Original Problem - Competition
I introduced affordable internet services to a long neglected segment of the market and relied on Telstra for wholesale services.
Telstra despises competition.
Billing Fraud
Telstra can do whatever it pleases to its competitors/customers who have not paid their Telstra bills.
Telstra's bills said I owed it tens of thousands of dollars and went on a rampage - threats to disconnect; demands for tens of thousands of dollars; ultimatums galore; and refusing to install services (and crippling my expansion).
Telstra's bills were a complete fabrication - Telstra was trying to collect charges for services it did not even have left alone provide to me.
The key to Telstra's success in running its billing fraud racket was to bury this fact under a mountain of incoherent bills so poor even a rocket scientist couldn't work out what they were about.
Pre-SLAPP: Shut Down
Telstra's overbilling racket cost over 5000 customers and a million in sales but its objective was to find an excuse, no matter how weak, to disconnect.
No wholesale service = no business = no competition
A few weeks after conceding one battle (of many) it overcharged $20,000 for a service, Telstra disconnected all services on a public holiday.
Telstra walked away - mission accomplished.
SLAPP #1: SLAPP by Telstra
I spoke out on A Current Affair.
With no business to disconnect Telstra had no big stick anymore and decided to find another.
Telstra responded with a SLAPP lawsuit claiming I owed it $170,000.
Wrapping billing fraud up in a Statement of Claim in the District Court is still fraud.
Telstra didn't reply to the defence and refused to pursue its claim because it is a SLAPP.
SLAPP #2: Blackmail SLAPP by Telstra
Telstra decided it needed to find another bigger stick.
Telstra promised cash to a criminal to SLAPP me with another lawsuit then attempted to blackmail me.
Telstra enlisted a twice bankrupt thief and solicitor barred from practice to SLAPP me with a $50,000 lawsuit in exchange for cash then Telstra lawyer Glenn Turnor appeared with a "offer" to make both SLAPPs go away.
Intimidation
SLAPP is the lawyer's equivalent to hiring a thug to beat the crap out of you.
With two SLAPPs under its belt Telstra stooped to that level to sell them.
Telstra sent its standover man half way across the country to spell out what Telstra has done and what Telstra intended to do to me.
Telstra's standover man - the telstraexposed.com blogger.
The Phantom Menace: The Howard Government
The US Government prosecutes companies that do business the way Telstra does in the same way it deals with organised crime.
In Australia, the Government owned Telstra.
For years Minister Helen Coonan and public servants in the Department of Communications shaped telecommunications industry policy and regulation.
With T3 on the agenda, these shonks put together a list of people they believed had grievances with Telstra.
I made my way onto their list and was blacklisted with all the regulatory agencies.
Dealing with corruption - not a SLAPP, but a time-consuming and expensive distraction just the same.
The Result
Telstra successfully drove competition out of a market it doesn't want.
Following that up with becoming a corporate psychopath hell bent on my destruction, achieved nothing.