Why is it when they say 15 minutes, its always longer??!!

well cinderella where do i start about telstra(my home phone line and braodband).over 12 months ago i moved house and rang up telstra to be dissconnected and reconnected at the new house.i moved in the december.well all was fine and i was reconnected in the december in my new house,then in the january my home phone and internet were disconnected.i rang from a pay phone to see what had happened.they said they had orders for my phone to be dissconnected in the january.i still had my old phone number.so some -one there end had made a big mistake.the trouble i went through to get my phone line and internet back on was unbelievable and they were going to make me wait 2 weeks for the internet.in the end after numerous calls and being on hold forever,i had to get on to the ombudsman for telecommunications,as it was not my fault they made the mistake,as soon as i contacted the ombudsman they quickly put my internet back on and credited me six months worth of free home phone line rental.i think our telecommunications are disgusting here for this day and age.cheers sue

"Hang on a sec, just a minute, won't be long" But it always is long isn't it. A couple of years ago we changed our household insurance. When I rang the "old" company to arrange cancellation of the contract they wriggled and messed me about for over a week! They were always referring me on, I was their best customer and they didn't want me to go - funny how they had never told me that before. Could they phone when the supervisor was back? They weren't sure that they had all the right documents etc. I knew exactly what they were doing, but it was driving me mad. In the end I rang them again on the freephone sales line. The lady at the other end explained that I couldn't use this line for my enquiry. I said that I didn't have an enquiry, I was telling her that unless they cancelled my policy immediately I would cancel the Direct Debit (which is what I should have done in the first place). Via her supervisor I ended up in the right department, talking to the right person (who coincidentally told me that he used to live in the road that runs parallel to my own - but I didn't know him) and the whole matter was dealt with in less than 5 minutes. Now why couldn't they have done that in the first place? You Axa simple question and get a blooming long answer. Just like this post really.

I think it's just an expression. I found myserlf caught in the same trap several times. There was this professor I have to talk to and everytime he is busy he would say, "Can you call back in 10 minutes? But actually, he means can you call back later? As in indefinitely later and no sand timer. Now, when I hear this on the phone I just hang up right away.