December 18, 2013
George A. Cope
Chief Executive Officer
Bell Canada
1 Carrefour Alexander Graham Bell
Building A, 4th Floor
Verdun, QC H3E 3B3
Dear Bell—or Bell Aliant, or Aliant, or Bell ExpressVu, or NBTel, or whatever you’re calling yourselves this week:
Your company is ridiculous.
We all know it.
I’m sure you can’t say otherwise with a straight face.
You have a ridiculous identity crisis, ridiculous customer service, and a collection of ridiculous policies seemingly designed to frustrate Canadian customers at every turn.
On November 18, I called Bell to cancel everything.
No more television.
No more internet.
No more phone.
No more Bell.
I’d like to say I was abandoning technology to live in a cabin in the woods, but I’m terrible at growing food and hunting isn’t really my thing.
The truth is much simpler:
Rogers offered me a better deal.
I gave Bell every opportunity to compete for my business.
Apparently, Bell didn’t want it badly enough.
How We Got Here
At my previous home I subscribed to Bell’s FibreOP bundle.
It was fantastic.
- Hundreds of television channels
- On-demand programming
- Time shifting
- Whole-home PVR
- Province-wide calling
- Blazing-fast internet
And it cost me $99.95 plus HST each month.
Then I moved.
Not across the province.
Not across the country.
I moved 2.6 kilometres outside the City of Saint John.
Unfortunately, that placed me 1.9 kilometres beyond the end of Bell’s FibreOP network.
I understand that fibre isn’t available everywhere.
My parents can’t even get DSL where they live.
That’s life.
So Bell offered me the best package available at my new address.
It wasn’t remotely comparable.
My internet speed dropped from 80 Mbps download and 30 Mbps upload to 6 Mbps download and 768 Kbps upload.
I don’t pretend to understand all the technical specifications.
I just know it became a lot slower to download funny cat videos.
Television wasn’t much better.
Instead of FibreOP TV, I received basic satellite service.
No time shifting.
No on-demand programming.
No whole-home PVR.
Fewer channels.
And television billing was now separate from my other services.
The surprising part?
I was paying more.
My monthly bill increased to $108.90 plus HST for substantially less service.
So I Switched
Rogers offered me a package that better suited my needs.
I accepted.
On November 18, I contacted Bell and provided the required 30 days’ notice that I wished to cancel my services.
Simple enough.
Or so I thought.
Thirty days later my services were disconnected.
But Bell continued billing me ten additional days because, according to Bell policy, service cancellations don’t take effect until the end of the billing cycle—not at the end of the required notice period.
In other words, Bell expected me to pay in advance for services I had already cancelled and never agreed to receive.
Looking for a Solution
I followed Bell’s complaint process.
Step 1: Contact customer service. ✔️
Step 2: Speak with a supervisor. ✔️
Step 3: Contact the Customer Retention Centre.
That step made little sense.
I wasn’t a customer anymore.
There was nothing left to retain.
So instead I contacted the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS).
I was told there was nothing they could do because Bell’s billing policy fell outside their mandate.
When I asked which government department oversaw the commission, I learned it wasn’t a government agency at all.
Out of curiosity, I looked it up.
Although independent, it is funded by the telecommunications companies it oversees.
That certainly didn’t inspire confidence.
My Request
Please correct my invoice before its due date.
I have no intention of paying in advance for services I never requested, and I certainly don’t intend to pay late-payment charges on those disputed fees.
Respectfully submitted,
Daniel Mark Wheaton
cc: Minister responsible for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
Chairperson and CEO, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
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