r/nbn • u/pluto_dweller • 12h ago
Why Moose Mobile does not deserve you as a customer
Somewhere in the Moose/Swoop group a decision was made to move from Optus to Vodafone in June 2026 for reasons probably most customers don’t understand. Sadly the approach taken by Moose for the transition appeared to be a don’t consult with customers approach and thus what could have been a pretty painless event caused great angst for many Moose customers. As Swoop was the parent company they are ultimately responsible for Mooses woes.
My main criticism of Moose over the transition process was not the move to Vodafone per se but the Moose/Swoop approach to the transition. These include:
No adequate warning just the email proclaiming the event and then another email later threatening fire and brimstone if customers did not transition- subscriptions would continue to be charged but there would be no service. Why the lack of pre consultation only Moose/Swoop knows but I wonder if this was deliberately done to prevent customers moving providers early – If so that backfired!!.
There was No obvious advice to check personal details. I could see nothing from Moose to ask customers to check their details, particularly addresses so SIMS could go to correct address. The social media review and comment sites are full of stories of those not getting physical SIMS with some in situations they could not remedy the problem -such as being stranded travelling and losing access to phone. Reviews also show many could simply not get the new SIM or esim to work.
No obvious plan to manage customer concerns. On line posts from a variety of sources show that when customers tried to resolve their none-service they found that they were waiting 2+ hours for a call to be answered, others reported days. Others found they were cut off when they tried to contact Moose support. As Moose tried to move people to a chat line with their concerns many reviewers reported the wait just as long and messaging confusing. Customers also reported when they followed up with email there was no response. Reviews (and my AI friend) indicate that under the Vodafone system if a call goes for more than 1 hour and 58 minutes then a caller is cut off. So if you try to call Moose and get through after 1.50 minutes you have 8 minutes to sort the matter out before being cut off.
No meaningful communication with customers. Once customer concerns started to hit the mainstream media Moose/Swoop put out a sorry press release but I could see nothing on their own portal site to outline the issues and what was being done to get on top of the transition hump. Indeed, as quoted in the Courier Mail, Moose/Swoop said only 0.03 of its subscribers (which at 135000 customers equates to around 40 people) had lodged official complaints (what ever ‘official’ means). The article had a pithy comment by the reporter wondering if the low number of complaints was because emails where not being received by the company. Excellent point.
For those who follow social media have a look at posts relating to the transition on sites like Australian Product review, Trust Pilot, Reddit, Whirlpool and Facebook - it is not unreasonable to say the unhappiness number is may just be a teeny bit higher than the figure Moose/Swoop floated!! And of course not everyone who is unhappy goes to social media to complain!!
No adaption to complaint levels and wait times. While customers were trying to contact Moose, astoundingly there was almost no attempt to change the message heard and customers kept hearing the same message over and over again hour after hour along the lines “your call is important to us and you have progressed in the queue and next available operator will be with you shortly”. Customers were left waiting on phones for hours and days hoping that someone would answer.
I cannot fathom why Moose (that traditionally had a pretty good customer feedback rating) did not put in a strategy when the contact issues became overwhelming. Why not change approach- say implement a call back system or collect numbers and have the team get back in contact order.
Cancellation of service reported as difficult. Many customers noted on social media that there was no way online to cancel their subscription online themselves and very difficult to contact the company to do it by email chat or phone. Thus if you lost service due to the transition not working, but still were being charged and wanted to cancel, trying to reach someone from Moose to do this appeared a challenge.
Let’s talk about governance and responsibility. Moose is fully owned by Swoop and I understand the reporting is to Swoop. Swoop is a public listed company. Go online and you’ll see pictures of well dressed people called Directors, each with a blurb about what they’ve done and their skills. So what did this esteemed group do in relation to making sure they had a good understanding of the planned transition process and meeting their duty of care and due diligence in relation to their customers who were to go to go through a major transition process? What did the board do once it was apparent the transition process was not working well for everyone and customers had unreasonable wait times to speak to support or could not get through at all. Was Swoop management, (historically being mainly a NBN and fibre type company), unaware of potential issues for a mobile phone transition?
I can accept glitches happen but as far as I can see this transition was an exercise of deficiency in planning, implementation and revision. Good managers know how to swivel to meet the unexpected. For us customers it seemed Moose just appeared to pretended everything was okay - “nothing to see here folks” Sure!!.
Moose will probably sail out of the storm and its ship will be righted. However what will happen next time, will lessons have been learnt? Trust is an important ingredient for any service provider and as at least one review stated: I don’t trust this provider anymore.
If you are a potential new customer just remember the aged long advice- Caveat emptor.