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May 31, 2001, 4:40pm
Speaking of Peeves...
I really don't like the telco company Telus. Some of my dislike has to do with my personal experience with the company, but much of it comes from other peoples' experience with the company. Here's a short top 3 (of many) reasons why I've disliked Smelus (or their previous name, BC Tel). - Smelus and their previous incarnation, BC Hell makes 100s of millions in profits, but continuously goes to the CRTC for rate increases that far outpace general inflation rates. Sometimes 2 or 3 increases a year. And they get them. There is no rationalisation other than pure greed and the control of a monopoly that allows this to happen.
- Smelus and BC Hell routinely screw people out of their money. They make it nearly impossible for new subscribers to sign on without a deposit, they charge fees costing as much as $110 or more per hour for phone installations.
- In a rather famous case a few years ago, it was discovered that Smelus / BC Hell had been charging hundreds, if not thousands of people for a rotary phone rental charge, for a phone these people no longer rented. Some of these fees went back 10 years! Did Smellus offer full refunds, with interest? Of course not! Because they claimed their records only went back 6 months (hrmm, I thought businesses have to keep records for 7 years - my incorporation papers say my company has to do that, by law), they offered only six months' repayment. It was only after much public press and pressure that they changed their mind, and said, by their good grace that they would "trust" consumers to tell them how long it's been since they've paid this fee, and refund the full amount. I don't know if this included interest. It damned well should.
Now I have a new reason to really dislike Smelus. They took over Clearnet, and now are putting their evil empire stamp all over Clearnet. Gone are the good pricing packages. Gone are almost all of the monthly contract deals. Smelus wants you to sign a 1, 2 or 3 year contract, much like the bad old days of celular phone technology.
But things get worse. First, while Smelus will "grandfather" existing Clearnet clients for one year (till June 1, 2002) in their current contracts, Smelus in their sneaky way is still trying to force all of us to resign under a new plan, with a new phone. How? By tearing down all the Clearnet 1.9Ghz towers, the towers that clearnet customers with Samsung, Sanyo, Sony and other phones use. Service is already getting bad, and it will only get worse.
But even more evil than this is how Smelus is offering almost "Clearnet-Like" pricing plans to those in Ontario, but screwing those of us out west. For instance. The Talk20 plan in Ontario is 20 bucks for 200 minutes. The same plan out west is 20 bucks for 150 minutes.
The people in Ontario, if they sign a new contract get free incoming calls till December. No such deal for us Left Coasters.
The people in Ontario get the web service for $5 a month, and no additional per-minute charge (includes the mins in your rate plan). For the exact same service, the people in BC get the privledge of giving Smelus $5 a month, PLUS 15 cents per minute connect time.
And the list goes on.
This company sucks. Big time. For a year and a half I was "Smelus Free". My landlines were through Sprint Business, and my PCS phone was through Clearnet. I was happy. No more monopolies for me, I thought. But they managed to hoover me back in. I'm sticking around for now, only because I need to keep my PCS phone number and have invested a LOT of money in my phone (and accessories), but sooner or later, I'm gone Fido.
So, are you a happy Smelus customer? Add your comments below.
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