Friday 1 February 2019

☎️Bell Canada – Let's Talk

📲UPDATE: Saturday, Feb. 9th – Finally, they gave up and said our service was cancelled Feb. 7th. We were without services from Jan. 22nd until Feb. 5th. The final bill, Jan. 27th is $79.40. We had no service for one week of that time. We signed up for a new provider on Tuesday, Feb. 5th. 

We had a discussion. I was going to hold back 1/4 of our final bill. I thought it over. Maybe it isn't worth it. The hassles, and the 3% interest might be really more than I could bear. I gave up and paid the bill. We'll see what happens.

I posted on Twitter that I'd given up and paid the bill. Lo, and behold!!!!


📲UPDATE: Wed., Feb. 6th – To add insult to injury, Bell phoned this morning to ask if we wanted to bundle services, and to upsell me. I said, we were 15 days without Bell service. "Why would I want to do that?"
"Was your cable cut?" I am sorry, but I hung up.
This is why Bell won't release our number to our new provider for two days. They want to hang on to us. They cannot.

☎️UPDATE: Tuesday, Feb. 5 – Off we went, after a long day, the Bell men and women still working.



After dinner, we returned home. On the way, we passed the men and women still working, bless their hearts. We have a dial tone.

UPDATE: Feb. 4th – phoned, again, not up until Wed., by 10:00 a.m.
UPDATE: Feb. 4th – my Bell bill doesn't reflect any credit for lack of service. I chatted online with someone, who assured me the next bill will be credited. Sadly, we will not have another bill. We're quitting with Bell.

Reference number 743758423268651937
DATE/TIME: 2019-02-04 10:43:26
Your chat transcript
Karren Diane : Hi! I’m a Bell residential product specialist. How can I help you today?
Karren Diane : Hello, thank you for visiting Bell.ca. How may I help you today?
You : Our phone has been out since Jan. 22nd, I was promised a credit. It still ins't working yet.
Karren Diane : Hello there!
Karren Diane : Sorry to know that you were having a problem with your Homephone still not working.
Karren Diane : I can certainly help you check on this.
You : Thank you
Karren Diane : May I have your Fullname?
You : Jennifer Jilks
Karren Diane : Thank you Jennifer.
Karren Diane : Do you have a dial tone right now?
You : I have been told the phone will be out unti tongith, 10 p.m., a cable was cut. I am more concerned with my bill.
Karren Diane : I can see here that there is still an outage in the area. Rest assured that you will be compensated for the days starting when you first notify us of the problem.
You : But I have a bill that does not reflect that. I've been two weeks without a phone.
You : Am I supposed to trust Bell? That hasn't gotten me too too far.
Karren Diane : I really do understand your concern regarding your bill. I have checked here that you have notify us last January 31 regarding your Homephone service, correct?
You : No. The service has been out since Jan. 22nd. A cable was cut for a number of customers. We were told it would be fixed. It has not been. Every day I phone and they add another day.
You : I didnot complain before, since so many customers were affected. I presumed bell would know.
You : I had to borrow a phone to call.
Karren Diane : My apologies for any inconvenience Jennifer, I can certainly provide you a partial compensation however it would really be best to wait until tonight for your service to be restored sow e can have the full compensation of your service interruption.
You : What will that look like? How much? A credit on my bill?
You : I am not convinced it'll come up tonight, either.
Karren Diane : It will be an adjustment on your bill fromthe day your service is interrupted until it is restored. Rest assured that this will be fixed on or before 10PM today.
Karren Diane : Our Technical is working on it right now. It will be an automatic adjustment on your bill.
You : OK. Good.
Karren Diane : Your account is fully noted as well regarding the issue.
Karren Diane : Will there be anything else I can help you with?
I wondered if it was cut during work on the Lanark Seniors Complex [🏤LANARK LIFESTYLES]. It was not.
Hi Jennifer, As promised I was able to get in touch with the site supervisor. Good news is it has nothing to do with construction. Bell has been working the last week apparently to try and rectify the situation. Apparently they had some water that got into the specific panel and because of the freeze and thaw, had damaged some of the lines, in which case you were affected.

UPDATE: Feb. 1 – It looks as if this might be where the problem lies... We don't know, but we can guess. It's a shame we have to guess.


Jan. 30th marks Bells massive campaign to end stigma around mental health issues. I'm all for that. Bell, our landline provider, as donating $7 million to this cause. I'm not sure where the money is going. I just want my phone line back. 
☎
Sadly, Bell doesn't know how to treat either employees or customers. Personal stories of Bell employees abound.
I've heard stories like this. Shameful.

Jan. 22

Hydro is transparent. This is when our outage began. 

Thousands of customers to be affected by planned power outages in ...(9000 customers)

www.insideottawavalley.com/-Jan. 22, 2019
There are three emergency planned power outages taking place in ... 1 - 3 p.m., affecting 1,987 customers south of Perth to Lombardy South ...




The phone has been out since Tuesday, Jan. 22nd and will be out, they predict, until Feb. 4th. How do I know? I couldn't find any info online, until I went to Twitter. You see, online there is an option for a Live Chat, but they never have someone on that. Instead, I spotted a @Bell_Support Twitter handle and copied them on my message.
That got the attention of Bell.
They asked me to direct message them, and they asked for my information.

Jan. 26




Jan. 27


I'm getting even more pissed off. They give me the regular Bell phone number, which doesn't provide any more information than I've previously received by phoning in.


I keep phoning from my client's house. Tuesday, they said it wouldn't be repaired until Thursday. Thursday I phoned again, and they said Monday, Feb. 4th.
These are people, we don't know how many, who need their phones to contact healthcare teams, volunteers trying to connect with clients, people living in double-digit minus temperatures.

Thursday, Jan. 31st they had someone on the chat section of their web page.



Yes. Then, the added insult to injury? He tried to upsell me.



6 comments:

coffeeontheporchwithme said...

We cut all ties with Bell years ago. Then, much to our chagrin, our mobile provider, Virgin mobile, was bought by Bell. What you are going through is beyond ridiculous.-Jenn

Anvilcloud said...

Bell is very overpriced. We went with a different internet provider that uses Bell lines and pay a lot less. We've also cut satellite and phone.

Karen said...

It's frustrating for us folks with no other option. We can't even get a cell service where I live.

Christine said...

Bell is just doing marketing then horrible phone service.

William Kendall said...

Reading those messages, I'm inclined to want to punch this John Mico guy in the nose.

Linda said...

Good for you for hanging in with Bell, we booted them out a few years ago, got way more features on our cell phone for less money than Bell charged.