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moneysense.ca, 9/03/10
CBC’s Canada’s Worst Cellphone Bill
A recent episode of Marketplace on CBC featured cellphone customers who claimed to have Canada’s worst cellphone bills (you can watch it here). Cellphone customers had racked up thousands of dollars in charges either in air time, texting or, what appears to be fairly common, roaming charges while traveling abroad.
The typical phone horror story also involved a dispute with the phone company: the customer claims she was misinformed in the phone store and the phone company points to the contract, which says something else. The customer is in tears, the phone company sticks to its guns and it makes for great TV. Especially, when Wendy Mesley, the show’s host adds to the debate by saying those rapacious phone companies are charging 15 cents for a text that costs them a third of a cent to provide.
I’ve had my share of complaints with service providers and while I found myself sympathizing with most of the customers, it was hard to say the phone company was entirely at fault (except the lady who was incorrectly charged airtime and the phone company gave her the runaround). The hidden charges may be buried deep in the fine print but it is there and the client signed a contract agreeing to pay and the phone company is within its rights to demand payment.
I was secretly glad that we’ve ditched our pricey monthly plans and gone the pre-paid route. Our annual cell phone bills with an el cheapo plan from Speak Out Wireless available through 7-Eleven costs us less than $50 per year not including the price of a phone. Granted, not everyone can be a light cellphone user but everyone can easily find ways to cut down on their monthly bill.
moneysense.ca, 9/03/10
I hate to be the messenger of bad news CC, but 7-11 has vacated Ottawa-area and no longer offers new numbers in Ottawa. I think you’ll be able to get your topups at any other Ontario store.
Next best alternative, which would be $100/yr flat would be Petro-Canada Wireless.
* RANT WARNING*
Not that I saw the program and not that you are LEGALLY wrong but I really have a problem with you assertion that “The hidden charges may be buried deep in the fine print but it is there and the client signed a contract agreeing to pay and the phone company is within its rights to demand payment.”
Do you really read all the fine print of all your insurance, phone, cable, lawn service, snow service, bank, investment, warranties, etc…? If you don’t understand it, who do you ask? Your lawyer? Do you have time for this? Even if you do, what about all the elderly or teenage consumers or consumers who are not English/French mother tongue? The fine print could be written so it is a lot easier to understand and the ownness could be put on the seller to make sure the client understands what they are signing, but there is no requirement for this. Instead, the situation is ripe for verbally misleading the consumer then pointing to the fine print only a lawyer could understand.
Sorry Dave, that is nonsense. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse. Legal contracts are the law. If you sign it, you are liable for it. Read it. If you don’t like it, walk away.
@Jon D.: Yes, I am aware that 7-Eleven stores have closed in Ottawa. Mike from Four Pillars
@Dave: I can’t say that I’ve never been caught in the fine print legalese (no, I don’t always read every page of everything I’ve ever signed and yes, it has cost me in the past as well). However, when I missed something in the fine print, I couldn’t claim that it’s 100% the service providers’ fault even if I could recall the service rep telling me something else. The impression given here that it is solely the company’s fault is what I have a problem with. In a “he said, she said” story, isn’t it possible that the customer misunderstood the sales rep or the customer is reinventing the story?
You mean like the way all those poor saps were suckered into signing those sub-prime mortgages, eh Matt?
You missed my point entirely. Again, the situation is ripe for taking advantage of individuals who are not equipped to understand the contracts (elderly, uneducated, youth). But that’s OK with you, right?
@Dave: Your point that the situation is ripe for abuse is a fair one. However, I expect corporations to be greedy, money grubbing organizations and I can easily believe that there is a method in this madness — i.e. they are hoping that customers won’t read what they sign too closely. I would be only surprised if they behave otherwise.
This leads to me to think that this is a regulation issue. If important phone contract details are buried deep in a four page document, regulations should specify better disclosure. Even then, I don’t see this problem will entirely disappear. You can bet that there will be customers who claim they did not read the 1/2 page document or that the sales rep mislead them (and in many cases that might well be the case).
