http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r21061628 en Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:48:35 EDT Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:48:35 EDT http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21063078 darcmage : »Bell tried to charge me a $20 home phone cancellation charge

Standard practice for Bell but I do wonder where they get their numbers from.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21063078 Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:23:53 EDT http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21062842 jvl001 : Ha, that's nothing...

Note that historically all of Bell's business units used to bill customers individually. Eventually they moved to a one-bill-to-bind-them-all service, but I get the impression that the different business units don't all bill consistently.

I ended all my Bell services and switched to TSI for phone, long distance plan, and internet. I called Bell to give them 30 days notice to cancel the long distance and internet. (I let TSI handle the home phone transfer after so that I didn't lose my number.) The first Bell CSR I spoke to informed me of the 30 days notice, I said OK, received confirmation of the date for termination of LD (30 days in the future) and then was transferred to a Sympatico CSR to give them 30 days notice (and an identical confirmed termination date 30 days in the future).

Later called TSI, and set up transfer of the home phone (took about a week to start) and enabled LD and internet for 30 days in the future. No problems so far.

Received my first invoice from TSI and it had a small by-the-minute long distance charge from TSI. That's wrong because we should still be covered by Bell's LD plan and confirmed the LD plan would work in advance. Called TSI and they quickly agreed and gave me a credit towards my next bill.

A couple weeks later I get what I expect to be my final Bell bill only to be shocked that it's about 4 times what it should be. The Sympatico CSR keyed in the change of order correctly but the original Bell CSR set the termination of the long distance plan as the same day of my initial call. Bell (phone) didn't honour the concept of 30 days notice (heaven help us if they were landlords) and switched us to regular by-the-minute LD billing. As we had been assured that we were on a long distance plan we didn't change our calling habits during the switch over and thus incurred Bell's medieval LD billing rates.

As the home-phone switch-over occurred during the middle of the 30 day period, the LD charges switched from Bell billing over to TSI half way through. To TSI's credit I called them back to let them know that I didn't actually deserve the credit (about $6) but they said not to worry about it. :D

For the same call pattern over about the same number of days Bell tried to charge us about $177.

In the end it took about a dozen phone calls to Bell to straighten out the billing. Although they said they would investigate it and get back to me in 10 business days, I had to call them after 11 before they actually did anything about it. In the end the monster bill was whittled down to less than I expected but it took far too much of my time to deal with their mistake. Frankly it took far too many phone calls just to get someone who understood what went wrong.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21062842 Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:52:00 EDT http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21062199 NeoStylez : its like charging everyone in oshawa a buck extra for something and seeing if they notice.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21062199 Fri, 05 Sep 2008 12:07:38 EDT http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21062123 daboom : yeah and 10G for nothing lol talk about a steal literally. Been bell free for 3+ years now and loving it :)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21062123 Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:52:15 EDT http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21062035 NeoStylez : thats such a low blow way to get peoples money..

thats just over 10bucks if 1000 people were to just ignore this.. thats over 10,000$]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21062035 Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:33:46 EDT http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21061988 theninjasqua : What a money grab. They want 30 days notice that you are canceling your long distance plan? Talk about a joke.
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-theninjasquad]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21061988 Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:25:16 EDT http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21061636 R0CKY : Good job!]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21061636 Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:20:09 EDT http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21061628 Lambada Dave : First off, I am VERY happy with TSI, my high speed, phone and long distance are now all with TSI. This is just a warning to anyone who is looking at switching from Bell to TSI for phone, particularly for long distance.

I received my final bill from Bell, and there were two "Miscellaneous Charges". They were:

LD Network 30 Day Deactivation Charges - $4.56
LD Plan 30 Day Deactivation Charges - $6.10

I called Bell and the rep explained that I had ended my long distance without giving them more than 30 days warning. I then requested a call reference number for escalation purposes to get these reversed. He then quickly responded that he would be able to reverse them for me.

I obtained his agent ID just in case it doesn't happen like he promised.

My warning is this... check your final Bell bill carefully, and don't let them get away with any hidden charges.

Lambada Dave]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21061628 Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:18:17 EDT