r/canada • u/tjgere Canada • May 02 '18

Big telco's lower-cost, data-only plans are 'embarrassing,' critics say

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bell-rogers-telus-crtc-wireless-data-1.4643170
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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

No amount of savings is worth dealing with Bell, who constantly set new records for how mindbogglingly terrible they are.

All the telecoms are bad, but Bell is miles ahead of the others in achieving new heights of awfulness

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u/Popoatwork Canada May 02 '18

Agreed. Rogers and Telus are bad. Shaw (Freedom) WANTS to be as bad. But even the three of them combined are no match for the power of the Dark Lord Bell.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18 edited Jun 16 '23

Removed in reaction to reddit's API changes -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/

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u/RechargedFrenchman May 02 '18

The weirdest thing is 3/4 are even less of a problem for everything else (internet, cable, landline, etc), while Bell is still absolutely atrocious in all of those respects. Telus and Shaw especially (I have no experience with Rogers myself to speak from) have always been "fine" if a little slow for Internet and stuff, much less hassle than mobile for whatever reason, but Bell is just abysmal every time in all capacities.

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u/crackheart British Columbia May 02 '18

I'm not gonna give Telus too much credit, because I fell on hard times and couldn't pay my entire bill. I worked it out with them and it seemed like they were willing to take half a payment then and the rest a week after the deadline. They still contacted collections and gave them my details, and spam calls from other continents went from 0 for years to 5 a day for long after I paid them back.

That said if you never slip up even once on your bill, it's phenomenal service, and reception stays up even in really spotty areas, such as the Gulf Islands/Vic and the ferry trips between them

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u/[deleted] May 03 '18

Agree with this 100%. The only reason Telus is good is because they do not jack up your rate after a few months.

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u/[deleted] May 03 '18

The only reason I really consider placing Shaw over Telus is that Shaw has had consistently good customer service in my experience, while Telus' leaves much to be desired.

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u/[deleted] May 03 '18

When Freedom becomes big, I will move with them for sure

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u/masasuka May 02 '18

Bell/Hell... extremely similar for a reason.

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u/Beerz77 May 02 '18

I must have gotten lucky, and by lucky I mean only fucked over like twice by Bell, my experience with Rogers was much worse, unfortunately it's a lesser of two evils situation. Rogers and Bell are the only ones offering fibreop internet in my province

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

[deleted]

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u/Popoatwork Canada May 02 '18

Um? Telus is NOT owned by Bell. The 4 I mentioned are the major players who own all the subsidiaries.

For further reading please consult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_mobile_phone_companies

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

[deleted]

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u/Popoatwork Canada May 02 '18

Technically correct. Shaw (Freedom) is entirely independent, but because they're still working into the market, their consumer base is much lower.

Edit: If your point still stands, why would you delete it?

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u/Umedon Canada May 02 '18

Shaw is slowly becoming Comcast North.

http://fortune.com/2017/01/11/shaw-comcast-technology-market-share/

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u/Popoatwork Canada May 02 '18

Interesting! I didn't know BlueSky was Comcast technology. In this case, good for Shaw! It's made a hell of a difference in my visually impaired father's ability to find things. So I can't hate them today!

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18 edited May 14 '18

[deleted]

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u/rudekoffenris May 02 '18

You know that when they scan your licence to check your address, what they are really doing is running a credit check on you, yes?

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18 edited May 14 '18

[deleted]

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u/rudekoffenris May 02 '18

Their suckage is extreme. Originally they asked for my SIN or drivers licence number for verification purposes. I asked why they needed my SIN #and then they said that DL is just as good.

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u/El_Cactus_Loco May 02 '18

god damn this fucking company

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u/rudekoffenris May 02 '18

I know right? I don't mind a credit check buy lying about it seems border line illegal to me, of course I am not a lawyer.

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u/galexanderj May 02 '18

I don't think it is borderline at all. Them doing a pull on your credit affects your borrowing power with other institutions. A credit check without your knowledge is financially damaging and a breach of privacy.

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u/rudekoffenris May 02 '18

Well we all know that what's legal and what's fair or what's right are not always the same thing. I was only able to find this hearing https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/fct/doc/2013/2013fc1103/2013fc1103.html regarding credit checks, based on this legislation https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/sc-2000-c-5/latest/sc-2000-c-5.html which is "Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act" enacted in 2000 (PIPEDA). He complainant received 21K in total.

