Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for the ‘Consumer Advocacy’ Category

Stats Canada announced the CPI numbers for December and for all of 2009 and the trend started in November got a little more momentum with the CPI for 2009 being 1.3% (over 12 months), and Gasoline sits front and center again as an issue.

The rise in the all-items Consumer Price Index (CPI) was due primarily to gasoline prices, which exerted upward pressure on the CPI for the second consecutive month. This follows an extended period in which they were the main contributors to year-over-year declines in overall consumer prices.

For the year the big price jumpers were:

• Energy given we are back at $1 per liter this is no surprise there
• Transportation given gas prices again, no surprise, although the cost of mass transit is going up a lot too
• Health and Personal Care this one really worries me, if health care costs keep doubling the average on inflation, we older folks might be in trouble come retirement time
• Alcoholic Beverages not as high as health care, but you can at least give us a chance to drown our sorrows? C’mon!!!

See the big table for the numbers.

The Big CPI Table

I really like this table because it shows you all the ugly numbers together:

CPI Going Up

Stats Canada published the November Consumer Price Index numbers yesterday and it is starting to get some momentum in the UP direction, with their index going up by 1.0% (year over year ending in November 2009).

The rise in the all-items Consumer Price Index (CPI) was due primarily to gasoline prices. Prices at the pump are now exerting upward pressure on the CPI after an extended period in which they were the main contributors to year-over-year declines in overall consumer prices.

Interesting that gas prices in December seem to be dropping, so how this changes next month’s CPI remains to be seen.

Bank of Canada’s Core Index

More importantly the Bank of Canada’s Core Index is up 1.5% year over year, which is starting to push inflation into the target zone for the Bank. If this upward pressure continues, this may push the bank to act sooner with an Interest Rate increase to hopefully put the brakes on any Inflationary explosion.

The Big Table

NB: Random Thoughts may be on hiatus for a week or two, given the season coming up, or there might be a special Monday edition, if I feel exceptionally lazy next week.

Christmas Laziness and Cheer

I am planning on doing a Top 10 postings for the Christmas/New Year stretch (given I may or may not be around), so if you have any suggestions for this kind of a list (top 10 for this year), please leave a comment with a title or story you may have particularly liked (written by me, that is).

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.