# Might get screwed by Telus :(



## contoursvt (May 1, 2005)

It might be partially my fault for being too trusting though... but this is what happened....

I moved to Oshawa so over the past few days I looked for some solution through Telus that would allow Oshawa to be local to Toronto and vice versa. I finally got a hold of someone at client care who was able to verify that MIKE service is indeed local because of a larger coverage area or something. He double checked with someone else to be sure.... Ok so thats great, MIKE it is.... (I think this was around 3pm or so..Tuesday or yesterday)

I then asked the guy how I can resolve my situation since I'm 1/2 through my 3 year contract with Telus and would want to migrate over to MIKE. I told him that I'm aware if you break the contract, you gotta pay $20 a month for the remaining. He said correct and told me I have 21 months remaining. I told him I didnt think that was fair because I was not moving to another provider, just moving within the Telus family. He said well there is a deal where the payment ends up only $10 a month if you're going from Telus to MIKE so it would be a $210 penalty. I told him I apprecate the lower cost but I've been with telus for like 6 years and I will be a customer for a long time and asked him to find out if there is more that can be done. 

...He listened to me saying that I'm a loyal customer and wish to remain with Telus because I'm happy so far and no reason to look elsewhere....blah blah (which was true), and so then he asked me if I had a phone in good working order as well as the charger. I told him I do. He said if I send my phone and charger in, they can waive the $210 pentalty. I thought that was very good. I said "so all I gotta do is give my phone and charger and I have to pay no penalty?" He said yes. I was very happy because I felt this was good customer support and treatment from Telus. Even told him that I'm happy to soon be a MIKE user  I told him I had no box or manual for the phone and even has a scratch on the front. He said it doesnt matter. Just has to work right and have the charger. I asked how to proceed. He said for me to go and sign up for the MIKE service (buy the phone I want and choose my plan) and then once that is done, to call the client care with my new MIKE info and tell them that I'm ending the Telus contract and they will refer to the notes and continue from there.

Ok so I went to a Telus store on Mcowan and Lawrence and explained the situation to the lady there. She said she had never heard of such a promotion. I said I spoke to the guy and he assured me this is how it is and asked if she can call and just make sure with someone that I can proceed with no problems. She called client care (or I assume it was client care - someone at Telus anyway) and while on the phone, I could tell that they had no idea about this special send in your program to waive the fees either... She waited one more minute and then said outloud "Calgary? Well my customer is not in Calgary he's here now in my store, ready to purchase MIKE, so how will you help him?" She then covered the hand piece and told me that it was a Calgary promotion and doesnt apply here but the woman on the other end was going to check to see if they can honor it anyway. After a few mins, the woman told the person in the store that "fine, we'll go ahead and go with what ever agreement was agreed to earlier". I basically felt confident that all is fine so I got my Work45 plan and chose my phone. She told the lady in the store to sign me up on MIKE, activate the phone and have me call in the morning because by now it was 9pm and they were closing. They would take care of me in the morning. Cool. 

I called this morning (the above was actually yesterday...the first guy I spoke to was around 3pm and the woman in the store was around 8pm) and told Telus that I got my MIKE phone and I'm ready to cancel my Telus according to the agreement in my notes. She read through and said there was no agreement or any mention in the notes of any phone tradin or anything. I explained the whole story and she said that she cant really do anything for me and that breaking the Telus contract will be $20 a month. They also had never heard of some special thing going on in "calgary"

I called some department called "retension" and spoke with someone there. They sort of understood where I was coming from but said it will probably not result in the same deal as what the guy had told me the day before. Said that the best they might come up with is $100 off if I send my phone and even then, I will need the box because normally they give $25 for a phone. I told him that there is no way I have the box because its like 1 1/2 years old.... I verified with the other guy who of course did not write anything down!!! OH and they had no idea about anything in Calgary either!

