How to Waste Six Hours with Bell

[My brother had an experience with his Internet Service Provider that he'd rather not re-live. With his permission, I'm posting his final communication here...He lives in Montreal...]

Re: Switching long distance and internet service to Bell for account number xxx

To whom it may concern,

I recently switched my long distance plan and internet service (ISP) to Bell, and I am writing to tell you it was the most frustrating experience I have ever had with a telecommunications provider. The level of incompetence that some of the Bell employees demonstrated was breathtaking. I would only be able to recommend switching services to Bell to someone with five hours to waste and the ability to spend hours on the phone while at work. To be truthful, I will not be able to recommend to anyone that they switch to Bell.

Why?

When I contacted Bell on March 2, 2011 to ask for long distance plan rates, the first customer agent could barely speak English (her mother tongue was not French, either). Getting a straight answer on the cost of a LD plan took a long time, thanks to Bell’s near-endless list of plans, specials, bundles, caveats, exceptions, outdated, insufficient and/or misleading website information.

When I got that straightened out, I asked about the cost of Bell’s internet service. I was transferred to an agent who handles that. To my astonishment, the agent I was connected with had been told that I wanted this service, and I found myself already signed up for it. I had to repeat about seven times that I just wanted prices, to someone who had only the barest grasp of English (no, this was not a French agent).

I do not appreciate being called Mister Cornick, or Mr. Carroll. Is Bell operating call centre sweat shops in China or India?

Thanks to Bell’s byzantine collections of plans, promotions, bundles, moving-target prices, etc, etc, it took me over an hour to decide that I could save money by switching my LD and internet services to Bell.

But then, when I received an email confirmation of my order, the LD plan was listed, but the internet plan was not. So I had to spend another 45 minutes or so on the phone to get the internet service added. One agent I called spoke such poor English (no, it was not a French agent) I hung up in frustration and called again.

To my amazement, despite your website stating that a technician would visit me to install the modem, I had to argue with another agent to get this service. He insisted that it was “very simple” to install a modem and most people can do it themselves, and receive the modem by mail. Does Bell train its agents to blow off customers this way?

Anyway, I had to make more calls because the prices on the order were not the same as those quoted to me, the technician visit day was screwed up in the order … by call number six I was speaking to the Loyalty Department, a presumptuous name, I think. It should be called the Fix the Screw Ups Department.

I got good service from the Loyalty Department, I must tell you. But then on the next confirmation order the technician visit/modem install date was wrong, and I had to call Bell again.

The technician arrived and did a good job. I was very satisfied with that phase of the operation.

Since my faith in the competence and ability of Bell to do what I asked it to had long vanished by this point, I made another call to make sure I would receive all the services I had asked for, and at the prices quoted to me, well, at one of the prices quoted to me.

Most recently, I checked my Bell account to see what services were listed there. Of course, the LD service was not listed. I called Bell again.

Then I got some sort of service summary from Bell, which included a $49.95 one-time modem rental fee. I called Bell again and was told that this form was outdated and that there was no fee. The agent said, “It takes time to make these changes.” Was he kidding? Bell doesn’t have the manpower to make changes to boilerplate forms it sends to how many tens of thousands of customers? Bell would prefer that its customers scream out loud than update its damn form?

I asked the agent for a phone number or email address where I could lodge a complaint with Bell, and he could not find a number for me. I hung up in total disgust. I went back to the Bell website and found your email address, deeply buried. I only found it by doing a word search on your website.

Thanks for making it so hard to lodge complaints. I appreciate your desire to … waste my time!

I had other miscellaneous problems with your website: To log in I had to enter my user name and password three times!!!! before getting in. When I tried moving to the page that listed my services, the website threw me out and I had to log in again. What the hell is going on???

In summary, your technician visit and service was great. Your Loyalty Department agents were good.

Your first-line agents were variously incompetent in English (no, they were not French) could not quote the same price two times in a row, had to repeatedly leave me waiting while they found things out. One didn’t even know what ISP meant! That’s like a shoe store salesman not knowing what shoes are. Your pricing is so complicated that I could have screamed. I received a discount special for buying a bundle, which entitles me to $15/month off, for one year, I think, I hope. I am still deeply suspicious of your agent’s repeated assurance that I will be able to renew this discount next February, for another year. I can tell you now that it is the discount, not the basic price/service, that made it financially worthwhile for me to switch to Bell. If the discounts are not repeated, I will be looking for a lower-priced provider next February. As it is, your prices are too high. Telecommunications providers are gouging Canadians, and that is a fact.

I made nine phone calls, spent who knows how much studying your “designed to confuse” pricing, had to fight to log on to my account, had to endure agents with an insufficient command of English, just so Bell can save money, I am pissing away another hour writing this damn letter, which Bell will probably ignore, and I can look forward to who knows what billing errors in the short term, and price increases next February.

I have left out some details, but I hope I have painted a picture you can understand.

I will happily recommend Bell to every masochist and self-flagellator I meet, but not to anyone else.

Yours with great disappointment and disgust....

