Jan 13, 2019
HELL
A true story — unfortunately…
SEPTEMBER 10, 2018
I think I got to the Bell store around 6 PM. I knew they closed at 7, so I wasn’t in a huge hurry.
Before walking in, I peered through the windows of the neighbouring stores — eye contact was made with someone inside Baskin Robbins.
Bell was empty.
I approached the sales rep (impressively thick beard), and told him I needed to get internet set up at my place.
He asked for my address and punched it into the system. He recommended that I get on the Fibe25 plan, especially with the nice student discount promotion going on.
Fibe25 promises about 25mbps download and 10mbps upload. This would be a huge upgrade to what I had last year, which was around 5 and 1 from a plan called Internet Plus.
I was pleasantly surprised, because they had told me last year that my complex did not yet have the infrastructure to support fiber internet.
We scheduled the installation for September 12 — I was told to expect a technician anytime between noon to 5 PM.
SEPTEMBER 12, 2018
The technician called at around 1, letting me know that he was on his way. I had just taken the last bite out of my Jazz apple when he knocked on my door.
I shook his hand, showed him where in my room I wanted the router installed, and let him do his thing. After about 20 minutes of tinkering, he came out to tell me that everything was good—well, not really.
It turned out that Fibe was actually still not available at my complex, and that I would have to get back on Internet Plus.
I was a little disappointed, but then again I had already gotten used to streaming basketball games in 480p…
He assured me that he would flag the misinformation in his report later on, and detail how the product installed was different from what the customer (that’s me) had ordered. Finally, someone from Bell would reach out in the next few days to finalize the details.
We shook hands once again, and bid each other farewell.
SEPTEMBER 14, 2018
I got a call from Bell in the afternoon. Unfortunately, I was also at a library on campus.
Hiding in the middle of some deserted shelves, I whispered back to the lady on the other end of the line.
It really wasn’t the best time for a phone call though…
- I was writing a cover letter to a company that never ended up acknowledging my cover letter.
- I respect libraries — and the studious students who study in them — far too much to be on the phone inside.
I asked if she could call me back in 15 minutes, which would give me time to dash over to the grad student lounge.
“Absolutely!”, she said…
…but I never heard back from her again.
OCTOBER 2, 2018
Weeks pass by and suddenly, it’s October — where did the time go ???
Well, I did spend a great few days in Toronto to see some high school friends of mine. Upon my return to Kingston, I also attended Poutine Feast 2018.
The point is that Bell never called me back. Perhaps I should have taken some initiative…
Later that night at 7:19 PM EST, I received an email from the esteemed company. Attached were my Terms of Agreement, which indicated (wrongly) that I was a Fibe25 customer.
I logged onto www.mybell.bell.ca for more details, and this is where the nightmare began. According to my account page, I was subscribed not to Fibe25 or Internet Plus but Essential Plus — Bell’s worst plan available at the time.
Bell doesn't even advertise this plan anymore! For a steep monthly rate of $69.95, one would receive a pitiful 5mbps downloads and 680kbps uploads while being restricted to 20gb of usage per month.
So what happened here was that Bell switched my plan — without any consultation. After offering me a service that’s actually unavailable at my address, they pushed me into an inferior plan and even slashed the discounts I had been promised in-store.
It was late, and I needed to get to bed…
I decided that I would get up early to call, hoping that their phone lines would be less busy in the morning.
I went to their website—using precious bandwidth from my 20gb in the process—and found the number and hours for their Internet support line. The webpage stated that they would be available starting 8 AM on weekdays, so I set my alarm for 7:45.
OCTOBER 3, 2018
How can you tell that this story is real?
Well, I hit snooze a couple times and only managed to wake up at around 8:30.
After punching in the number I had saved from last night, I braced myself for the impending hell of automated phone lines — most of which are clearly designed to make it as difficult as possible for customers in need to reach a real human being.
