Telus Billing Issues -- check your Telus bill careful and save lots and lots of dollars.
Nov 23/07 Update
A quick sweep of my home office turned up yet another Telus modem/router. This one probably was delivered several years ago. The free market value of this piece of junk (my take based on the outdated wireless standard supported) is probably $0 -- nobody wants outdated junk equipment. But, I wonder if this box was/is sitting on my Telus account as a $149 line item to be billed in future (or have I already paid Telus for this junk I've never asked for or ever used?).
Well, I'm implementing my latest policy of returning Telus junk deliveries back to Telus. Bill of Lading # TA 022-967-xxx and the DLINK ADSL router SN# 29E45300xxxx is back on the Telus books!!
Nov 22/07
While I was resolving a Telus ISP connectivity problem earlier this November (see myBeautifulBC.com blog on Shaw vs Telus), it became painfully obvious that Telus is very free in adding-in extra charges to my monthly bill. On November 21st, I believed that I had all of the facts from Telus and that I understood their billing practise and I documented my displeasure at what I considered sharp practise in my Shaw vs Telus blog. On November 22nd, I received my Nov 14, 2007 bill via the post and find I need to find a new understanding of Telus billing.
Up to November 21st, from my calls to Telus tech support and Telus billing (Richard in billing on November 21st), I got the story that the 2W router/model Telus sent to my home earlier in November was free of charge (although I was warned by Richard that I would have to return the 2w modem/router when I terminated service to avoid being charged). But clearly this was quite wrong information since on my November 14th bill (received on November 22nd), there is a Equipment Not Returned charge of $149.95. When I called Telus billing on November 22nd, I was now told that the $149.95 charge was there because on November 12th Telus tech support decided I needed a new modem. Clearly the new modem wasn't free, quite contrary to what two different Telus groups told me on November 20th.
Reviewing the situation on November 22nd, the Telus action to send out a new modem/router combination may well have been a reasonable action in response to my earlier complaints about transient IP connectivity problems. As I have already explained in my blog on Shaw vs Telus, I also believe that my router firmware needed to be up to current ISP standards and the firmware dating back from December 2003 may well be out of date (of course this is pure speculation on my part since Telus will never give me a spec or recommendation on what router I require.) Score a point for Telus's ability to predict the root cause of a problem report. But score minus 50 points to Telus for their total lack of communications with the customer.
- In the past 4 years I have not used any Telus supplied CPE equipment (I may have rented some CPE 7 years ago when there wasn't any choice). In the past 4 years I have purchased required CPE from Future Shop or Staples. I would certainly never use a Telus supplied router so I never would have agreed with the Telus proposal to send out a replacement modem/router. In fact I already own a backup ADSL modem that I could immediately switch if I was told my modem was a possible issue.
- Spending $149.95 on my account without prior disclosure or without asking my approval is in my opinion a sharp business practise. Some might call it something a wee bit stronger than just sharp.
- Getting different stories from Telus billing between November 20th and November 22nd is hard to understand. Getting a its "free" story from Telus technical support that is quite clearly contrary to the reality of my last bill certainly suggest that the Telus tech support you get, when reporting a trouble, really don't have access to real information about your account or if they have access they do not understand Telus practises.
I am still struggling to understand my Telus Internet Service charges:
- August 14th: $45.90 including a $5.95 Internet Security charge.
- September 14th: -- same as the August 14th bill, what I would expect since I hadn't made any changes to my service plan.
- October 14th: $50.50 including a $5.95 Internet Security charge.
- November 14th: $43.07 including a $5.95 Internet Security charge (there was also the $149.95 charge discussed above which I can make go away)
My November 20th discussions with Telus billing led me to believe that the $5.95 monthly Internet Security charge will be removed from my bill (with a 3 month credit as well). I expect to see this removed from my December bill give my November 14th bill date. But that leaves me totally wondering why my November bill dropped to $43.07 from a $50.50 in October -- it should have been the same as the October bill, I would have expected. To be far with Telus, I do understand that October was a 2 year date for service at my current address and the billing department did tell me that monthly charges with a service term are higher than the 1/2/3 year service terms. Fair enough. I have returned the unrequested and unneeded 2w modem and router via Canada Post (TA 022 967 xxx) today so I also expect Telus will credit this back to my account in December. I also expect the Internet Security charge to disappear and a 3 month credit applied to my account per my November 20th discussions with Richard at Telus billing.
My advise to anyone paying a Telus monthly bill is review the charges very carefully. Telus have demonstrated to me that they feel they have the authority (or perhaps a management mandate to sell, sell, sell more services) to send out new equipment and charge you without any explanation. And Telus are quite happy to charge you a monthly fee for something that has never been installed or ever use (e.g. Internet Security software for your PC). If you don't understand a charge, call and ask for an explanation. If it is for a service you don't need or use then remove it and save the $$s. Billing is complex. Deals change so your fees can change. Explaining changes on a bill in an easy to understand format might well be very hard to do so don't worry if have to call and ask for an explanation. Enough calls and Telus might move to a simpler clear billing model to cut down on efforts to support explanations to customers.
It is interesting that Telus believes that they can get away with a service model that appears to be based on:
- send new equipment to your customer via Canada post without providing the customer any advance warning or explanation. Add the charges to the monthly bill as a single line item without any explanation. Hope the customer doesn't notice and just pays the bill -- I do wonder how many millions Telus generates every month following this practise?
- don't tell your customer what you are doing even when the customer calls your billing department and your tech support group. In fact, tell your customer any new equipment sent out via the post is free of charge.
- keep your technical support group that talks with the customer in the dark about service affecting network issues.
- waste many hours of your customer's time while not providing correct information about network status and forcing the customer to go to the post office and return equipment.
This apparent service model certainly does cut down on service calls for Telus and may yield a short term gain when contrasted to say a Shaw service model which still sends people in white vans to your house when there is a problem -- see my blog on Shaw vs Telus for how Shaw responded to an almost identical ISP connectivity issue earlier this year. Either Telus is making huge amounts of profits or Shaw is losing $$s big time -- on a MB per MB basis, my Shaw service is much cheaper than the Telus service, the Shaw service is still people based and isn't focused on adding unwanted equipment and software charges to my monthly bill. I believe that Telus also used to have the Shaw service model but at some time in the past 8 years Telus changed. I do kick myself for no doubt having paid Telus $100s (I hope it wasn't $1000s) for unwanted and unused features added as line items to my monthly bill. Well no more. I will be checking my Telus bill every month and calling the billing group for explanations when new charges appear or credits don't appear. I will report my progress with a December/January update.
Conclusion: For ISP services in the greater Vancouver area, I definitely do recommend Shaw and I can not find a scenario where I would recommend Telus if other choices were available. If Telus is the only game in your area for ISP services, well, do plan to check each and every bill, if you have to call technical support learn to grin and bear it, and if you get an unexpected package in the mail from Telus, have it returned to sender but definitely don't sign for it and then forget about it or no doubt you'll find a line item surprise on a future bill.
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