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TELUS Forcing Customers Off Unlimited Plans
An anonymous reader writes "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."
Sounds like bait and switch...
Except on closer examination it's the legal version... GOD how I love living in Canada! On the plus side, at least they didn't introduce an "Unlimited system access fee", claim it to be some sort of vague government forced thing, and then charge more for the fee (that is mandatory) than the service plan costs.
Note to self: stop giving Telus more ideas on how to rape my ass!
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
You agree that, to maintain or improve the service, or for other business reasons, TELUS can in its sole discretion, suspend, restrict, modify or terminate all or any part of the service or make changes to the network and other facilities without notice to you.
And that is why "agreements" like this are worthless. They should just say "Here's what you are required to do... we can do as we damn well please." But honestly, is there any point in signing a contract when one party retains all rights to completely change the contract without allowing you the ability to opt-out of the contract? Is this even legal? Probably... can we change it?
I am not real big on "consumer protections" but this type of stuff just seems ridiculous. At some point we have to realize that cell phones and internet access are pretty much not a privilege any more. All of us should have access to these shared resources (the tubes).
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
This is par for the course with Telus, a company that has had it knuckles rapped in the past for dreadful customer service.
Light the blue touch-paper and retire immediately.
The day I was able to say goodbye to my land line was a sweet day indeed. Telus managed to screw up everything I ever asked them to do.
They're shady, unethical, and mostly incompetent. If it's at all possible to do so, just don't deal with them. Thankfully even rural areas are beginning to have better options.
Complain! I did and they gave me a full refund for my air card (i bought it outright instead of the monthly plan) I then switched to Rogers. They had a sliding plan that works for me. It does smell and I will never use a telus service again due to the way they marketted this.
...and possibly even some sort of charges brought against them by the government.
These Telecoms are making WAY more money than they deserve. I don't know which would be worse -- a government run telco/internet service or letting the abusive service providers keep on abusing.
I am really very fortunate where I live. T-Mobile is my wireless carrier and they didn't comply with US government requests for warrantless wiretaps, my cable internet is ridiculously faster than any other I have seen and nothing about my service is blocked. I'm afraid to move because I might get crappy service. I'm not sure how I would respond to some of the troubles other people experience or have reported here.
So you think this is a reasonable change from an unlimited plan: http://www.telusmobility.com/on/business_solutions/connect_megabyte_rate_plan.shtml
Well, it has never been successfully tested.
News flash: You don't have the right to cheap unlimited internet when you live out in the country.
Maybe not, but Telus should at least be held to it through the end of the contract.
I was thinking more:
Company changes the nature of its product?
Unless they have a contract, this is a fairly pointless story. My experience has been if a company does this they just finish out the contracts for existing customers and then tell them its not longer available.
If you bothered reading any of the articles (since this is /. and your ID is less than 10k you didn't) then you'd know that they sold UNLIMITED plans when the real cap was 5GB and that they are only forcing people off the plan who went over that cap.
It is a text-book case of deceptive practices (bait and switch).
Had the company disbanded its unlimited service altogether instead of kicking off people over the real limit, I'd have agreed with you 100%.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
If Telus sold underpriced plans, underestimated use, and lost money, how long are they obligated to maintain the service?
what if they were making money, but discovered that the margins were higher for per/GB service? Are they allowed to just cancel contracts with users in order to extract a higher profit margin from their product?
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
I guarentee that I never went over 5 GB unless I got a LOT of spam that got through my server and was filtered on my end. They could not even tell me my usage when they cancelled mine. Just that they were cancelling everyones.
I'm not familiar with this particular case, but in the US it is common for such plans to be sold with a contract. This contract typically specifies rates and services which will apply over a two year period. Both of us are expected to adhere to that during the contract period, after which we are both free to continue or to stop as we prefer. But you don't get to just stop following the contract just because you changed your mind and don't like it anymore.
So the answer to your question is, they are obligated to maintain the service for the period that their contracts specify.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
They are obligated to maintain the service for however long the contract says they need to maintain service. If they ask nicely, I might be willing to help them. But they have absolutely no right to just break any contract because they screwed up.
There's a question of what the contract says exactly, but that's what courts are for. I hope that someone with deep pockets gets this going as a class action lawsuit, and sues Telus into bankruptcy.
Newsflash: corporations can't just do whatever the hell they want.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I was really hoping for a good Telus bashing today. Looks like I have my chance.
I have had nothing but problems with Telus. They cripple my phone, cripple the internet when viewed through the phone, and charge customers through the nose.
HERE IS A TIP TO GET FREE VOICEMAIL/SPARK 10/CALLER ID:
1)Call Telus (*611)
2)Yell AAAGGENT into the voice recognition system.
3)Yell AAAGEENT again.
4)AAAGEENT.
5)When you get a human say "When I connect to the mobile web, my phone takes me to the Telus homepage. I am then charged 2 cents. I didn't want to go to Telus' home page, I wanted to go to www.google.ca. Can you please block access to all websites hosted by telus.
6) They say "We can't do that."
7) You say "You guys are ripping off paying customers. I would love to change my homepage, but this crippled handset won't let me. Instead whenever I use my mobile browser, I get directed to Telus home, and charged 2 cents.
