Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for the ‘Cell Phone’ Category

Yesterday we learned of my quandary with Bell Mobility who seemed to have overcharged me for a phone that was no longer on their network, today we learn just how obfuscated this can all become.

Billing a Number Not On Network

Billing for a service that was not delivered was the first point I brought up with the young lady from Bell which I spoke to. I attempted to remain well behaved and was not rude, since that is the first rule of negotiating with a customer service agent (if you want to succeed, keep your cool, stick to your guns but don’t swear, or you automatically lose).

I pointed out that my wife’s cellular phone was no longer on the Bell network, however it took about 10 minutes for the service agent to confirm that yes the phone had been “suspended” from the network. That term “suspended” worried me, so I probed about what that meant, and she pointed out that the phone goes to “suspended” when it is ported out of their network and then a month later it is in “Removed” state (remember that part it is important).

I then pressed the point about why was I being billed the entire month for a number no longer on the network. My service agent wasn’t very clear on that so she went away to get the exact details (this took about 15 minutes on hold) and when she finally returned the answer left me with a very sour taste in my mouth.

Evidently in the Bell system, if you have your number transferred to a different carrier the number “stays on the books” with bell for a month, and thus the consumer is obligated to pay for that number for that entire billing period. That was kind of what I expected, so I then made an assumption and asked, “So it will not show up on my bill next month, correct?”, silence again. More consultations on hold were held, and when my agent returned I was told, No, I would be billed for the next period as well, since the 30 days “on the system” was linear time and thus it overlapped into the next billing period so I have to pay for it for two months. I asked for that to be repeated, and it sounded just as much like a rip off the second time. I asked if there was anything that could be done (for a long time customer) to waive that fee, but was told brusquely, No!

This is your warning that if you plan on moving away from a Bell Contract figure out when your billing period is and transfer your phone out as close to the end of that period as you can, to try to mitigate the penalty fees you will incur.

Changing My Service Package

After failing miserably on my first point I continued on my discussions about how MY phone had been transferred into a strange billing package, which ended up charging me $22 extra for text messaging. The service agent was not sure, so she disappeared on hold again to go find out, and when she returned she implied (but did not say directly) that I must have changed service packages and that was why.

At this point I could have flown into a rage and pointed out how screwed up that was and how that was just WRONG, but I managed to keep my cool and I pointed out that the change in service package happened on the exact same day that my wife’s phone moved over to the Telus network. Silence for a few seconds was my answer, and then another prolonged wait on hold, for more consultations about what I had just said.

My agent returned again, to say, yes in fact the service package had been changed on that day, but I must have done it when I called in the phone number transfer for my wife’s phone. My response to that statement was that I did not actually call that in, the nice people at Telus did all that for us, so I did not agree or ask to have my service package changed then. Silence for a few seconds, another pause on hold to consult.

Upon return I was told that yes, that must have been what happened however, Bell had tried to call me to tell me I HAD to change my service package and what did I want to change it to? I pointed out that I didn’t receive any calls like that, and no messages were left on my phone (or text messages on my remaining form), but my agent was determined to tell me that someone had tried to call me.

I continued my statement of the fact that Bell had put me in a service package without my ok and now was attempting to gouge $22 in services from me that I was not going to pay for. My agent said she needed to consult a bit more, and disappeared on hold again.

Upon her return her tone seemed to change and she said that Bell would be willing to “forgive” the charges for this past month and she would now help me to put me into a Service Package to my liking. Quick thinking on my part caused me to point out, “I am not prepared to make this a NEW contract, my contract has expired and I am happy to not renew at this time”, causing more silence and a return to the land of “On Hold”.

Finally a return, and a confirmation that yes this was not going to be a new contract and I was put into a package that should fit my usage needs (I suspect it is going to be a lot more expensive than I want to pay, but I still have the option to “Vote with My Feet” next year). After about 66 minutes, I finally hung up with $22 back in my pocket and a very sour taste in my mouth.

Will I stay with Bell? For the next few months I guess, but as soon as the new Wireless Carriers in Canada come on line, I will be looking into what they offer and more likely than not will be leaving Bell for a cheaper Wireless service.

So as my regular readers know I have been grappling with how to lower my cell phone costs (without getting rid of them completely). About a month ago my wife took the bold first step of going from a Bell “Contract” (which had expired) over to a Telus “pay per use” phone.

This was done as an experiment to see how things might work, and we found out that:

• To set up the new phone is relatively painless, but know which phone you would like first and make sure you use the on line system management capabilities to track your account.
• Number Portability is easy to use, but has a few pitfalls in it. If you are going to port a number, make sure you bring a Customer ID or your old phone bill to the NEW carrier (to make this work faster).

My wife had her new phone working with her old phone number within an hour or two and she was very happy with her new phone (she loathed her old phone) and has been happily texting and using her new set up.

This all transpired about 2 weeks ago.

A few days ago the Bell bill showed up and that is when I lost 66 minutes of my life and about $36 as well.

