Bell ExpressVu

Bell ExpressVu Satellite TV in Toronto.

How on earth can Bell ExpressVu survive with customer service this poor and

needlessly time consuming.

On a regular basis some of the channels that I pay for go RED in the program

guide, meaning that I can no longer receive them. To correct the problem I

have to call Customer service and after having done that many times before,

my blood pressure is already on the way up by the time I start dialling.

When I get to the selection menu, my specific problem is the first one to

select. Ok, I select number one. Now Bell wants to know my phone number

(anyone else can see it on their call display). I punch in my number and

after a short wait Mrs. Robot tells me that my number is NOT in their data

base and gives me no other option but to enter it again (I've been a

customer for 10 years and they still can't find me in their data base!!!).

Eventually Mrs. Robot tells me to hold while she'll connect me with a real

person. After a wait between 30 seconds and an hour I get to listen to a

monotonous, bored voice asking me "How may I help you with excellent service

today?". -I hate it when someone lies the minute he opens his mouth. He

knows, just as I know, that it's NOT going to be excellent service.

Next I get a lot of questions: Name, phone number, pin #, address, how many

receivers etc etc. (Why can't they just verify me on the call display and

ask only for a pin #???) I tell him that three HD channels have gone red and

ask to please reset my subscribed channels. "Sir, we first have to do a few

tests to see what may be causing your problem. " "May I put you on hold for

a minute Sir?" A minute would be 60 seconds, yea, right. Eventually, after

his return "I understand your problem is that you can't get any of your

channels, -I can certainly help you with that". No, my problem is that I can

get all the channels except three!! "May I put you on hold for a minute

Sir?" After his break we go into the same routine that we've gone through

many times before when I got a few red channels: Hold the On/Off button for

10 seconds and wait for the receiver to come back to live and everything to

reset. (Takes several minutes -while my blood pressure is going up steadily

as I know I've still got a long way to go). Did that fix the problem Sir? Of

course not; it never has. "Now press menu on your remote and then enter

6-1-1". He could have warned me that I'm about to get my ear drums ruptured,

but they never do and I always forget. Ok so I tell him what I see on the

signal scales and he has me change transponders to verify signal strength on

each one. Nothing ever comes of this exercise and we're now about 25 minutes

into "excellent customer service".

"Now I want you to do a check-switch". Blood pressure is right into the red

area by now as I know it's going to take many minutes and the end result is

always odd/evens on both satellites and won't lead to getting back the three

premium channels. I've become enough of an expert to now know that if

anything up to this point had been out of whack I would be missing a lot

more channels than just the three that I'm calling about. Ah, but we're not

spending this wait time doing nothing: "While we're waiting Sir, are you

watching sports on your TV?" (No, I just have it to do a check-switch!). "We

have a special promotion.....". (Yeah I know, -you always have a special

promo.) Sorry, I have enough channels and don't want to add any. "Did you

know that you could also add the ....." Sorry but I don't want to add any

more channels!

Finally, after 40 or more minutes, we get to the part where my "Excellent

service person" tells me that he will have my channels reset and I should

have all the channels back within 2 hours. He told the truth, the channels

are usually back after much less than 2 hours.

Most recently, in an attempt to save some time, I had asked to speak to a

supervisor after my "excellent service guy" refused to just re-set the

channels without wasting the next 40 minutes, but was told that he'd have to

go through this whole routine first. I again, repeatedly asked to talk to a

supervisor and after probably 7 or more requests was put on hold. A person

claiming to be a supervisor but only offering a first name told me to

co-operate with the support person and returned me to my "Excellent service

guy". I didn't have 40 or more minutes to spare and so asked one more time

to please reset my channels and hung up.

I've tried getting the missing channels reset by email but what a joke

their email support is! The response said that "he understands my problem

and will make sure that my concerns are passed on to the proper persons". I

had asked to please reset the three channels that I'm paying for but am not

receiving, but there is no mention of the actual problem in the response and

have to assume that it was Mrs. Robot that sent a canned reply. I know it

takes up to 2 hours to reset the channels and 2 day later it's not been

done.

Today I still don't get the three missing but paid for premium channels. A

friend tells me about his FTA (free to air receiver) with which he gets all

of Bell ExpressVu, even all of the pay channels, without ever paying a dime

(I pay $80 a month!). He doesn't have any of the problems that I'm having

and his blood pressure is much lower than mine. I'm truly tempted, but being

the kind of guy that I am, I'll try Starchoice before going the FTA route.

Starchoice: I sure hope to have fewer problems when YOUR dish is on my

roof!!!