Comments on: CBC’s Canada’s Worst Cellphone Bill

By: Alan

Alan — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 07:29:47 +0000

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.

By: The Rat

The Rat — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:46:55 +0000

@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.

By: Potato

Potato — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:20:50 +0000

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”.

By: Tee

Tee — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:06:05 +0000

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.

By: Lior

Lior — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:47:23 +0000

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.

By: CBC's Canada's Worst Cellphone Bill | Canadian Capitalist | Cell Mobile Guide

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:43:16 +0000

[...] more here: CBC's Canada's Worst Cellphone Bill | Canadian Capitalist Categories: Cell Phone Tags: arketplace-on-cbc, cbc, marketplace, recent-episode [...]

By: jo

jo — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:46:57 +0000

@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.

By: Jess Dog

Jess Dog — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:29:00 +0000

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.

By: brad

brad — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:17:43 +0000

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).

By: Adam

Adam — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:23:07 +0000

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.