Well, my cell phone service provider does all kinds of things that are not directly “in the fine print”. Such as charge me 15 cents every time I receive a text message. Of course, they were careful to include one of those lines that says that they can change their fee structure ANY TIME THEY WANT, so I suppose that everything is pretty much covered in the fine print anyway.
The important thing is to go in to any store with the view of Caveat Emptor. It seems that mis-information is a key tactic in selling folks their phones, and then having a faceless voice on their help line telling folks, “It’s not in your contract”, or “There is nothing in the notes for this that claim that”.
I sympathize with the consumers, I realize this is a business as well, but when did “tricking” customers become a normal practice?
Here is a more interesting question, how cheap is it, to get a US cell phone, with a “complete North America” package?
As small biz owners we always found ways to save on cell bills. We dont use it more than needed. One guideline we found worked early on is to only give your cell number out to clients and their staff who absolutely need it. With us that’s the execs and management. This allows us to control, and limit, in-coming calls through the cells and directs calls that can wait to be returned or taken on a land line to do so. We also have always reviewed our minutes used regularly (say twice a year) to make sure we arent buying more than needed and have a biz plan through Bell to share minutes with other staff. Friends and family also know we prefer calls to our home or office landline if possible. We’ve been doing this for about 10 years and it’s worked great for us. We have shared the same tip with collegues and clients who have adopted a similar strategy and had it work. As a business owner or self-employed person cell phones can become a habit rather than a need quickly and the need for minutes over estimated. Hope this helps.
@Big Cajun: “Feet, meet mouth” is an apt description of what I’m feeling right now. I don’t want to appear heartless. After all, a few grand in cellphone bills won’t be easy for most average families to handle. And, of course, I don’t think tricking customers can ever be considered acceptable. However, misunderstandings are all too common and I feel that it is not so cut-and-dried that the business is always to blame. That’s all I’m trying to say. I think it’s best if I shut up now
Big Cajun Man asked “Here is a more interesting question, how cheap is it, to get a US cell phone, with a “complete North America” package?”
It’s generally cheaper than a Canadian package, but in my experience it can be difficult if not impossible to get a US cell phone plan if you have a Canadian address. Because I mostly use my cell when I’m in the States on business travel, I had a pay-as-you-go cellphone from AT&T in the US for a year or two. The problem was, in order to top it up when I was running low, I had to tap in my Zip code in the phone or enter it on the website. That doesn’t work for Canadian postal codes, which are a mix of letters and numbers, and not recognized by the system. I tried to switch to a regular paid plan but they told me they couldn’t offer it to me because my address was in Canada.
It’s worth looking into this, though, to see if other providers are more flexible. I had a North America package with Bell, and it cost me close to $100/month once you added in the taxes and system access fees. Not worth it for me, as I typically make only three or four calls per month, which means each call was costing me about $30.
My approach now is to just use a cheapo $20/month package from Fido, and when I travel I pay the roaming charges. Most pay-as-you-go plans from Canadian providers don’t include roaming (I think PC Mobile is one of the few exceptions).
Man did I ever learn my lesson with Bell in BC when I was in California for a couple weeks last year. The roaming charges were horrendous. A 5 minute call home was costing me around $50. The entire trip cost me around $1000 in calls and I averaged it out to be around $10 a min to use my cell in the US.
Now I just shut it off when I cross over and use other alternatives to call.
Can’t wait for Canada to catch up to the rest of the world and offer reasonable cell plans. I am finding most don’t even have landlines any longer and only use a cell phone. I haven’t had a land line for over 10 years.
Roaming fees in the US from Canadian carriers are typically $1.50 to $3/minute, but when you add long-distance charges on top of the roaming fee it can make the calls get really expensive (see Adam’s case above).
