Customer fury after Telstra ups bills day after job cuts

Telstra announced on May 21 it will slash nine per cent of its workforce, or 2800 jobs, with most of the axed roles to go by the end of the year.

The move is predicted to save the company $350 million.

As part of the announcement, the telco also revealed that it would drop controversial inflation-linked price increases from its post-paid mobile plans.

CEO Vicki Brady said that meant there would be no price rise on July 1.

"We will not be making pricing changes in July for our consumer post-paid mobile plans," she told reporters.

But what Ms Brady left out was that while mobile plans would not rise, customers would be advised their home internet plans would be subject to a price hike.

One person wrote on X that they were advised on May 21 their internet plan would go up $5 from July 1: "get F####D after all the BS I've just gone through with you over the RS internet you provide you DARE SEND THIS."

Another asked the telco on X: "What is your justification for this?"

A third confirmed they also had received a "charming" email from Telstra outlining the price hike "on the day they had sacked 2800 staff".

A Telstra spokesperson confirmed to ACM there would be changes to home internet prices from July 1.

"As a business, we're constantly striving to balance the needs of our customers whilst ensuring we remain financially sustainable," the spokesperson said.

"NBN Co is increasing the price they charge us for wholesale internet and this is an important factor for the changes we're making, along with our ability to keep investing in our network, products and services while responding to increased data usage.

"This includes 24/7 network monitoring to help protect against scams, 4G backup to help keep you connected in an outage and support from our local teams when you need us."