Kogan, Aldi customers on a knife edge after ispONE and Telstra dispute

The fate of pre-paid mobile services from Kogan and Aldi still hang in the balance while wholesaler ispONE and Telstra face off in mediation over alleged unpaid bills.

ispONE is the sole reseller of Telstra’s 3G mobile service which supplies services to companies like Kogan Mobile and Aldi for more than 280,000 customers.

Earlier this week Telstra threatened to end its contract with ispONE claiming unpaid invoices.

ispONE shot back with claims it was being overcharged but was up to date with its payments before both parties headed to the Federal Court to resolve the issue.

To avert an immediate shutdown, ispONE sought and was granted a temporary injunction before the companies were ordered into arbitration to resolve the matter once and for all.

As of late last night the matter is still ongoing and the proceedings have been extended until 2.15pm today.

In the meantime Kogan Mobile has been in touch with its customers promising to fight hard to maintain their services.

“We are monitoring these developments closely, as they may affect the continuity of our pre-paid mobile services,” the Kogan email to customers said.

“We will provide a further update when further information comes to hand.”

Interestingly ispONE has also been in contact with its clients warning them of a company restructure and advising them that as part of that restructure their invoices will be coming from a newly-formed company called iboss.

Trevor Long over at EFTM got his hands on the in-confidence email ispONE had sent out.

ispONE says the restructure has nothing to do with the dispute with Telstra even though there is a line in the email that reads: “We have been working hard to resolve a contractual issue with our upstream carrier (Telstra)”.

The iboss name was registered in December 2012 according to ispONE managing director Zac Swindells and is being seen by some as a move to insulate the ispONE business if the verdict of the dispute with Telstra goes against them.

The matter will hopefully be resolved in the next day or so with more than 280,000 pre-paid customers hoping for a positive outcome.

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