So its been awhile since I have posted a rage post. I’ve been pretty good really overall and there has not been anything really rage inducing. In fact the last time I was this rageful was regarding the very reason why I am rageful right now- my cell phone carrier. If I was to bring the general internet hate of “Comcast sucks” and bring it to Canada, this would be the equivalent of it. For whatever reason, every time I make a change to my cell phone account, they manage to induce a massive screw up that is totally ridiculous no matter how much I try to do to prevent a disaster from happening. I want to throw my cell phone on the ground after talking with my carrier’s reps, but I can’t because I love my cell phone and need it. Very unhealthy relationship.

The first time this happened, my carrier completely deleted my grandfathered plan and made it unretrievable. The next plan they offered me was about 30% more and with half of the features. Totally totally ridiculous. This was after they promised me that nothing would change. After nearly 2 months of calling, with every phone call documented and a billion notes left on my account, I eventually reached a level of management where they only took personal calls to- they managed to get me on a plan that was slightly more but relatively the same- this was after a massive amount of time on the phone. While in the past, I totally enjoyed the chase of landing an excellent retention plan on my network, I’ve come to a point in my life where the time is not worth it for me to pursue anymore and I just want my plan to work and that’s it. Especially when it is promised to work and they reneg on their promise. So that was about 1.5 years ago. It was absolutely ridiculous and I probably spent about 30 phone calls to resolve my issue. This picture pretty much represents how FREAKING difficult it is to understand the different terms and conditions the carriers have- even if one rep promises you something and writes it in person, another rep can easily say that person was wrong and reneg on the written note. TOTALLY RIDICULOUS.

So this time, a great offer popped up where I could add 5 dollars to a plan, the plan would not change (important for me!) and this would create a second share everything plan where everything would be shared- text, data, voice calling. Imagine my surprise when I get a massive phone bill because they charged me for voice calling for two hours at a premium rate. The thing that I find super annoying is that it shows exactly what I thought I signed on the website- share everything including voice, text, data. It doesn’t say share – data. So my carrier found a way to charge me for voice calling by saying I was using data to make a voice call- which is also dumb because I have data already. I never thought I would run into the same stupid overage fees that I used to run into before because I am much much more careful- I shut off my data on this second line, only used tethering and wifi…i didn’t think I needed to make a cap on no voice calling. I feel like the company is nickel and diming me and they are blaming me for what is pretty false advertising. Every rep I talked to said it was my fault for misreading- its totally freaking ridiculous! This image above does not say SHARE ONLY DATA. Its totally false advertising.  ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Anyways, I hate my carrier. But I also really love my cell phone so its a fairly unhealthy relationship. Great.

2 day update- So after escalating it past the rep, to supervisor and then finally to president’s circle (not even sure what that means), the PC resolved the issue and credited me back the insane charge they put on the plan. After reviewing what might have to happen to get what was promised, I reneged on holding onto it and will install Google Hangouts dialer to use the VOIP and forget about having the voice calling feature. Unforunately, my bud S just got rocked with the same stupid BS- the company REALLY needs to change how they word this promo. What really impressed me was that the rep I spoke to at the PC was very very good at his job in maintaining the peace and listening to me- regardless of how the issue was resolved, it was much more pleasant working with him vs the first two levels provided to me- the first two levels accused me of trying to game the system, even saying “YOU ADMITTED TO USING IT”. Of course I admit to using it- that’s what was what I agreed to on the contract. Totally ridiculous. What was also really annoying was that the first lady kept yelling at me because I used a tablet to make a call- the device has a built in dialer- the freaking product pic has the dialer on the home screen. I didn’t HAXORZ my tablet to make it make calls. But that’s what I was being accused of- trying to take advantage of the system by sneaking my way around making my device do things it wasn’t designed to do….except it was designed to do that. Ridiculous. I usually think reps don’t know their own products worth a damn, and this pretty much just cements my belief.  And they kept telling me they understood where I came from but the service was used- of course the service was used! That’s what I signed for. And the final annoying part was how they treated me like a bumbling idiot groveling for handouts. They kept telling me final offers, and trying to make me settle for incrementally larger amounts (up to half off the ridiculous charge) and telling me they couldn’t offer me more….and then offering me more when I declined the offer.  One thing I really liked about the PC rep was that he actually looked up my tablet model, saw that it had the dialer built in, and told me that they should not have been telling me how to use my tablet. It was nice to have a rep that actually knew what the hell he was doing, and went out of his way to understand where I was coming from.

More things:

Big Three wireless carriers to raise prices as low loonie takes toll

 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/big-three-wireless-carriers-to-raise-prices-as-low-loonie-takes-toll/article28251076/

The big three in Canada are making a really great move for their customers in this time by jacking their prices up simultaneously. BUT ONLY in provinces where they have no competition but blaming our CDN dollar for the price gouging. If you are based in one of the provinces where there are four or more truly competitive cell phone companies, you have much better plans available. I’m not buying this BS about the low loonie- if it was an issue, it would be happening in all provinces. The infographic from the CDN government shwos what they would have liked to have seen in 2015 but I don’t think that actually happened. I’m holding onto dear life on my current plan because its nearly 140%  more right now and will unlikely go down until real competition hits the CDN landscape.  I’m really shocked how much more expensive the plans are right now compared to what we used to get back in the day, just a few years ago.

Shaw deal to buy Wind Mobile could be a boon to wireless customers

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/wind-shaw-consumer-analysis-1.3369948

I don’t know how I missed this headline- THIS IS AMAZING. The big three cell companies have jacked their prices up “because of the poor CDN dollar” , but they are only doing this in provinces where there are only three cell companies. They are holding back pricing in provinces where there is competition including Quebec with Videotron. Alberta needs this competition so that we can stop being screwed by our insane cell phone plan prices. Its great that an Albertan based company (Shaw is based in Calgary) is supporting more competition- looking forward to what Shaw has to offer, and glad that Wind has a great investor to keep it going. I’m excited because Shaw has been fairly decent for us as an ISP, and they have enough resources to really support a true fourth competitor in the CDN market to really challenge the big three and bring prices to more reasonable levels like we see in other countries. All the other competitors have basically vanished (mobilicity, public mobile…etc).

None of these images are mine.