Canadian Personal Finance Blog

For my regular readers, I am so lazy swamped over the holidays that I am taking some time off and putting up a “Best of” anthology until the New Year (January 4th to be exact). Enjoy two Best of posts a day over the Holidays and have yourself a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Given the nature of this day, in that most of us are either madly panic’ing about whether we have put ourselves sufficiently in debt to impress our loved ones, or we are driving 12 hours in the middle of a blizzard to make it to see our loved ones, here are some Festively themed Best of posts.

Charity as a Present (2009/11/26)

As eyes turn towards the juggernaut coming at us called the Christmas spending orgy (I am thinking of trademarking that phrase), let me reflect on the idea of using Charity as a present….

Click here for the complete Post

Christmas Already? (2009/10/26)

So after wandering through Loblaws and Independant stores near my home, this time of year really is schizophrenic since it is Halowe’en season however, Christmas is here now as well (in fact Christmas almost intervened into Thanksgiving, in fact the Canadian Tire was putting their Christmas section in the Friday before Thanksgiving)…..

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Holiday Hangover? (2009/01/07)

How goes your holiday hang over? Did you make too merry over the holidays and need to lose some weight? Worse, did you overspend and now have some large credit card bills to pay?…….

Click here for the complete post

I am just that lazy busy that I can’t think of writing something for the Monday before Christmas so I instead give you some of the best writings from other folks this past week.

With the Holiday Season upon us, I trust everyone is finished their preparations and are all just relaxing and waiting for the festivities to commence. Yes, I am a sarcastic so and so sometimes aren’t I, but let’s not dwell on the obvious, what did those other authors write?

• The Canadian Capitalist must be finished his shopping, as he has time to read a bunch of books including The Investor’s Manifesto , which he thinks is well worth stuffing into someone’s stocking.
• Gail Vaz-Oxlade talks about another great book for Christmas in The Glass Half Full (ok it’s her book, but it’s still good to get for Christmas).
• Michael James is making sure that there are no Mice stirring in his house when he states Sometimes Frugality Can be Taken Too Far . I always thought they were disposable too.
• Preet at WhereDoesAllMyMoneyGo gets festive with a post about The Elves Index, OK it has nothing to do with Christmas, but the title does.
• Larry MacDonald points out the importance of keeping things over the holiday in the correct perspective in his post Ten Things to Know about rebalancing. No, again, nothing to do with Christmas, but work with me people!
• Canadian Dream at 45 suggests we Slow Down a Bit This Holiday Season which really is about Christmas and the holidays!
• The Four Pillars gets into the holiday season with their Last Minute Cheap Gift Guide, remember a roll of toilet paper is cheap and most of us can use it this time of year too!
• AllFinancialMatters talks about 3 more books Three Great Books to Give Away This season, to be exact.
• Riscario has a catchy holiday title The Gift of Networking, and networking is very important if you are looking for a job!

Hope your shopping is going well, remember YOU are the economic stimulus the economy needs (me, I’m too cheap to matter).

Black Friday, the tradition of mad mob scenes, with people trampling their fellow man so they can get a new XBOX for $200 (after sitting in line for 12 hours).  While I must admit that I have bought 1 or 2 things at a “Boxing Day” sale, however, sitting in line and then using your best Ju Jitsu moves to fight your fellow man off, does not strike me as something I really do want to do.

Black Day in November

Well with the news of possible failures in Dubai, this Friday may not just be Black Friday for shopping reasons, but let’s see what the Financial Bloggers had to write about this week.

• First we congratulate the Canadian Capitalist for reaching 5 Years of Financial Blogging. I read this site every chance I get and even though the number of posts a week has dropped the quality of information has not.
• Michael James helps us Understand Car Lease Payments, and points out that his math is good, but leasing is still bad (IMHO).
• Preet at WhereDoesAllMyMoneygo has been having some guest posts this week and an interesting one is Gift Giving For Less (unfortunately it does mention Charity as a Present, which is a pet peeve).
• Larry MacDonald asks the financial question Bonds vs. Bond ETF, an interesting discussion ensues.
• Gail Vaz-Oxlade discusses Creating the Illusion of Scarcity, an interesting spin on things, but maybe a little optimistic.
• Ellen Roseman complains Help I am Being Gouged for Spam Text Messages, don’t get me started Ellen, I have already Ranted about Bell Mobility this week!
• The Four Pillars brings a Holiday Spirit with the post Tips For Watching a Christmas Parade with Kids .  My tip? Pay teenage kid $40 to take kids, and stay home.
• It’s Just Money is possessed by E-Book Readers? Evidently THE gift for this year, I’ll listen to them on CDs instead .

Enjoy the weekend, and remember to get your Snow Tires on SOON!

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.