TELUS Forcing Customers Off Unlimited Plans

[Mr. Analog]

If you had any doubts that TELUS wasn't a big, evil, corporate greed machine, wonder no longer!

"Canadian telco TELUS sold a bunch of (expensive) Unlimited EV-DO aircard accounts last winter and are now summarily canceling them or forcing people to switch to much less valuable plans. TELUS is citing 'Violations,' but their Terms Of Service (see #5) are utterly vague and self-contradictory. The TELUS plans were marketed as being unlimited, without the soft/hard caps that the other providers had at the time. They were purchased by a lot of rural Canadians who had no other choice except dialup. Now TELUS is forcing everyone to switch from a $75 Unlimited plan to a $65 1GB plan, and canceling those who won't switch. Have a look at the thread at Howardforums, a discussion of the TELUS ToS (in red at the bottom), an EV-DO blogger who's been a victim, a post at Electronista, and of course Verizon getting fined for doing the same thing! Michael Geist has taken an interest as well."

Full article:
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/26/2037207

[Mags]

Ask me how surprised I am that Telus would do something like this.

[Mr. Analog]

You'd think there would be a law forbidding companies from creating artificial demand...

[Tonnica]

This is beyond ridiculous. The charge for all incoming texts (including spam messages) was bad enough but in my opinion forcing people to change or outright revoking so many EV-DO card plans is dastardly.

I'm gonna give it a bit more time and see what phones come out in September/October before I go cancelling anything. I might as well so I can get a nice new phone for my troubles.

This makes me hopping mad!

[Darren Dirt]

...Verizon getting fined for doing the same thing! Michael Geist has taken an interest as well."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Geist


All the pretty green plants and cute animals in their commercials can never hide the evil snarling "V"-like lizard that is beneath the marketing shell of Telus, Inc. 

"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."

Bingo.

Also read "Yuan-Lung" comment, ending with "And you wonder why telus spends so much on their 'the future is friendly' PR campaign to tell people how well they treat their customers." Bingo again.

[Darren Dirt]

WOW!

Vote with your feet, people! (Score:5, Insightful)
by Rudisaurus (675580) on Tuesday August 26, @08:09PM (#24758347)
I did. I was a long-time Telus Mobility customer. The recent change to charge for incoming texts was the final straw for me. I both called and wrote to Telus and got absolutely nowhere, so I'm now a VERY happy FIDO customer -- and so are most of my immediate family. When the haemorrhaging gets bad enough, Telus may straighten up.

As I was reading this very sentence, I got a phone call from Dionne. She asked me how much I'm paying for my phone (I have Virgin Mobile, extremely happy with them, and to top it off their website and phone prompts are funny and cool, not evil-masquarading-as-nature) ... she told me her bill was something like $300 -- because (apparently) she had a bunch of high charges for receiving text messages, I think $2.00 each (but that could not be -- even Telus isn't THAT evil, are they?)

[Mr. Analog]

All service providers are now charging you when you receive text messages. How much I can't say but I do know this, most Telcos don't offer plans that do not include text messaging (at the moment).

[Lazybones]

$2.00 each charges sound like someone was purchasing ring tones to me.

Also there is no where save to run in the Canadian Wireless market.. Look at what Rogers is up to http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=1737 .

There are only three network providers in Canada:
Telus
- CDMA (over laps roams on Bell East)
- iDen (Mike push to talk phones)
Bell
- CDMA (over laps roams on Telus in the West)
Rogers
- GSM

ALL other cell offerings are Virtual providers that purchase network service from the Big Three. In the end the Big three always win. Telus is still considered the best of the big three for support which is sad, Bell has the nick name Hell in howardforums and Rogers is sometimes referred to as Robbers.

P.S. Anyone spending $300 /mo for personal cell use REALLY needs to look into a plan that better matches their usage habits.

[Darren Dirt]

P.S. Anyone spending $300 /mo for personal cell use REALLY needs to look into a plan that better matches their usage habits.

Speculation gone, facts now here...

The bill was actually heavily weighted in the Long Distance territory, and included about $115 extra charges Dionne didn't expect due to our teenage son being in Calgary for like 10 days, and using it a lot more than we expected (i.e. more than "none" ) Dammit I hate my kids growing up and introducing new headaches... Thought it gets easier as they get older 

I don't know how much, but the per-use charge for receiving text messages was definitely not $2.00 each -- I think I was brain-dead when I was on the phone at the time, and had to end the call quick so I presumed the worst (hey, Telus was involved, after all...)

The reality is, of course, that Telus has a history of making promises they do not keep and/or changing the details of the offers after you've signed up... so it wouldn't have surprised me anyway

Darren Dirt,
still very happy with Virgin Mobile