This month (December 2006) is my last month with Telus on a 3-year cell phone contract. Aside from *generally* minor difficult customer and technical service issues throughout this contract, I have recently experienced two big issues with the company.
Summer (June?) 2006:
I have CONSISTENTLY been generating $70-80 monthly phone bills. Summer of 2006 I received an unusually high phone bill of over $175. Reviewing the list of calls attached to the month's bills, I realized I was being charged for phone calls made between 6&8 pm. Upon purchase of my phone and contract three years ago, I signed up for Extended Evenings (free evenings to begin at 6pm for an additional $5/month). Apparently, as told by customer service, this package addition was not listed in my account information, nor was there any proof that I had EVER had it. However I had bills to counteract that claim so I was reimbursed the charges. HOWEVER this still means that either Telus' system mysteriously erased that option from my account on its own, or someone else besides me received access to my account and removed the extended evenings.
December 2006:
I have just received another unusually high bill of $200. My statement claims that I used 830 daytime minutes (I have 350 daytime minutes free) and only 34 evening minutes for the whole month. I reviewed my call list and it does indeed list an excessive amount of daytime phone calls. HOWEVER, I work Mon-Fri during the day and have designated break times at work– one day, for example, showed two 25 & 30 minute phone calls as taking place during my work day and not during these break times. I advised Telus (both a CSR and a supervisor) that this was impossible, as I am never allowed to spend such excessive time on my phone during my work period. They checked with their technical team and advised me that this same call information was what their towers reflected. I acknowledged that it was my word against theirs but that I was absolutely sure that these phone calls were recorded improperly, that bills from the entire three years would show consistent time usage for daytime and evening periods. I told them of the previous billing problem I’d had in the summer and advised them that due to the instability of their service and unacceptable billing situations such as this, I would not be renewing my contract at the end of this month. The supervisor told me that there was nothing he WOULD do for me, UNLESS I agreed to sign onto another 3-year contract. I advised him that I would not be bribed into being a customer and he attempted to push the offer on me three more times, repeating the fact that he had the ability to reimburse me on some of the charges solely upon my contract renewal for another 3 years. I refused and let him know I would be leaving the company as a very unsatisfied customer. I am now left to pay this $200 bill filled with charges I know for a fact are not warranted but unfortunately cannot prove otherwise.
I will not be recommending Telus services to anyone, and I am weary of both their customer service and technical tactics. This is not the first time I have been misled/misinformed/had my account tampered with somehow.
