Bell Mobility, your time is up

Bell touts its automatic top-up plan for prepaid cellular subscribers as a convenience, “to keep your account active”, and “not have to worry about your service being discontinued”.

Well that’s about as honest as a Conservative Cabinet Minister.

I enrolled in their top-up program a few months ago and all was well until today when the phone wouldn’t allow me to make an outgoing call. So it’s on the phone and then through 10 layers of auto-attendant hell before finding a menu option that would connect me to a real live person in some third world country speaking passable English.

The conversation went something like this… getting increasingly heated over time.

Me: “Hi, there seems to be a problem with my phone.”

Bell: “Yes sir. I see your funds have expired.”

Me: “But I have the automatic top-up feature.”

Bell: “Yes sir, but the time expired today.”

Me: “Excuse me?”

Bell: “The time expired. Your last top-up was 60 days ago and it expired today.”

Me: “I thought the automatic top-up took care of that for me.”

Bell: “Yes sir. It will when they process the top-ups tonight. If you want I can process it for you now, but you’ve already lost your unused credit.”

Me: “WHAT?”

Bell: “Yes sir. You had $9.85 cents of unused credit that you lost when the time expired.”

Me: “But I have the automatic top-up so that won’t happen!”

Bell: “Yes sir, but when the time expires you lose your credits.”

Me: “APPARENTLY!”

Bell: “Yes sir.”

Me: “So let me get this straight. If I run out of money on the account, the automatic top-up kicks in another $25 and I’m good to go.”

Bell: “Yes sir. As soon as your balance goes below $5.00.”

Me: “But if my 60 days runs out before the funds do, I lose any unused money in the account.”

Bell: “Yes sir.”

Me: “AND, I lose the use of the phone for up to 24 hours between the time you steal my money and the time you top up the account with more of my money.”

Bell: “Yes sir, but it’s not usually 24 hours; it’s more like 6 to 12 hours.”

Me: “ARE YOU SERIOUS?”

Bell: “Oh yes sir. I’m sorry if you misunderstood our top-up program.”

Me: “YOU’RE SORRY?”

Bell: “Yes sir.”

Me: “Okay, here’s what you do. You cancel the top-up scheduled for tonight. I DO NOT WANT another cent going on that account.”

Bell: “Yes sir.”

Me: ”AND you can delete that number. I am cancelling your service.”

Bell: “Yes sir. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

CLICK!

The only way these morons will ever learn is when people take their business elsewhere – and I’m slowly but surely eliminating Bell Canada from my life as soon as other options come available.

Bell Mobility screws it up again!

If this isn’t the worst company I’ve ever had to deal with, it certainly comes close. Unfortunately out here in Canada’s wasteland (all of 50 km from Ottawa) I have no choice in cellular providers so I’m stuck with these idiots.

Suddenly our cell phone stopped working – outbound calls “could not be completed as dialled” and incoming calls received a busy signal.

A trip to the Phone Store confirmed that there was nothing wrong with the phone itself and the ever-helpful(!) clerk provided a couple of numbers we could call at Bell Mobility to get some technical assistance. 

Enter auto-attendant hell until some combination of buttons pressed in frustration result in a real live person, Jose Garcia, taking the call.

After the requisite identity check, Jose Garcia allowed as how our account was out of funds and that’s why the phone stopped working.

Me: “How can that be? We’re on an automatic payment plan.”

Him: “Yes, but we had a computer problem a while back and the automatic payments didn’t work. Do you want me to top you up now?”

Me: “Did it ever occur to anyone at Bell to advise their customers?”

Him: “No. They all have to call in.”

Me: “Gawd I hate having to deal with you guys.”

Him: “Yes sir. Do you want me to top you up now?”

I can hardly wait for Flaherty to come calling to use more of my tax dollars to prop up this sorry excuse for a business.

Why I hate Bell Canada (long)

We’re heading to the States for a couple of days so the spousal unit can run the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington on Sunday. Don’t ask me why – I’m just the driver, cheering section, and moral support.

Since we’re driving it seemed prudent to ensure our cell phone would work in the US in case of an en-route emergency. I have a Bell Mobility pay-as-you-go phone that gets used so infrequently that I am always carrying over excess unused minutes when I do a top up, unless I forget and all my accumulated and paid for minutes lapse are stolen by Ma Bell – the bitch! But that’s another issue and I digress.

I started with their web site only to find out, after waiting interminably for page after page after page to load, that I needed to phone them if I want to change my pay plan and activate the roaming capability.

Now I’m on the phone in auto attendant hell... “Please press 1 for English....”. About 6 levels in I have to enter my phone number so they can access my file. Progress of a sort, I suppose.

When I finally get to speak to a real live person, Sarah, the first thing she asks for is my phone number. Listen Bell computer system guys, it’s 2008. The technology to push that information to the agent’s desktop has been around since the last century! Get with it!

Okay, now she has my number and starts explaining the options I have to select in order to be able to activate roaming. And oh, by the way, a call will cost $1.80 plus $.99 a minute. That’s later clarified to be $1.80 a minute and $.99 a minute – total $2.79 a minute ... plus taxes. And it’s for any part of a minute – 3 seconds – that’ll be $2.79 plus taxes please. I explained that I wasn’t really interested in buying the company, I just wanted to use their airways, maybe, for a minute or two.

By the time she finished explaining the options, the plans, and the rate structures I was so confused that I was ready to pay her $2.79 a minute just to go away and take my headache with her. Clearly this wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought it would be (and as it really should be), so I gave up on Sarah and went back to the web to see if there was another option.

That’s when I discovered that what she told me did not agree with what was published on their web site.

Back on the phone. Auto attendant hell. Enter phone number. Reach Mat. Provide phone number again. Explain what I want to do and what I found online and now I’ve got Mat confused. On hold. Mat comes back and provides the right information (I hope) and clarifies the clarifications I got earlier. Problem is it’s still going to cost a small fortune to use the service (Sarah was right on that point at least) but Mat makes an effort to be helpful, suggesting it would be cheaper for me to just get a US phone if I was going to be travelling frequently in the States. Thanks for that! More questions, clarifications, answers, and it’s finally done.

So I now have roaming activated on my cell phone so I can pay outrageous rates to use it south of the border, I have provided Bell with credit card numbers so they can charge me on a regular basis for minutes I will likely never use and which they will simply take back when I don’t, and I have lost 90 minutes of my life dealing with Bell Canada that I will never get back.

And they wonder why they are losing business.