Friday, August 22, 2008

The worst Telus story EVER

Location: Alberta, Edmonton
Industry: Telecom

I moved to Edmonton with my BF in March, his roomie was movinng to Vancouver and had a contract for internet with Telus, she would be charged $450 to cancel, paid us $200 to take the account over, we needed it anyways so we did.

We got phone added too, to our new address, and was told they would send out a tech in a few days. 4 appointments were made with the tech, as they never showed up. Finally they tell us they couldnt get us internet because they didnt have an open port in our area, and because they couldnt get us service, they would be charging us $450 cancellation fee unless we found some address to move our service to until they had an open port. Get this...we were to call them every single day to see if there was a port open yet, if we didnt do this, we would be charged the cancel fee.


I freaked, at this point we had lived 3 weeks without phone OR internet, and demanded they cancel our account at no charge because it was THEM who could not live up to the contract agreement because they could not provide us service, and I was prepared to go to small claims court, they didn't have a f**king leg to stand on. AMAZING we had phone and internet the next day.

We get a call "you dont have any features on your account including long distance" so yeah, we set up a sweet LD bundle and 6 calling features, was to be set up in a few days. NEVER came, no features, and a fat $200 bill for LD fees that were supposed to be bundled.

So again I call, also because we have yet to get a paper bill, as each time I call they still have the old address on file and are sending the bills there, I swear i changed it around 7 times with them, and still they keep sending the bill to the old place. They tell me that during their last software updat our account somehow got frozen and they oculd not make any changes to it...HUH? how is that my problem? and they promise to credit my account to cover the LD overcharges. Guess what?? that never happened.

So we decide to switch our phone to Shaw, screw Telus, yeah we have to keep the net for now, but at least we wont be getting $200 phone bills. Telus refused to release our number to Shaw because our account was still frozen, so I call the CRTC and log a formal complaint. It gets escilated to Telus complaint and legal department and alas 3 days later we get our number released to Shaw.

GET THIS....a week after we get Shaw phone I wake up to no internet. I call Telus and get told they canceled our internet and charged us the $450 fee because Shaw phone wont work with Telus internet (Shaw tech told me otherwise). So I call the lady at the complaint branch who gave me her direct line and she is apologetic, the Telus rep OUTRIGHT lied, because that isnt true. There was no order to shut off our internet, it was just an error, and they turn it back on, and not to worry, we eont be charged the cancellation fee.

Guess what?? finally a paper bill shows up! and guess what?? we owe them $650...yup the cancellation fee is still on there PLUS a reactivation fee....by this point I am delirious with rage, how the hell can these people treat anyone like this? I called the complaint lady AGAIN she tells me outright that she is surprised I haven't gotten a lawyer by now, and that this is one of the worst cases she has handled. And finally this month everything seems in order...and you wont beleive this, my phone rings today, a Telus rep is asking me why we switched to Shaw....I started laughing hysterically into the phone because at this point it's all I have, and hung up.

3 comments:

  1. Holy crap... that's unreal.

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  2. No, it's real enough. I used to work for one of Telus' American partners, and I know how the system doesn't work.

    No large corporation puts much time, energy, or money into a "customer service" department for two very good (to them) reasons -- (1) "customer service" is a financial liability. It does not generate any revenue for the company, and it costs money to administer; and, (2) remember all those "efficiency expert" jokes? They weren't jokes. Today's business model is calculated to accept a certain amount of consumer turnover, and if a company is too good at pleasing its customers, the turnover will not occur. The financial efficiency of a company actually goes down statistically if the company is too good at pleasing its customer base. They cannot measure what's good if they have no bad with which to compare it.

    I'm with Shaw. So far, so good.

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  3. Maybe they should spend spend money on proper Tech support, rather than stupid lame-ass commercials.

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