I'm pissed off because now I will probably get reamed because I was trusting of the techs doing their job correctly. I mean the person seemed very knowledgable and knew tons about the MIKE side because was able to tell me about the coverage and areas right away when the regular techs could not. I just cant remember if I got a hold of him directly or if I got transferred to him.... Anyway I trusted that he'd put the notes or anything about the call but he didnt. I mean they dont even have a record of me talking to a tech at that time in their system. One thing I did though. I gave the number of the store I purchased the phone and plan from to Retension and told them to call the woman at the store because she spoke to someone. The only problem is that I dont think that person on the phone and the woman in the store discussed exactly what was "agreed upon" because the woman at telus just said "well fine we'll go with what was agreed upon" which was obviously nothing because there were no notes there. Why wouldnt she say "Hey I dont see any discussion about this in the notes"? That would at least give me a warning but hey anything to fish in a new client I guess.

Now for the important question. If things go bad and they dont want to help me out, is there an email address or someone I can talk to? I already asked "what happens if tomorrow you give me news that is bad for me...can I speak to a manager?" The tech in retension said "well we speak on behalf of the manager so we're pretty much the end of the road". I felt this was very rude. There is always someone higher.

If they cannot waive the Telus to MIKE fee by me sending my current phone and charger like the guy had promised, then I want to return my MIKE phone and the contract I just got with MIKE but they told me I cannot break that contract either. I'm just pissed.

Oh OH and the guy the day earlier who gave me the sweet deal said that I cannot call in to cancel the Telus phone until I've purchased the MIKE phone and activated it (for the switch over). At the store, the lady said the same so pretty much I was forced to go into a contract first so I can talk to someone about the cancelling. I was already confident that the deal was OK'd by the woman on the phone who had initially said it was a Calgary deal but OK we'll give what ever is in the notes so I had no reason to doubt entering into the contract. Sigh....

Sorry for the long ramblings but I just feel like I'm getting the runarround or I'm getting punished for believing the Telus employee  

I'll know tomorrow when the Retension department will call me back. I'm sure it wont be good news. I hope they will honor what the first guy had said to me but I know they wont. 


Is there anything I can do? Am I supposed to request transcripts to be faxed over to me evertime I speak with a tech so that I can feel safe? LOL It seems that way.


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## Sonal (Oct 2, 2003)

I used to work at TELUS Mobility. MIKE and PCS are typically treated very separately, though with the new PTT on PCS, it looks like they are being cross-promoted.

I will tell you--since getting these announcements approved and out the door used to be part of my job--that around Christmastime, TELUS Mobility historically goes into reactive mode, where promotions come up and disappear literally within hours, in all kinds of different regions, and change very frequently. It is an absolute nightmare. So part of this no one knowing what's going on could simply be because on the decision-makers change things constantly.

L&R is a pretty good department, though, and has some discretion. Keep getting the names of the people you talked, and their employee numbers. Write down what was said, and make a note of the time. If something is not being made clear, ask to talk to a manager. If you are rebuffed, insist. 

You could also talk to an independent dealer instead of the corporate stores. The dealers sometimes have a little more leeway. It's a longshot, but the corporate stores have to follow the corporate rules. The dealers are supposed to, but they are running their own business too, so sometimes, they are willing to cut breaks.

Here's some possible good news. I know that on PCS, even if you sign a contract, you have a 30 day period to return the phone without penalty. I *believe* the same is true with MIKE--you can check this by reading your contract or calling client care. So if worse comes to worse, you may not be stuck with a penalty on MIKE.


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## contoursvt (May 1, 2005)

Thanks for the fast reply. It gives me a small ray of hope from what you've said. I am extra sensitive to $$ issues now because I recently purchased a home and am really tight on money for the next year or so until I finish off a loan I have so I was hoping to get a deal that would work for me, not to shoot myself in the foot somehow  Anyway I will be optomistic until I get bad news.


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## CanadaRAM (Jul 24, 2005)

When I switched from Fido to Telus, the independent Telus dealer gave me a deal matching Fido's best plan, plus a rebate for turning in the Fido phone and charger. They have the ability to match competing plans... 