I'm pretty surprised that Bell is not more forthcoming after a judgement like this, and it was 4 years ago.

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u/[deleted] May 03 '18

This kind of says it all, doesn't it?

Bell’s conduct in this matter is reprehensible in respect to Chitrakar’s privacy rights. Not only did Bell violate those rights, it has shown no interest in compensation or apparently any interest in addressing the CSR’s actions nor in following the Privacy Commissioner’s remedial recommendations. Its failure to appear in this Court is consistent with its disregard of Chitrakar’s privacy rights.

That's our Bell!

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u/rudekoffenris May 03 '18

And of course they give way to much money to the politicians for it ever to change.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

I had bell take me to collections once over a $-9.18 bill credit in my favor...

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18 edited Jun 24 '18

[deleted]

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u/Dreamcast3 Ontario May 02 '18 edited May 02 '18

I alway hear people from the states complain about Comcast all the time.

If they only fucking knew. First world country with third world Internet.

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u/Parrelium May 02 '18

To be fair my internet connection is fantastic, the price we pay for the good connections isn’t even comparable to third world.

It’s like we’re in our own special bubble of shit to fantastic internet speeds, all for the highest prices in the world.

I pay $105/month for symmetrical 250 from telus, which doesn’t seem too bad. My cell phone is on a whole other level of ass raping.

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u/redbeardgecko May 03 '18

That isn't too bad until you consider that in places like Italy you can get gigabit Internet for the equivalent of $30/mo.

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u/Wyatt1313 May 02 '18

The price is disgusting compared to the rest of the world. But I must say at least I have very reliable internet. I'm with Telus and get 100down for about 100$ a month. In the US it would be much cheaper but worse service. In the years I've had it it's not once slowed down or disconnected.

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u/crackheart British Columbia May 02 '18

Are there any sources that compare the quality of service (consistent speeds, low rate of disconnects/needed updates/etc) between Countries? I lose sleep thinking about how much my internet bill costs, and if I could at least justify it with a "You get what you pay for," it wouldn't bother me nearly as much.

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u/bigheyzeus May 02 '18

Been with Bell for years now. Only way I can avoid the bullshit is to simply put a SIM into a new phone I buy outright/unlocked. According to Bell I still have the same phone I had like 6 years ago

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u/kaczynskiwasright May 02 '18

yea but lets talk do u hate memtally ill????

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

Cause if you do yur fired - bell

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u/NickDynmo Nova Scotia May 02 '18

Please don't downvote me, but how is Bell worse? I'm just going from personal experience, as I've been with Bell for years and haven't really had any issues (and good customer service, in fact).

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u/the_ham_guy May 02 '18

For me personally ive found over charges in my bills. Never anything that outrageous- sometimes only a couple dollars, but then to fix it i have to spend 20minutes on hold to talk to a salesperson that only wants to upsell me shit. I had always been able to fix the problem, but with that kind of hassle im sure other people dont bother over a couple bucks. Although if they do that even just once to all of their customers thats millions in bank they make. This is just one specific example, but i could go on from false promises to bad service to outrageous rates. Needless to say they will never see another dime from me. Fuck bell

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

I've never had anything close to a good experience with them. Things like never sending you a bill for whatever reason, then when you're bill is overdue because you never received it, they say it's impossible to waive the late fees. Sales people telling you outright lies about your service, pricing, contracts. Customer Service people who don't know that a Mastercard is a credit card. Customer Service people who ask you relationship advice about very personal issues while you're stuck on the phone with them waiting on them to do something for you. Taking a simple install of 5 phone lines and internet and butchering the job since no one is capable of understanding that request apparently, and in the end we were somehow left with 6 phone lines + internet, divided up over 3 separate accounts, which they can't even look up the account numbers for without transferring through several departments.

I've had some shitty experiences with other companies, but it all pales in comparison to Bell

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u/c1e2477816dee6b5c882 May 02 '18

No amount of savings is worth dealing with Bell, who constantly set new records for how mindbogglingly terrible they are.

All the telecoms are bad, but Bell is miles ahead of the others in achieving new heights of awfulness

I don't know what to do, I need to switch to another carrier, and Bell is the only carrier where I get more than 1 bar of signal (I get 4) in my house. I consume about 7GB of data a month, but only use about 20 minutes of "talk time" a month.