I checked the Bell Wireless bill on line and was confused to see the total on the bill was about as much as it normally was, given my wife and I were “twinned” on a single plan, however, given my wife’s phone number no longer was running on Bell I suddenly needed to read much closer.

So two major things looked like gouging wrong on my bill:

1. My wife’s old phone number was still being billed by Bell, even though it was connected to the Telus network
2. My phone (which was still connected to the Bell network) was running a different “service package” and I had been billed for $22 worth of texting charges

I was confident that if I called the Bell 1-800 number I would get satisfaction and would get these charges reversed, however I was only 1/2 correct.

Tomorrow: How hard could it be to right such obvious wrongs? Oh naive reader, you just wait.

Back to the Carnivals

My post about Risk has been picked up by Carnival of Money Stories , and the  The Carnival of Personal Finance (Thanksgiving Edition) go on over and read some of the other interesting posts there as well.

$69.99 For Everything?

Sprint Telecom in the U.S. has just announced a very intriguing package for their Cell Phone subscribers, which is $69.99 for:

• Unlimited long distance calling in the continental US
• Unlimited text’ing
• Unlimited data usage with your mobile device

So this effectively means you can merge your:

• Home Phone
• Cell Phone
• Internet Connection

Into one bill that allegedly only costs $69 a month? Holy cow! Now I have no doubt that “Unlimited” may very well have it’s limits, but it does show what competition does to a marketplace.

Currently in the U.S. there are Four National Carriers (according to Barron’s) AT&T, Sprint Nextel, Verizon and T-Mobile. There are many more regional pay per use carriers and this number of competitors means that that with slowing Cell Phone growth (single digit growth soon to be almost zero), the only way to get “new” customers is by Cut Throat (if not suicidal) pricing practices. All of these competitors will be sacrificing profits for simple market share (hoping that once their competitors die off they will be able to make their money then).

In Canada, there is nowhere near this level of competition and we pay some of the highest prices in the world for Wireless access (not sure about home phone, but I suspect we are not very cheap either).

Competition is never a bad thing, unless you are a shareholder in one of the companies competing (especially if you choose the losing company in the competition).

How much do you pay for your Internet + Cell Phone + Home Phone ? I pay over $200, closer to $300 really, which really is too much.

I have found that in my life that I do not change unless the situation I am in, causes drastic change (i.e. I cannot do things in small measures, it must be a big thing). I need a good reason to change, and that reason can’t be rationalized easily, that is how I usually succeed.

Question: Could you live without a cell phone? Do you use your cell phone at your work? Do you text at work? Do you text or use your cell phone at work, when you should be working? Do you text message in meetings, or on teleconferences? Do you text while driving? If any of these questions made you think that you might be addicted to your cell phone, then good (let’s not get into the entire Crackberry generation, talk about enabling ADHD).

Currently my wife and I pay upwards of $90 a month for two cell phones, which is a ridiculous sum of money for how much we use this service. This and a few other factors are pushing me towards cutting down my cell phone usage, if not completely cutting it out (we’ll see if I can go all the way, and lose the addiction).

Our Cell Phone usage consists of:

• Text messaging each other and our kids (55% of time)
• Calling each other and home (35%)
• Calling others and emergency calls and such (less than 10%)

We will be cancelling our contract when it expires in a month or so and moving over to a pay per use model and see how that works (luckily we can keep our phone numbers).  I suspect that there will be moments where I might regret this decision, however, I will remember this is for a larger good.

CPI Tomorrow

Given my new position, I will be commenting on the CPI numbers (that come out today) in tomorrow’s posting, stay tuned.

That has been a question that Mrs. C8j has been asking me for a while, and I have been too chicken to go to the Bell Mobility store near us to find out (the service there is, um, not up to my expectations). I continued to mull around how exactly to figure this out, as we are sure we will be changing to a “pay per play” model once the contract is over (I am currently paying anywhere from $90 to $120 a month for two phones), and I finally stumbled upon how to solve this riddle.

When Do I get a Phone Upgrade?

Yes, this seems to be the magical information that is directly tied to when my account can be renewed.

How do I find this information out? Follow these steps:

1. Log into your MyBell account (if you haven’t done this, do so, it is free)
2. Go to the My Services Section and select See or Change Rates for your wireless account
3. In my case since I have two phones it then asks for which phone number you want to look at thus you select the phone number you are interested in (or you may not see this screen at all).
4. A page entitle My Wireless will come up on your screen.  In there is a section which is titled My Phone, and you should have a link to Upgrade My Phone (click on it).
5. Here is where the information you search lies.

On my page, there is a line that says:

If you wait until 2009/09/02 to upgrade you’ll be eligible for a credit of up to $200.00.

The only reason that Bell would give me that kind of credit is to retain my account, thus I have found when my contract expires with Bell. I get $200 if I renew for 3 years, how nice.

Caveat: Be careful with this methodology that you do not go too far and accidentally end up either “renewing” your contract -or- upgrading your phone!