In December 2010, I received a complimentary text from Bell indicating that I could upgrade my phone. At that point, I had been using a Palm Treo for several years, which is basically an older PDA phone. It had some internet functionality, but you couldn't download apps or do a lot of the other stuff you can do with phones today. I was rather interested in upgrading, because today's smartphones are capable of doing a lot of things you couldn't do before.
In any case, I went to the Bell store and upgraded to a Samsung Galaxy S phone. It wasn't a free upgrade, but I only paid about one-fifth of the phone's actual value. I was rather pleased with the upgrade, that is, until my first bill showed up. It was in excess of $1,500. I was incredulous. I didn't know what had happened.
Well, for starters, they didn't set me up with a new plan at the store. They simply told me to call in and ask for a data plan. I did. What I didn't know was that they put me on a plan for an older phone with a mobile browser, much like the Palm Treo I mentioned earlier.
Well, apparently at $12 per MB, your data usage adds up quickly. My plan gave me 4 MB of data, and I was about 80 MB over. Do the calculations yourself - it adds up to almost $1,000. I had other charges that were either outstanding or extraneous, but the data charge was by and far the biggest blow.
Needless to say, I called in and talked to customer service about this issue. I asked if they could reduce the bill. They said the charges were valid. My friend has since talked to the people at Bell. Apparently they would never put anyone with a smartphone on an old mobile browser plan; it's against their policy. Yet somehow I ended up on it. If you know anything about smartphones, you know that many of them are constantly using data, so having a 4 MB data plan isn't going to cut it.
I've since called in several times and have spent many painstaking minutes talking to customer service as well as accounts receivable. They keep threatening to suspend my service, but are completely unwilling to do anything about the bill. I've been fighting this bill for nearly 5 months now.
I also talked to the people at the store where I purchased the phone. They sent a form to the district manager to review, but it has been close to 2 weeks and I still haven't heard a thing.
Frankly, I'm sick and tired of big corporations taking it out on the small guy. I don't understand how they expect to keep their customers when they're unwilling to offer any kind of grace. I have heard several other cases where they've either cut the bill in half, or revoked the charges for their customers. Why are they unwilling to budge on my case? Did they think I would keep silent of this infraction?
And, finally, I'm clearly not the only one that has had issues with Bell. Just have a look at this and it becomes quite clear that BELL DOES PUT PEOPLE ON DATA PLANS THAT ARE NOT DESIGNED FOR SMARTPHONES.
