Bell Mobility

I'm currently on hold with Bell Mobility's "Customer Service" department, laughable as that term is. Never in all my years have I come across a company this inept in it's ability to serve customer's needs. For that matter even the desire to do so.

My relationship started with Bell when I purchased a phone and was recommended to get a secondary phone for my wife to use. Upon receiving my first bill there were discrepancies that were later accounted to my salesperson by customer service. I won't go into detail on those as they aren't the main focus of this letter. Upon trying to contact my salesperson to discuss these I was told she had only been there a short time and was no longer with the company. Reasons for her departure were of course not provided.

The next few months of my plan were plagued with late or altogether absent bill statements for which I was charged late fees on, overbilling for minutes that were supposed to be "free" and two brief periods of inactive service. At this point I was starting to get somewhat frustrated, I didn't have near this many problems when I was with Telus. Some of these issues were dealt with after repeated phone calls and extremely long wait times (upwards of 20 minutes) and of course the ever enjoyable disconnect while on hold. I won't say to my satisfaction they were dealt with, it took approx two months to have billing corrected, and many hours of my personal time.

About 6 months ago I tried to get out of my contract. I was moving for a new job, and a cell phone was no longer required in my employment. Having been told by my salesperson there was a $20 per month to a maximum of $200 cancelation fee, I phoned to cancel my account. There I was told that there would be a charge for both phones in the amount of $400 to cancel. I was furious, my salesperson had told me -specifically- that if I was to cancel that the fee would only apply to the primary phone. As I had only wanted one phone initially, I had made a point of clarifying that. Regardless, that's just the way it is I was told. I decided then rather than cancel at a $400 fee I dropped my plan to the lowest I could and used the phones quite rarely until Oct 2005 when I stopped using them altogether. My two year old son plays with them now after I took the batteries out.

This morning I called Bell to cancel it altogether. By my math I was only going to have to pay $140 per phone to cancel as my contract expires in September. Lo and behold... now I'm informed that I have to pay $200 per phone regardless of time left on the contract! The CSR and supervisor I spoke said they've never heard of what I was told by my salesperson. That I can accept, perhaps my salesperson simply misinformed me, it happens. Though why did the CSR who told me previously that I had to pay on both phones not correct me then I wonder? I've now paid $240 since October that I did not use the phones, to discover I could have cancelled them then for the same fee as today. I spoke today with a CSR named Franklin who was courteous even while I made it quite clear how angry I was. He was limited as to what he could do, but I still felt he listened and was sympathetic. In all my dealings with Bell that's a first. I asked Franklin to transfer me to a supervisor, and was put on with Kyle.

Kyle is another story altogether. He came across as unsympathetic, unapologetic and sounded to me as though he found it all quite amusing. He informed me that my cancellation request required 30 days notice, and replied "absolutely not" when I asked that he take that time from when I had originally tried to cancel my plan.

So... I've just placed a call to Kyle's manager Wayne, how that turns out I don't know, though I'll be sure to post again. Bell already has my money so I'm not overly surprised they don't seem to care they're losing me as a customer. After all, I'm just one person. Hopefully though this will caution at least a few others about signing on with Bell Mobility.

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