Bell cuts phone service to family struggling to pay surprise $1,800 bill (lol)

[killramos]

Sounds like a snowflake that should be on a prepaid plan.

[silvercivicsir]

Imessage would have saved them tons of cash.. but honestly bell should have offered a usa-text plan, and credit back the difference.. ie $20 unlimited sms to merica, and we credit you back the 1980 in overages.. [atleast this is what i would have done if i was "bell customer" service]

[Swank]

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I mean carriers getting away from charging for each text. Not getting away from offering that product. I didn't make that clear.

Ah gotcha, thanks. Yeah charging for texting seems silly these days, even unlimited calling is more the rule than the exception.

[LilDrunkenSmurf]

I mean, it's a business plan, so the assumption is that they're not humans, they're a company.

Either way, business plans usually give you a lot of control over the additional lines on your plan. It's his fault he didn't set them up.

[Asian_defender]

WTF is wrong with these guys, it sounds like they dont want to take responsibility
-Our daughter is a little shit and racked up 2k worth of texting because she ignored warning messages, Bell decided to be nice and cut it down by $200.
-They gave us a due date to make a payment and we missed it
-Bell cut us off

How is Bell Bullying in any way here? There were services consumed and they haven't paid. If this was a small time restaurant where they ate couldn't pay I bet people wouldn't say the restaurant is being a bully.
Why do people feel the need to attack Bell in this case

[sabad66]

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You're right but if your customers are humans, the business needs to be a bit humane from time to time.
If simply notifying in some manner that likely went to a spam folder meets the regulations, then that's a shame. Service should be cut off once a bill is 2x to 4x higher than normal and the onus is then back on the adult to contact Bell/Rogers/Telus and simply say "it's all good, switch me back on" or "holy crap - thanks for warning me". I don't know what extent the regulations demand on "notification".

i'm with you on this one. just because they CAN charge $1800 here (and likely make $1795 profit on it) doesn't mean they should.

The negative PR here will certainly cost them more in the long run. All it will take is losing 1 current or potential customer and the $1800 is gone (assuming $80 a month x 2 year contract).

On the other hand if they would have cut them some slack then maybe they would have recommended Bell to their friends for being so nice. I know i personally recommend companies that give me freebies/go above and beyond.

[Swank]

^the amount of business lost from this will be as negligible to Bell as the $1800, same goes for the business they would gain if they refunded/waived the $1800, so they'll just do what's easiest which is probably nothing.

[rx7boi]

Couple years ago I got a new GPS bike riding app on my phone that stayed on and used up all my data and then some.

I think I was something like 7GB over before I noticed and when my bill came I shat bricks

Called Rogers and they let me off the hook as a courtesy since I've been with them for so long.

[heavyD]

The biggest question is what exactly is going on with the daughter. Thousands of texts over the continent in a month? That's crazy.

[Tik-Tok]

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The biggest question is what exactly is going on with the daughter. Thousands of texts over the continent in a month? That's crazy.

Maybe she was texting Momo.

[eblend]

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It could be applied to MMS. Although data is required to be turned on to send pictures via SMS, makes sense since it isn't using a strictly data based (???) messaging service like imessage or whatsapp.

Stupid gonna stupid

This is why I liked Windows Phone, you could enable MMS while keeping mobile data off, had a funky "Allow MMS if Data is Off" option. My sister was on Virgin and had a windows phone without data, Virgin had unlimited MMS but my sister couldn't use it because the moment you enable data, background data downloads etc etc made her bill jump with pay-per-use data usage. With that feature it was a simple flick of a button and she could send unlimited pictures without incurring data fees, I don't know why android and I presume apple never got that feature to this day. Perhaps you can work around it with APNs but it was so simple in Windows phone.



Going back to the article at hand, didn't bother reading it, but from the comments seen here sounds like something fishy is going on with the daughter...

[HiTempguy1]

I have telus for rural internet (50mbps lte).

Recently, as I was around quite a bit at Christmas AND got sick the day after New Years (took 3 sick days and stayed home all weekend, it was brutal).

So I watched a lot of youtube/netflix/torrents.

I've checked my usage before, MANUALLY, online just to see what sort of data I was using relative to my cap. Never gotten close to 250gb.

Obviously, I assumed Telus would email me like they did with my condo fibre internet if I got near the cap. Nope!

Even though there is an option for it (hidden) in the online account manager, you have to enable it AND enter an email address for it to send notifications to, even though THEY ALREADY HAVE THAT INFORMATION AND WTF ITS THE 21ST CENTURY.

So yes, I certainly did bitch them out over the first $40 in overages that I wasn't informed about.

Oh, and they did not even have the internet stop at the cap, they had the "we wont notify you until $40 of overages have occured option" selected.

And finally, they had the gall to tell me "oh, you need to install some software to monitor" even though its already available through their online account system.

Was just fucking stupid. So on one hand, yea, pay your bills, on the other hand, fuck the company for not having that shit enabled off the bat. Maybe in the 90's that would be acceptable, but come on.

[D'z Nutz]

Here's another whiner.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/par...hone-1.5077272

Family has a shared phone plan, gets a bill for $6,774, mostly from son who is racking up the long distance calls. Bell forgives $521, family files a complaint to the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-Television Services and Bell forgives an additional $1,163. Family still has $5000 bill to deal with. Like the previous story, the son was getting the text and voicemail warnings and ignored them all.

[dirtsniffer]

Sucks to be her I guess. Kids phone was in her name and received multiple calls and messages. Obviously he is responsible

[ExtraSlow]

This is all a good reminder for us parents to set up the cellphone bills to notify an adult about overages. People don't realize this, but a cellphone is as serious as a credit card.

[Darkane]

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This is all a good reminder for us parents to set up the cellphone bills to notify an adult about overages. People don't realize this, but a cellphone is as serious as a credit card.

The plastic things that let us buy stuff consequence free are serious? Whaaaaaat?

[Disoblige]

I think in the near future, we will see limit cap offs for text, minutes, and long distance calls, just like how there is limits set for data and roaming charges. People just don't pay attention enough.

That limit is already in place — but only for data and roaming fees, not for long distance, talk minutes or texting charges.

To help prevent bill shock, the CRTC mandates that telcos must cut customers off once they hit $50 in data or $100 in roaming fees — unless customers consent to further charges.

In the case of shared plans, the account owner must provide that consent — a rule the CRTC introduced in 2017 following complaints about teens running up data charges.

[ZenOps]

Well… Past a certain point (baller status) you can technically cut up plastic with less seriousness. If you owe $915 million its arguably far easier to declare bankruptcy than trying to owe $100 as a plebian.

Not necessarily the way to run things, but this is the reality we live in.