Telus Mobility Review
Telus was giving me a “deal” and then charging me extra. I told you I’d let you know the story about getting my daughter’s and my new phones.
The LG KEYBO was normally $299. However, they had a deal for new Pay and Talk customers to buy it for $199, plus they’d get a $50 phone card with it, and a 1 gig micro SD card (for music).
I wanted to buy that one for $199 since I’m a Pay and Talk customer but they wouldn’t let me – said I’d have to get a brand new phone number if I went with that one.
So I called Telus head office and said, “You’ve got the KEYBO on sale for $199 and I’d like to buy that one”. The woman told me I could. I also asked if they were going to give me a deal, because my husband just bought a new phone and he was told that he’d get $100 off for being a loyal (long-time) customer. She told me she’d give me $100 off each new phone.
So I thought that was fabulous. I could now afford to buy the two phones (one for me and one for my daughter) for only $100 each.
I went to a kiosk and was told that I had to go to a corporate kiosk because those people weren’t able to see whether I had a discount on my account. I went from Centerpoint to Yorkdale to a corporate location. I was told there that the discount would only apply to the regularly priced KEYBO even though the woman from head office told me differently. They had me phone Telus and find out that I’d have to buy the regularly priced phone.
I said to them that ‘it’s not a discount for a long-time customer if you’re charging me the full price and then discounting $100 when you’re selling to brand new customers for that same price plus giving them a $50 phone card’. He wouldn’t budge on it so I said forget it. I figured I’d go to another vendor.
I let it go for a few days and checked out other vendors, but I really didn’t want to switch over to a plan. I went back to Telus at The Promenade (corporate) and tried again. I was told the same thing that I could have them for $199 (the new customer price). So they weren’t doing anything for me that they wouldn’t do for a brand new customer.
I bought the two phones for $199 each and was told that they come with a 1 gig micro SD card. Then the woman told me there was a $25 activation fee on each but if I called head office they might waive that. I called and was told that they’d waive the fee but they’d have to give me the new customer pay and talk phone, which was fine with me, I didn’t know the difference other than the activation fee online to do it myself was only $10.
Then the woman sold me two Blackberry cases for the phone ($30 each for two) because they didn’t have proper cases for that style phone.
I went home, activated the phone for free and started reading the manual. When it came time to put music on the phone, the micro SD card was missing. So I went back the next day and said, “there was no SD card”, whereby the same woman who told me it came with one, said to me, “but you knew it didn’t come with one because you talked to head office and they said you’d have to take the new customer box – that doesn’t come with an SD card”.
They then charged me $28 for an SD card. Luckily for me, in the day that we’d had the phones, my daughter’s friend had an extra 2 gig card that he’d given her.
So here’s the breakdown of the special service I got from Telus for being an 8-year customer:
1. They sold me a phone for $299 and gave me $100 off so that I was paying the exact same price that they were offering to new customers, only they were also giving new customers a $50 card.
2. They said that they’d waive the $25 activation fee and for that they excluded the $25 micro SD card which I then had to purchase for $25 plus tax when I could have received the phone with the card and gone online to activate the phone for $10.
3. They sold me two Blackberry leather cases for $30 each with no clip on the back so you have to hold the phone in your hand. I have since gone to a phone vendor kiosk and bought two new cases with a clip for $20 each.
For my 8 years of loyalty, Telus gave me less than they’d give a new pay and talk customer ($50 short on the phone card) and I had to buy the SD card for the price of the activation fee they were ‘waiving’.
My thoughts? Telus, you’re a piece of shit. Thanks for nothing.
The only good part of this story is that I love the LG KEYBO.
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Comments
I chose Telus’ $20 for 200 minute plan in a 3 year contract (and a Motorola Razr2 PCS phone). I also agreed to try out some additional options like web access and text messaging knowing that each time “I used those options” there would be a charge but I wanted these options in case I needed to download updates from the web or if I wanted to send a text message. Unknown to me, simply by agreeing to have web access, Telus took it upon themselves to send my phone web update requests so each time I used my cell phone, it would check the web for updates and simply by agreeing to text messaging, Telus decided to send me daily informational text messages each of which cost me an additional $1.00. I was not a heavy cell phone user but I typically used my phone 3 or 4 times a month and I never sent a text message or checked the web myself but my monthly bills were close to $70.00 for this $20/200 plan. That is gouging the customer.
Yes, gumfoot, that was ridiculous. I’m glad I’m on pay and talk. And because I’ve been a customer for so long, I still have per-second billing. I might have switched to another provider if it wasn’t for that per-second billing.
