Canada Jane

Bell Canada should be renamed Bell Incompetence

Since moving here in July 2006 we have had nothing good to say about Bell Canada. Firstly when we tried to get a phone line for our house the person we dealt with in the store was rude and totally unhelpful. They were also the only company here to ask for a deposit before we could get a service. We had to pay $200 by money order and were told we would get it refunded after six months.

When six months was up I contacted Bell to get a refund and they told me that we should have been told that it was in fact a year. So we waited another six months and contacted them again. I was told that the refund would be in the post in the next week or so. However, we did not receive the refund so phoned again. Once again we were promised the refund would be sent and once again it wasn’t. To cut a long story short as of January 08, some 18months after paying the deposit we had contacted them on seven – yes 7 occasions to get the cheque sent and every time were given confirmation number and promises it was in the post. It never arrived, although they did successfully manage to send bills every month and take money from our bank account – funny that!

At this point I became rather agitated by the whole situation and decided to look closely at their terms and conditions etc. Apparently we should have been receiving a statement every month giving details of our deposit and should have received interest on the amount. None of which we had.

I then wrote to the executive office of Bell demanding my money be paid back. I received a reply saying they would sort it out. Several weeks later I was still chasing and getting nowhere. Suddenly they decided that they could not find the original payment – that was a new one as no one at Bell had ever said they couldn’t find the deposit, they just never got around to sending it back. I sent copies of the money order etc and once again was told it would be sorted. After a couple more weeks I was told to phone the very same department that had been promising me for the last 18 months that they had sent my refund – at this point I lost patience.

I then contacted their public relations manager threatening to go very public with the whole mess and strangely he came back straight away saying he would get a colleague to contact me. A colleague did contact me and said he would sort it out!!!

Eventually after several phone calls he said a cheque would be on its way for the $200 plus interest of $8.08. I said I would believe it when I saw it – he suggested I should frame the cheque when I got it. I know who I really wanted to frame!

A week or so later I finally got the promised cheque – yippee, sorted – or so I thought.

Today I received our phone bill from Bell. They have charged me $208.08 and added it to my bill. Can you believe it. They take a deposit off me, take 20 months to pay it back, then charge it straight back on my next bill – UNBELIEVABLE!

I have now put in a phone call to the guy who was supposed to have sorted it out. I have a headache and already feel so stressed. I cannot believe how one company can be so completely bloody USELESS!