I get around that by using Yak for all my long-distance calls when traveling outside my local area. I have a Yak calling card and use that to make calls from my cellphone (or better yet a payphone in the few places where I can find one anymore).
I found the best deal for an “average to low” cellphone user is the $100 pre-paid card from Virgin Mobile. It is good for an entire year if you can make it last that long – great to have the phone incase of emergencies but if you don’t need it, don’t use it.
@JessDog…I will pass the Virgin Mobile info onto a friend with a talkative 16 year old son. She paid for the phone but he’s responsible for the minutes with pre-paid cards. Thanks. BTW we found the roaming option through Bell not bad. Just recently it cost us $40 for 100 minutes (you can buy higher minute packages) in the U.S. for a month. However, we dont travel to the U.S. on a regular basis so maybe this wouldnt work for frequent business trips. As a side, ALWAYS check to see if local calls are charged on Hotel phones…many of us make the assumption they’re free and get a nasty surprise.
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I sympathize with the consumers in the segment because in most of the cases the problem can be traced back to what they were told at the store. It’s clear that in many cases the staff at the store are a bunch of ****ing idiots, particularly in the case of Bell, which ultimately admitted its staff were to blame. I was walking by some of wireless booths at Yorkdale this past weekend and for the most part they are staffed by little kids. Just how much do they really know about the product, service, and the complicated details in every contract?
I actually know someone who used to a store manager for a Telus outlet and he tells me there’s enormous pressure to meet sales quota. On that point, it’s not illogical to conclude that staff at the store would sometimes tell the customer one thing to get the deal on the books while the contract would state something totally different.
If the customer fails to do their due diligence at the store and read over every single line of the contract and fee schedule, they will be at the mercy of the carrier. And you can rest assured the carrier will always side with the store staff, even if they did intentionally misrepresent items in the contract!
Carefully scrutinize the contract and squeeze everything you can out of them for free. I for one believe that 15 cents for a text message is a pure ripoff. For some of these carriers to force you to go on plan to send SMS is atrocious considering that in Europe most plans have unlimited text. The carriers here will always find excuses about the discrepancy in pricing and service when compared to other countries in the world. Ultimately it’s just nonsense and as long as there are only a few carriers that provide national service, Canadians will continue to get ripped off on their wireless bills for some time.
How many people actually “sign” a cell phone contract any more? I’ve only ever agreed to 2 year terms over the phone with a rep and don’t get to see any of the fine print.
Of course, a big problem with “fine print” for cellphone and other services (internet, etc) is that you don’t get a paper contract to sign. You “sign” up by talking to a rep in person or on the phone, and often don’t see the full set of caveats until your first bill arrives in the mail — by which point you may already be facing charges for going over the hidden cap on “unlimited” service, and have a battle ahead of you to get out of your “contract”.
@CC: Yeah, my brother actually goes with the pre-paid route. At least you know what you’re getting yourself into.
I can only imagine what some of the bills might have amounted to, especially those of whom had phones roaming when abroad.
I have been a Rogers customer for about 10 years, at present on a month-to-month basis as my multi-year contract ran out. I was getting 200 ‘daytime’ minutes, unlimited evenings/weekends, with $.25 for overtime. Additional cost of gov’t fee of $7/month brought my normal use monthly bill to $32.
The last bill I received had a notice that a “Discount” I was getting would be discontinued. So I phoned and sure enough, the $5 off/month for paying with my credit card automatically for years and years was being cut off.
All in all, after ranting about increased competition, long-term customer, and basically showing I was ready to switch to someone else, they have offered the same plan FOR $3/MONTH LESS!
AND threw in 100 free long distance minutes/month for free. AND shorten the ‘daytime minutes’ time frame a few hours on each end. I’m tickled pink.
BUT haven’t signed the required 1-year contract yet (that’s the ‘catch’) because I’m going to wait another few days to see if they will come up with something…. better!
So, it pays to complain, it pays to talk to them.
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