15 Facts About Crazy John's

Crazy John's was a mobile phone retail chain in Australia started by Turkish Australian businessman John Ilhan.

Crazy John's was the largest independent phone retailer in Australia, employing more than 400 people with more than 600 retail stores.

Originally a dealer of Telstra Mobile, Crazy John's became a Mobile Virtual Network Operator through the Vodafone Australia network, dealing directly with customers and offering its own competitive mobile phone deals and plans.

Crazy John's opened its first store in Brunswick, Victoria, in 1991.

Name Crazy John's came about through people constantly telling Ilhan his marketing ideas were "crazy", and the name stuck.

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Crazy John's came to prominence when it was the first company in Australia to offer $1 mobile phones.

In January 2013 Vodafone announced that it was to close up to 40 of their Crazy John's-branded stores by 20 February as part of their cost-cutting restructuring, Vodafone's parent company Hutchison Telecoms Australia having had a 131.

The remaining 21 Crazy John's premises are to be re-branded as Vodafone Australia stores.

Crazy John's was originally a dealer for Telstra Mobile, Australia's largest mobile telecommunications provider, with 900,000 customers providing close to 10 percent of Telstra's mobile revenue.

Crazy John's claimed that Telstra's accounting system, MICA, used to bill its 8 million subscribers, was not able to provide the information required to produce an accurate bill and, therefore, support their payback demand.

However, Crazy John's was able to make the payment, and the situation reversed: instead of financially forcing the dealer to negotiate, Telstra was in a position of being sued and required to justify its $21 million demand, which Crazy John's believed it could not do.

Crazy John's applied for an injunction in the Federal Court in Melbourne to prevent Telstra from going ahead with this second demand.

On 1 July 2007, Crazy John's made the transition towards becoming a Mobile Virtual Network Operator through the Vodafone network.

Just days before the switch to Vodafone, Telstra sought a court injunction to prevent Crazy John's from using confidential information in contacting Telstra's customers to sign them up to new contracts.

Crazy John's agreed to limit the amount of customer information it can use after its contract ended.