I think it’s kind of funny how everybody has decided that the cell phone companies owe them all somthing for using their services. They are providing a service that you want, and you are paying for that service. I have yet to get a free or discounted t.v. from cogeco cable. I was never offered or expected to be offered a free or discounted home phone from Bell Canada when I was using their services for 25 years. And when I switched to Cogeco home phone service…. guess what?…. no free home phone there either. If I ever needed a new one, I went to the store and bought it. Maybe we should all start expecting a company to give us a laptop for free every few years because we want internet access and pay them to use their service. Why do we think that cell phone companies owe us anymore than all the other service based companies do?
And just a response to Gumfoot, no cell phone service provider sends $1.00 text messages to their own clients. Those are premium messages that only happen if you give out your cell # online or on some company’s form or text to those premium message sites you see adds on t.v. for (i.e. horoscope of the day). Giving your cell phone number out to anything other than people you trust puts you at risk of subsribing to these types of messages. You cannot blame the cell phone company, they have nothing to do with that happening. Reply STOP back to those premium messages to unsubscribe. Any text messages from Telus to their own clients are free… I know this for sure because I have Telus too.
Mel, since they were offering ‘new phones’ to their loyal customers, saying that every two years you could upgrade your phone, I don’t think it’s much to expect something for loyalty.
If you put this into perspective, think of going to your neighbourhood restaurant or bar. If you’re a long-time customer, every now and then they may give you a free drink. Much like I will do when selling jewellery to people who buy from me regularly – throw in the earrings for free.
A little something for being a loyal (and paying) customer doesn’t seem like a lot, especially thinking of how ridiculous the pricing is for all of them.
jafer, I agree with you to a certain extent. Like I said before, most of the other service providers such as home phone, internet and cable haven’t romotely started that pattern of giving away items to allow you to use their services. We have become so accustom to cell providers giving us items for free or at a discount that people are becoming aggressive and insulting if they don’t get even more, as you did at the end of your original statement. I think it’s fair to get some kind of loyalty gift. Not neccesarily as big as your looking for. A free drink at a restaurant is a big jump from wanting more than $100 off. I also think it’s fair that there are more insentives and discounts when someone is willing to sign a contract. The cell phone provider is guaranteed a certain amount of revenue for a guaranteed amount of time. Then, when that person is willing to recontract, not only do they get a discount on another phone but can negotiate all sorts of extra free features for the duration of the new contract in return for being loyal customers. You have to understand jafer, that getting $100 off on a pay n talk account isn’t a bad deal. That cell phone provider has no guarantee that you will keep your account up and running. A new customer on a regular billed rate plan who does not sign a contract and guarantee a length of time they will be a customer, gets no discounts at all… whether a new customer or not.
I don’t know how heavy a cell phone user you are but keep in mind , on pay n talk with Telus you can keep the line going for $10 a month. You could even put $10 every couple of months just to keep the account and phone number active. With that said, it would take the phone company almost a years worth of service on a low usage client to even have the client use as much as they got discounted. Maybe you use it a lot more, but there’s no guarantee. I still think $100 off is a great deal. I’m on a rate plan now, and did not sign a contract. I paid full price for my phone so that I would not be locked in. I will never call them up demanding things for free as long as I’m not willing to guarantee them a certain amount of business. I want the service they are providing, and I am paying them for that service. I have been a loyal customer of Cogeco for 5 years, and yet I have never asked them to pay for half of my new t.v, or laptop. Have you? I will not be insisting on a free item from my cell phone provider either. If they are offering a discount, I will appreciate it, because it’s more than the other service providers ever offer.
Well, Mel, I know where you’re coming from, most of the time I’m appreciative for anything free or even discounted. I guess I was mostly pissed off at the time thinking that they were offering all these ‘loyalty’ things for customers and I’d been a customer since the beginning of time and was pissed off that a brand new customer was going to get a better deal on something that a long-time customer wasn’t offered.
Thinking of the big phone providers, though, I have gotten special services from folks at Bell. I can remember one time where my son found the Psychic Line and managed to rack up $400 worth of ‘staying on hold’ time while they were getting back to him with their psychic predictions (he was around 12 at the time).
Bell Telephone forgave those charges when I called them about it – they understood how people got sucked into those charges. I really appreciated that.
I don’t think I often ‘expect’ something for nothing, but I do want to feel that I’m appreciated for being a long-time customer over giving deals to people who are just signing up.
Another First-time Moneris customer
math
Lyndon
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The Boy Named Sue
First-time Moneris customer
Female, taken, fire, Sagittarius, Monkey, Toronto, two kids, one grandson, IT.
53
is the new 30. I want the world to close their mouths when they’re eating or chewing gum. If they don’t, I want to elbow them in the face.
Aren’t cellphone companies in Canada wonderful?? It’s nice loyalty means crap to them all!!
It could be worse, if you want to switch from Fido to Rogers. You have to pay an early termination fee, even though they’re owned by the same companies. Just found that out recently.
So as you can see, they all find a way to hose us, somehow.