchases a house, rather than the vendor cancelling their phone/internet services and the buyer setting up a new account, one transfers the account services to another party.
Telstra indicates that it is possible, but has anyone done it and what was the experience and costs?
Mr Z’s first wife died, with the phone in her name. Nothing happened while he continued to pay the bill, it was only when, just prior to our wedding, the phone stopped working and only the deceased lady could authorise anything. After the wedding, in order to change the account to his name, we had to present her death certificate, Will (leaving her assets to him) and other signed and witnessed forms, to a Telstra Shop; there was no charge. Cancelling and starting a new account would have been quicker, but he couldn’t keep the same number.
His son took over the family home and never put the account into his name (so he keeps the number). Mr Z just hopes he will continue to pay the account and not give him a bad credit rating. I had White Pages change our listing with our christian names (rather than initials) so that people would be more likely to choose our number than the son’s (who kept his parent’s initials in the white pages).
I have no experience changing an account from one name to another unrelated one.
Alternately you might say you are transferring the service to another person? Success and ease might depend on the type of service and reasons. Any sign that the Telstra support does not respond as if the request is a routine and everyday item for them should send alarm bells ringing.
We have done it several times between business and private, and once to business. Lots of paperwork and proof of identity. Some older Telstra accounts were in a legacy system which may or may not be relevant to your needs.
In each instance Telstra issued new account numbers as the identity of the customer changed. It has been a right Royal P in the A as they say. Experience from previous two years.
Never again. We’d now ask to close one account and open a new one, unless it was a simple transfer of a mobile service, private to private. We have done this in the previous two years with Telstra mobile and for a different instance with Optus mobile. Minimal pain with Optus.
For the one other instance where there was a deceased partner the change occurred ten years ago. In those days you could still get service and it was not too difficult from memory.
No cost for any of the changes!
