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Does telephone customer service annoy you? Sick of being kept on hold waiting for someone to serve you. We’ve all been there.

This is especially costly if you are using a mobile phone in Australia to call a 1800 or 13 number. Those numbers incur expensive rates.

The Daily telegraph recently complied a cheat sheet on how you can get your call answered quicker by an operator.

The full list is available as a PDF from their website. You can download it here.

Examples for some of them are below.

 

 

Company Phone Number Shortcut
Commonwealth Bank 132 221 Ignore menu. Press # three times
National Australia Bank 132 265 Ignore menu. Press # three times
NRMA 132 132 Ignore menu. Press # at least six times
Apple 133 622 Press 9 for reception
Sony 1300 137 669 Ignore menu. Press 0 three times
Optus 133 937 Ignore menu. Press # at least five times
Telstra 132 200 Press # after each prompt
Qantas 131 313 Press # at least seven times
Singapore Airlines 03 9254 0300 Press 0 twice after listening to the menu
United Airlines 131 7777 Press 2
Virgin Blue 136 789 Press 1, then 4, then say “no”, then say “something else”, then hold
Medibank Private 132 331 Press hash. Ignore the “invalid” message and press hash again. Then wait