Just keep trying until you get someone who knows how much authority they have to deal.


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## mr.steevo (Jul 22, 2005)

o


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## contoursvt (May 1, 2005)

I called today and they are still looking into it. I have a feeling they are going to allow me to cancel my MIKE that I signed up for and return the phone, but I doubt they will let me transfer over to that service with no pentalties. Told me that I should know by tomorrow.


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

i'm so glad i'm not with Telus anymore.


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## guytoronto (Jun 25, 2005)

Ah, the joys of dealing with large corporations, call-centres, and contracts.


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## CN (Sep 3, 2004)

dona83 said:


> i'm so glad i'm not with Telus anymore.


I'm so glad I'm not with Rogers anymore. Ugh. I hated them. Everything was so difficult. I've now switched to Telus and its so much better, for me at least.


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## Gerbill (Jul 1, 2003)

"Might" get screwed by Telus? In my experience, there's no "might" about it - you can count on it!


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## Jason H (Feb 1, 2004)

I love telus, I've never received better service with a big company than with telus. 

If your dealing with them go to a corporately owned store, and get the manager involved with calling customer relations if needed. It helps a bit.

Plus telus gave me a $25 gift card for amazon.ca.... in a letter that started "Hi, I'm mike and we spend a lot of time together and would like to say thank you"


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## Sonal (Oct 2, 2003)

You'll notice that all the TM lovers on this thread are in the East, and all the haters in the West.

TELUS tends to be very reactive to competition--places like Ontario where they have not been traditionally been the dominant provider get better deals than (for example) BC. 

My opinion, of course, based on my very short time there. Much has likely changed since.


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## Gerbill (Jul 1, 2003)

My dislike for Telus is based strictly on extremely bad customer "service" that I experienced personally. 

In the first instance, it was a problem with ADSL which turned out to be a loose wire in the building's wiring closet, but it took weeks to get them to send someone out, and doing so was a matter of dealing with one clueless obnoxious idiot after another, following long, long waits in voice mail Hell.

The second problem was much more serious - my wife's mother was taken very ill when we were in the middle of moving house - our phone connection in the new place didn't work. No amount of pleading or begging would move the necessary repairs ahead by even an hour. Finally, my wife's mother passed away in hospital with us still lacking phone service - fortunately someone at the hospital persevered and got in touch with us through our building manager. Then, days later, in fixing the phone, they screwed up our ADSL connection, which had been working up until then. My reaction was to call Shaw for cable internet.

No, I don't like Telus. They were OK when they were AGT (Alberta Government Telephones), but nowadays they are just another rapacious big business with all sorts of cute animals in their ads, but no soul, execrable customer service, and awful labour relations. A plague on them and all their works.


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## _Outcast_ (Oct 17, 2003)

Sonal said:


> You'll notice that all the TM lovers on this thread are in the East, and all the haters in the West.


 Not necessarily. I live outside the GTA and as far as I'm concerned, Telus blows. They offer a stunning array of mediocre handsets, they cripple the Bluetooth functionality on the handsets that "support" Bluetooth, and their network is terrible; dropped calls, calls that go right to voicemail even though your phone is turned on and receiving good signal, etc.

And this business about having to pay $20 per month for each remaining month in your contract is somewhat misleading as well. I couldn't wait to ditch Telus but had eight months left in my contract. I figured I'd tough it out until I had a coupe of months left and then eat the $40. Well, they managed to piss me off totally with five months left so I decided to pay them their $100 pound of flesh just to be rid of them. Good thing I did too. After cancelling I read the contract again and it stated that early cancellations were subject to a $20/mth charge for each remaining month of the contract or a flat fee of $100, whichever is greater. So If I would have waited it still would've cost me $100. Typical corporate bastards. 

I'm so glad to see the tail end of them. They actually made me appreciate Rogers Wireless. Well, almost. The customer service at Rogers has improved but it's still got a long way to go. But at least it's not Telus.

All these service providers are vultures, it's just a matter of finding the one which will screw you over the least. It's that whole negative-optioning sort of thing.

