MATE Reviews 1,932

Mistakenly signed up because of a cheap promo.
Functioned fine for a month then went downhill.
Unable to get through to customer service to cancel. Stuck with unusable internet.
Do not recommend

I am with BrianH on this. Been with them since 2018. As of now you can't contact them by phone. A bot answers spins you in circles and goes nowhere.
The App you have to use is the same. The ombudsman's site says to keep reporting a fault every time it occurs - well you can't do that either because the App says you have already rqaised an issue!
I am a lot better off than most in that I still have internet access I just cant access the house from external.
After 4 days I got a cryptic email stating "We can confirm that MATE's nbn network utilises CG-NAT".
Apparently that disallows DDNS and any port mapping you may have implemented. No notice about this or anything - just zap all gone 'you work it out'.
So not a good time to join this ISP

After being with mate for 8 years their inability to support customers has become clear. It was a great ISP once. It's clear they are not my mate. The last 2 weeks it has taken it taken least 4 hours to speak to someone. Then when you do if you have a complex issues they gaslight you and say it's your equipments fault. My internet connection has not worked for over 2 weeks now they and they really couldn't careless. They are treating the service as a non essential service which it is not. Mates lack of concern or support is beyond frustrating.

I’ve been with Kate for a few years and last Tuesday I had no internet for 12 hours. Since it’s been back, I’ve had dropouts every hour. Waited 4 hours on hold each time I called them. They said change modem settings to IPv6. They also said they would move me to a static IP if the change didn’t work. I did that and still getting dropouts. The last call they said it’s working fine, it’s my devices that are the problem and they cannot move me over to a static SIM because too many others have asked to be moved over. I will be lodging a TIA complaint and looking elsewhere

I've been with MATES for over five years, and their service has gone way downhill. Avoid at all costs.
I've experienced frequent internet dropouts for months, and recently, my VPN stopped connecting despite no change to any of my connection set ups—while others working from home had no issues. It worked fine with my mobile hotspot, making WFH extremely frustrating.
Customer Support is a nightmare. Getting a callback is almost like winning a lottery ticket—when you do, they're helpful, but it took me days. Now, after switching providers, I've been trying for three days and counting to confirm my NBN and mobile plan cancellation, with no response via chatbot, email, or callback as promised. My new internet provider is great and I regret not switching sooner. MATES used to be really good, what a shame it is the complete opposite now. Stay away.

Over the past four days, my internet has been dropping out every 40 minutes, and based on other posts below , it seems I’m not the only one experiencing this issue. I reported the fault through the Mate iOS app a couple days ago but haven’t received any response, and the problem is still ongoing. A true “mate” wouldn’t leave customers in the dark, so I’m seriously considering switching to a more reliable ISP.

I have been with Mate since 2018, up until recently they've been very good; speeds were OK, from time to time we had drop outs, but lately there have been more slow patches and less reliability (from when they moved to Wireline?).
Now their Customer service has also declined sharply, which seems to be echoed by other recent reviews. There is now far too much reliance on AI bots and too little of the personal service they used to be famous for. Up until recently I was usually able to get a callback if I needed support, however not today!!
I needed help for my mother's connection (my parents are at a stage where they need to talk to a person, not deal with emails and chats) – Mate stated they would call back in about 1-2 hours, I waited 3 hours before resorting to the live chat… I finally managed to get a live chat with an agent, who said Mate were too busy to give me a call back. To their credit they attempted to help me, but at the end closed off the chat without fully taking my feedback.
The support webpage still says "..no lengthy phone queues" - that is incorrect and also has been proven wrong by many reviews here.
Luke has responded to so many reviews saying they will pass info along to the relevant team for improvement, but given the amount of time over which that response has been provided (some years now), those words are not borne out by the results. If it's taking years to improve Customer Service back to where it was, you're either not interested in doing it or you're not doing it right!!!

Have had an ongoing issue with our internet, the help that we finally received after days on hold, awaiting emails and constant hounding from myself ended in basic to zero support for the actual issue. When i sent the m the data they required about the issue, the support email literally asked for the same details again and then went MIA for two days.