Fall on Kootenay Lake

We've been flirting with fall for a few weeks now, but there still hasn't been a real frost, the squash are still on the vines, the flower pots are still blooming away out on the deck and the leaves have only recently taken on their fall colors.

Yesterday I decided that I needed a day away from the list of projects that I usually work on. I tossed the bike into the back of the truck and drove up the Lake to Lardeau, a small community near the north end of the Lake, and biked north to Meadow Creek and back, a distance of perhaps 25-30 km. There was a stiff north wind coming down from the Duncan, but that made the ride back easier.

I stopped in at the Lost Ledge campground to take this picture of Mt Willett. All of the higher peaks now have snow on them and spots of orange and yellow speckle the mountain slopes. I note that the larch trees in our woods have finally changed color. We're supposed to get close to freezing tonight and it's cooler this morning that it's been recently. Think I'll need a fire to warm things up.

The World's Cookies....

When you look at the data, it's hard to see why the current protests have only started recently.

Back in 1970, the average CEO made about 25x the financial compensation of the average production worker. By 2000, the average CEO was making 90x more than the average worker. If you include stock options, etc., that disparity jumped to 500x.

In one specific example, in Wisconsin, the top CEOs made 592x the financial compensation of the average worker. In 2010, CEOs were rewarded with a 23% increase in their salaries.

Obviously, not everyone has been standing still in their standard of living over the past couple of decades.

In the neighbouring state of Michigan, the last governor was faced with massive budget deficits during her first term. A controversy arose when she accused advocates of cuts to higher education and social programs of abandoning the true tenets of their professed faith. Manufacturing jobs in Michigan have been disappearing for years.

I understand, from an interview I heard recently, that the corporate headquarters of Johnson & Johnson has a "corporate creed" inscribed on a piece of stone. It reads, approximately: The consumer comes first. Our employees come second. The community we live and work in comes third. The shareholder comes last, but they shouldn't worry, because if we look after the first three, the shareholders will get a fair return on their investment.

Maybe it's time we shifted back to some "old-fashioned corporate values".

Meanwhile, here in BC, we have the highest child poverty rate in the country. Figures from 2007 to 2008 did show a slight improvement in this dismal situation, but with the economic meltdown that started later in 2008, more recent numbers probably won't be pleasant to see. For children under 6, nearly 20% live below the poverty line. That's nearly one in five children during the most vulnerable years of their short lives.

We probably can't expect corporations to shift their priorities. They aren't instruments of social policy. That's the job for governments. It's time they started to focus on the people they were elected to serve.

One Journalist's Viewpoint

The following is quoted from a column by Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author living in the United States.

"What kind of nation is it that spends far more to kill enemy combatants and Afghan and Iraqi civilians than it does to help its own citizens who live below the poverty line? What kind of nation is it that permits corporations to hold sick children hostage while their parents frantically bankrupt themselves to save their sons and daughters? What kind of nation is it that tosses its mentally ill onto urban heating grates? What kind of nation is it that abandons its unemployed while it loots its treasury on behalf of speculators? What kind of nation is it that ignores due process to torture and assassinate its own citizens? What kind of nation is it that refuses to halt the destruction of the ecosystem by the fossil fuel industry, dooming our children and our children’s children?"

"...corporations are not concerned with the common good. They exploit, pollute, impoverish, repress, kill and lie to make money. They throw poor families out of homes, let the uninsured die, wage useless wars to make profits, poison and pollute the ecosystem, slash social assistance programs, gut public education, trash the global economy, plunder the U.S. Treasury and crush all popular movements that seek justice for working men and women."

Outrage on Wall Street...and Bay Street...and...

The "Occupy Wall Street" movement seems to be gaining attention, despite attempts by the neo-Cons to ignore and discredit what's happening. This cartoon depicts what many of the "Other 99%" feel has been going on for far too long: "The Rescue Plan - American Style".

There was a very amusing exchange between Kevin O'Leary (of Dragon's Den, which I don't watch) and Chris Hedges. If anyone still doesn't understand what the protest movement is all about, this clip will certainly help fill the knowledge gap.

There was a much more civilized exchange between Michael Enright and Chris Hedges on the CBC Radio show The Sunday Edition of October 2. You can find the audio here. It's very worthwhile listening.

Perhaps we've reached the limit of tolerance for most ordinary people. Unfettered capitalism, a complete lack of any corporate morals and a complicit government that removes regulatory oversight and then uses the taxpayer to fix the mess once things fall apart. It doesn't take a "left-wing nut-bar" to understand how wrong this is.

It's not that hard to understand. Keep the protest going.

Twins in the Family

The past few days have been busy and I guess the photo shows the reason. At the beginning of the month, I was down helping with some painting and cleaning in the new house with my daughter and her hubby. Late on Wednesday we get the call that the twins have made an appearance. We made the trek down to see the little guys (aren't they cute??) and spent the next 5 days cleaning, moving stuff and admiring the two boys. We only made it home on Monday. Looks like some serious grandpa and grandma time in our future :-)

Welcome Atley and Miro!!

Thanks to Grandpa George for this photo!