And it's really getting harder and harder to get a phone that just works as a phone. These new phones let you access the Internet, keep track of appointments, play games and MP3s; the only thing they don't seem to let you do is make and receive phone calls. I guess that's progress for you.

Jerry


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## Sonal (Oct 2, 2003)

Gerbill, TELUS and TELUS Mobility may be the same company, but operationally they are separate. The Mobility side is primarily run out of Ontario from what was Clearnet--a lot of the TM executives came out of Clearnet. The chain of command is separate... I believe the call centres are different, corporate offices are different, etc. 

Only the CEO of Mobility has any defined role at TELUS, which is simply head of Mobility.

Could be another part of why you get more TM haters out west. Here, they can only screw us over on wireless. There, you have wireless, phone, internet...

Though I agree with you, Jerry: "All these service providers are vultures, it's just a matter of finding the one which will screw you over the least. It's that whole negative-optioning sort of thing."


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

I have been with Telus and AGT before them since 1980. We have three cell phones, high speed ADSL and two land lines plus fax. Not once have I ever had a problem. Once when a cell phone crapped out at 15 months (warranty was 12 months) they gave me a rebuilt model of the same phone which worked well until I got a new cell last year.

I have no bad experiences and when I needed one service call because my ADSL seemed slow, they arrived two days after my call as promised and rewired my house at no charge to repair the problem.


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## HowEver (Jan 11, 2005)

.


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## contoursvt (May 1, 2005)

I nice lady named Crystal from LRT department at Telus took care of everything that had not been done. She has been the most helpful. Everything done. My transfer fee waived as long as I get the phone to them (she said I dont need the box where as the first guy was insisting I need the box. She said the box is nice but not a must have). Anyway she was great. I think she felt my pain  

Anyway I'm good to go now.


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## Gerbill (Jul 1, 2003)

Sonal said:


> Gerbill, TELUS and TELUS Mobility may be the same company, but operationally they are separate.


 I know that - in fact we got a Telus cell phone (pay as you go) during the crisis around my mother-in-law's death because it was the least difficult option to be back in touch with the world. 

I have no complaints about the service from Telus Mobility, but I still despise the whole company. They have just come out of a long lockout where they tried (unsuccessfully) to destroy their union - another black mark in my books, as I'm firmly pro-labour.


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## med8or (Jan 18, 2002)

I personally have had no problems with Telus Mobility. I started out as a ClearNet user. Someone mentioned about getting a gift certificate in the mail as a thank-you. Over the past 8 years I've been with them, I've received several gifts in the mail. An ear piece by Jabbra one year, this year $25.00 Amazon Gift Certificate plus $15.00 Gift Certificate off of Toys R US.

With regards to service...never really have had any problems. I tend to change phones every year to two years max. I usually just call up the call centre and tell them what I want to pay (I don't try to screw them, but I don't like paying fees). I've got them to wave all activation fees, get them to include car chargers, ear pieces, and belt holders (as you usually need new ones each phone.)

Service is sometimes frustrating, but I've seen users on Rogers and Bell with similar situations...just depends on who has the most towers in an area.

Couple years ago, I actually had really poor reception around my home. I called, and they actually dispatched an engineer to my area and within a week informed me that they were doing upgrades to improve my area. Within a month or so, I had an extra two bars signal. Now I'm not suggesting I was the sole person causing that, but it appeared to me that they were interested in customer feedback.

Anyways....I'm happy. No plans to change plans.

J


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## jicon (Jan 12, 2005)

HowEver said:


> The maximum you can get charged by Rogers for cancelling is $20 per month, to a maximum of $200 even if you have a three-year term.
> 
> Let's say you want to cancel but hate paying the $20 for remaining months. You can switch to a plan that costs around $20, and let it ride. That way you are still getting something for the remaining time.
> 
> ...


After reading the following story, and one gentleman's comment on a similar situation that happened to him, I'm staying clear from Rogers, et al. thanks.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20051217/CELLPHONE17/TPNational


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