They start off really impressive. Great onboarding experience. Australian based staff. Then, if anything goes wrong good luck getting any support!

It will drag on for weeks. They also are very sneaky with their pricing increases as others have commented on with their Reviews. They are arguably the worse after sales support provider in Australia.

Constant internet dropouts on my NBN service, occurring every 10 to 15 minutes throughout the entire day, making the internet unusable. I have done tracert analysis, observed approximately 8% packet loss at 22o.1o1.116.177, assuming is one of your backbone nodes.

Was good initially when I signed up but have incrementally increased the price of my plan “in line with competitors” as the quality of service has gone down. Internet is mostly consistent but when it’s not it’s awful. Can’t watch 1080p videos, can’t hold a solid connection for video games and what’s worse when you try to call them and eventually bypass the bot you’re waiting more than three hours on hold. Going to start looking elsewhere.

Edit: After not receiving a response via the support email I lodged, I waited for an hour to chat to an agent online. Going through the troubleshooting we changed some settings although they didnt work. I was sent an email to test my connection, told I would be responded to in 1-2 days. I was also asked how I would like to be responded to to which I requested a phone call after 5pm. 3 days later and no call I sat on chat again for an hour where I was eventually told that a flag would be raised to respond to me in 1-2 days. 3 days later I missed a call at 11.15am. They failed to follow up at the time requested, nor at all via email. Today I had to sit on chat again to wait for an agent to tell me they had raised another flag and noted to call me at the time i originally requested before ending the conversation because they had closed.

Customer service takes forever to answer when you go on the virtual chat they just end the chat straight away.

The customer service is atrocious. I spent 30 mins on the phone to an AI bot. I just can’t work out how to even speak to a human. Meanwhile my broadband remains offline.

Sounds good, except their icon is before the courts. Having constant disconnects, try contacting tech support, that is a complete farce. An AI bot recording answers, offers to reset your connection and hangs up. What about the issues one is having?? Asked to speak to a manager after repeat calls, and call was parked and forgot about. Don't bother with this company that takes your money and then ignores you!!!!

Existing customer, 2 days on hold, to be promised a call back twice, nothing, automated voices, generic responses. I get told I will have a technician call, when I will be at work, still no live person responding. Slow internet that I put up with because their customer service used to be good. Now apparently they have NO live people working there. Disrespectful, pathetic, sad rapid decline.

What do you mean fraud prevention? Was my call suppose to be unlimited? Where di you change the law? Was this legal? Please activate my call i need to call the office. And i drive truck at night need to always call friend to company the long night journey. Please be nice ans restore my unlimited call

Thanks
Amron

I would just like to say how excellent mate Internet provider is I joint up 3 Dec. Had a few drop outs the first few weeks but rang them up and while on ph he did something while he asked me to hold for a minute. I don't know what he did but I've had no problems sence. I was even given some CREDIT. My birthday was on 3 January and I got a text from mate wishing me happy birthday. WOW!!! I was with telstra for 5 yrs and never got anything like that from them. The team is helpful and if you ring first thing in the morning the wait time is not that long. Thank you mate. Best provider by far.ive been with mate for four weeks.

Terrible. Customer service has the least helpful bot routing you for 30 minutes before you can speak to someone

Wifi turns off sporadically and doesn't turn back on. Worst service I've ever had

I left MATE after an extended outage (over 3 hours) on 6/12/24. This was not the first time. In April 2023, their service was out for over 3 days! I've never received credit for these significant service interruptions. I've also had momentary dropouts, which last about a minute, numerous times while on MATE. They forced me to invest in a 4g backup.

In every case, the issue was with mate (not the NBN or their wholesaler). From my observation, they take their sweet time fixing these issues. Customer service is good, but what's the point if the product doesn't work? They should invest in a more reliable service.

I have been with Mate for a couple of years now and I am very satisfied with them. Customer service is great! My NBN internet connection is faster and more reliable compared to my previous provider. I even got a discounted rate when I bundled my mobile phone.