Bell Mobility Sucks!

I just can’t believe it! These cellular companies in Canada are taking advantage of consumers. Bell Mobility and Telus want to charge for incoming text messages. 15 cents EACH!! What a rip off. You can avoid this if you sign up for a monthly text plan. This maybe okay for the young at heart who are used to texting, but what about those who don’t have a monthly text plan. Your option is to turn off text messaging all together if you don’t want to pay.

This is bulls**t. How much gouging are we going to allow these companies to get away with. Rogers and Fido are no better. It used to be that if you had a text plan, you could send text messages to anyone in North America as part of your plan. No more. They now want you to pay 25 cents per text message to people in the US even though you have a text plan. I currently pay $16 for a value pak that includes 2500 outgoing text messages. Now they want more money. Shame on you Rogers and Fido. Shame.

What is needed is a regulatory body to keep these people in check. Canadians have one of the highest cellular rates in the WORLD. And they want more. NO!

Paris Responds to McCain Camp

I thought this was a very clever response to the John McCain ad that used Brittney Spears and Paris Hilton in an Obama bashing advertisement. You go girl. Good on you.

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

You've Got to be Kidding

I can’t believe it. After half an hour on the phone with FIDO, I learned that if I am in the US and someone calls my cell and leaves a message on my voicemail, I am charged long distance and roaming charges. My understanding was that if I answered the phone, then I would be charged for the usage.

Not so says the FIDO customer service rep. If my phone is left on when I cross the border and someone calls, the US cell carriers picks up and will forward the call back to Canada and my voicemail. Thus the rationale for the long distance and roaming charges. And what are the charges? $1.75 per minute rounded to the minute. Good god.

I was also charged when I called from a landline phone back to my voicemail. This also resulted in long distance and roaming charges. I can’t believe it.

The customer service’s rep solution: turn off your phone before you hit the US. That way the US cell towers won’t know you entered their territory. Huh? Or deactivate the supposedly 3 call forwarding features that direct the calls to my voicemail. Huh?

I asked the service rep to send me the policy which states that I will be charged if a call ends up in my voicemail. He tells me to look it up on the FIDO website. Yeah, well how about mailing it to me buddy. It doesn’t matter, they can change their terms of service without notice I am advised.

Well for this time (only), they will give me a goodwill credit. However, now that I know how long distance and roaming works, then don’t call again for a credit. Thanks buddy.

All I know is that I will not lock into another 2 or 3 year contract again. We need COMPETITION in Canada NOW! These large companies are taking us for granted.