But I just kept running into one message over and over again — that the offices were closed…
I went online to use their Live Chat feature, asking the agent what numbers I should be calling. They gave me a few, but all of them simply led to the same outcome.
Long after I had lost count of my failed attempts, I was somehow patched through to someone who also sounded like they just woke up.
I tried be as clear as possible, and eventually the rep informed me that they’d be able to switch me back to Internet Plus. However, there would be no discount credits available as those were exclusive to Fibe.
Despite my protests, the representative did not budge.
I’ve been told that I’m too soft with customer support people, but what am I supposed to do when they keep saying no? Ask to speak to their managers???
Sensing weakness, the representative went for the finishing blow and politely asked if there was anything else I needed help with before they ended the call.
I redialed and connected eventually with a different person. After explaining my issue in even greater detail, I was told that some — but not all — of my discount credits could be salvaged.
OCTOBER 4, 2018
Instead of working on a paper, I went online the next day to https://support.bell.ca/Resolve-a-concern and crafted a long complaint.
Should I send them this piece too?
Some time that afternoon, I missed a call from a lady in “Executive Relations” — she left me a voicemail. I think I was enjoying a high-protein chicken breast meal in the kitchen.
I also received an email shortly after from her, which mentioned that she would attempt to reach out again. I could also call her myself apparently, so that’s what I tried to do.
It went to voicemail…
OCTOBER 5, 2018
My phone rang in the morning while I was at the gym. It was Executive Relations lady — let’s call her Matilda. We joked about playing phone tag.
After getting the small talk out of the way, Matilda said that she had read my complaint and was very nice and apologetic about the whole saga.
Ultimately though, she said there was nothing else she could do in terms of discounts and credits — the price that I was paying was the lowest it could go.
I told her that I wasn’t trying to be difficult as I pressed a few more times for some sort of compensation, pleading with myself internally to be strong! She called me sweet, and agreed that I had every reason to be upset. But there was nothing else that she could do, and the call ended shortly after.
OCTOBER 21, 2018
At 3:30 PM EST, I received my bill through email — one which demanded that I pay a whopping $115.56 for my first month of service.
After analyzing the bill line-by-line, I deduced that they had charged me for Fibe25 and Essential Plus usage — ON TOP OF my actual plan.
- How can they charge me for using Fibe25, when the service doesn’t even exist at my address?
- How can they charge me for Essential Plus when I was signed up for it without consent or permission?
You can see that the bill even outlines exact dates and durations, which is what they use to calculate my money owed right down to the cent.
And so I got on the phone, where the first representative exhibited an almost excessive usage of the word “prorated”. She told me not to worry, and that I would be credited back on next month’s bill — as long as I pay this one off first.
The second rep was a bit more sympathetic. It was wrong of them to be charging me this way, and he would make a note for a customer relations specialist to call in a few days.
Sound familiar?
OCTOBER 27, 2018
5 business days passed by without anyone calling.
So I decided to contact Matilda — I felt that it might be more effective to speak to someone who was at least somewhat familiar with my situation.
I was surprised when the call actually connected, although whoever picked up seemed ended it after a split second.
Did I violate protocol by calling a direct line? Perhaps…
I redialed the number, and it went straight to voicemail. I left her one and explained my new issue. Since it was a Saturday, I really did not expect her to get back to me until the middle of next week.
I was about to head out for a pastry to cheer myself up when I decided to try Bell’s live chat one last time.
I told my chat agent — let’s call him Jefferson — as much as I could. I used CAPITALS and em dashes (—) in my messages for emphasis. He acknowledged that the charges were unreasonable, and told me to wait while he made some adjustments.
Hope was in the air, but I did my best to temper expectations.
After a few minutes, Jefferson shot me to say that he would take off the Fibe25 charges. I was in the midst of crafting an angry reply to ask about the other ones when he messaged me again — that those would be removed as well.
I thanked him many times, and I’ll do it once more here. Thanks Jefferson, for pulling me out of a dark place…
