Bell Sympatico Internet Service

Here's the Scoop:

Last spring, when moving out to Vancouver, I attempted to cancel my Bell Sympatico (BS) account. Twice I made the order and twice I was promised that BS would stop billing me... and I thought they HAD stopped billing me so I gave the matter no further thought until the New Year.

That was when I began to receive phone calls from Collect Corp, claiming that I owed Bell somewhere in the neighbourhood of $125, which had been submitted to this agency in August. Upon tracking down Sympatico's management (which took well over a month, thanks to their incredibly poor phone answering service -- another bad mark against BS), I discovered that the date of cancellation on their record was August 10, 2006, as opposed to April 19, 2006, as the phone rep had originally promised.

I may be wrong, but isn't this a form of fraud? Promising to close an account and then continuing to bill the customer for months afterwards? Why do these phone companies get away with it?

So far, the above information was all I was able to extract from BS. I tried replying to the manager that e-mailed me but kept getting an automated response saying I needed to verify a sympatico account (which I no longer have) in order to receive any assistance whatsoever. In short, I'm being put on much the same wild goose chase I've been experiencing on the phone.

On the other hand, I was given a phone number for their credit department. Let's hope it's answering service isn't as bad as the rest of Bell's and that, if I'm able to speak to someone human on the other end of the line (as opposed to one of those extremely irritating robotic voices), I might get the matter straightened out.

Just in case it doesn't work, I'm publishing this message in advance... as a warning to any consumer wishing to open an account with Bell Sympatico (aptly initialled BS)... you will never, ever, ever get it closed!!!

Yours Sincerely,

A Disgruntled ex-Consumer

Comment On This

I too had a very bad experience with BS. (and BS is a very good acronym) Without writing a book here, and it does get very involved, the only way my mother (Over 80) could get her account reactivated after they mistakenly cancelled it, was to disconnect all the phone filters, pack it all up with the modem and everything thing else, take it back to a Bell store, then reapply for an account, so they can send her that same stuff back, and she can hook it all up with a new account. Unbelievable or what? After sending a 3 page letter to their head office, asking how they are able to stay in business like that, I got a courtesy call from someone live (who may as well have been dead), and got a form letter responce. I am in the computer business, and know of many many more, but this is my 2 cents.