8) At this point they will do anything to get you off the phone, DON'T HANG UP!
9) Tell them that you are not hanging up the phone until this issue is resolved.
10) Eventually they will realize that they only solution is you give you a free spark 10 plan (so you don't get charged for viewing partner sites) which also includes VM and caller ID!
11) Save $10/month.
If you are a Telus customer (I feel your pain) please call them and do the above. It works, and you can screw telus out of some money.
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If Telus sold underpriced plans, underestimated use, and lost money, how long are they obligated to maintain the service? Forever?
For however long they promised they would! You don't just get to make promises and break them whenever you feel like it.
A lot of US car companies are going under because they have very generous pension plans and a lot of retired workers to pay. Short of declaring bankruptcy they have to keep paying.
This is the whole point of contracts - if Telus can't get it right then it's their own fault. It is also deceptive conduct which there should be consumer protection laws against - you can't just advertise something and lie about all its qualities and expect to get away with it.
PS Good troll - you've even been modded insightful.
Its actually quite surprising that they just didn't just change the meaning of "unlimited" and left the customers with massive bills when without their knowledge they went 2 GB over limit.
Its also surprising that people have been able to get online streaming or voice over ip working on their Telus cards, the ones we have in the office are pretty much just fast enough for email and very light web surfing.
And that is why in some other countries, legislation exists that proscribes specific examples of terms in contracts that are deemed to be unfair, i.e. may not be used in any contracts.
Why oil price increase equals economic trouble (Score: Interesti
HERE IS A TIP TO GET FREE VOICEMAIL/SPARK 10/CALLER ID:
You mean voicemail and CID isn't included by default? Fuck, you Canadians are getting shafted even more than I thought.
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
WTF? The plan jumps to 1 GB from 8 megabytes?! It's fucking absurd that telecoms are allowed to get away with completely fucking over everyone who wants reasonable service at a price point lower than the most expensive plan like this!
(And no, the 1GB plan is not a reasonable change from unlimited... but the "connect 25" and "connect 40" plans are even worse!)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I was with Telus since mid-nineties til everyone was finally forced to introduce a way to switch carrier without losing the mobile phone number. I had to wait for that unfortunately before I could switch, but once it was here I ran from Telus as fast as I possibly could. I am with Rogers now, they suck too, but with Telus it was the figurative mobile hell, locked phones with no SIM cards, outrages charges, various catches (for example with Telus I had to call them before going to US to turn on the roaming, otherwise they would charge me about 10x the normal amount.) I HATE TELUS. I wish them all to rot in hell.
You can't handle the truth.
Wanna hear something even more crazy? The "Basic" Voicemail only allows you to have 3 messages for something like 48 hours. If you want more than 3 messages, you have to upgrade to another tier.
The "Basic" VM is not free either...
Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. This comment may not be copied in any way including, but not limited to caching.
I'm an American, and I can say your telecommunications industry sucks. That's really saying something.
This is slightly different. This is company has a contract with the customer, and is using it's "we reserve the right to change any term and any time and/or cancel the contract for any reason without penalty" option to extract themselves from a contract they no longer wish to honor.
The customers now have the option to sign a new contract to pay more money for less service or switch to another provide [Rogers, yaay].
I'm sure Roger's wants to this this for their 'special' data pricing plans 6 Gb per month/some amount of money, but they probably don't want a whole bunch of unlocked iPhones on shorter-term contracts ready to switch when the competition get their GSM network setup in the next 1 or 2.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Yup, we certainly are. Unfortunately, as bad as Telus is, my experience is that Bell and Rogers are worse. And that is the full cartel of wireless companies in Canada; so you get to pick bad (Telus), worse (Rogers), or worst (Bell).
Aliant (Bell) double billed me 11 months in a row. And they cut off my service, every month, for 'non-payment'. So at the end I had built up a credit of $950 on my account, and yet each month they still debited my account and then disconnected for non payment. When I said cancel the contract they argued over the cancellation fee. They finally relented though. I don't think they are stupid though, just pure incarnate evil.
Rogers on the hand were a lot nicer. Just stupid beyond belief. My father started calling them 'Rogers Clueless' instead of 'Rogers Wireless' because they screwed up his bill, my sisters bill, mine, and almost any Rogers customers I've talked to. My favorite screwup is when they simply don't take the money for weeks or months because of some 'issue' in their system. Morans!
So as of yesterday, based on the recommendations of two friends, I now have a Telus phone here on my desk and hope against hope they don't screw me too badly. The two friends have assured me Telus doesn't suck that match. I'll let you know when the two year contract runs out.
In Australia, an ISP's customers can complain to the Telecommunications Ombudsman (TIO).
If the TIO considers that the complaint has merit (even -before- it is investigated & decided), the ISP must pay TIO a fee, upwards of Au$200.
The TIO may then propose a solution that costs the ISP additional money, eg, if it has to compensate the customer for some loss of service, etc.
An ISP would tend think twice, before dumping customers, with such fees hanging over their heads.
Perhaps USA (and other places) needs such a mechanism, to keep ISPs a bit more honest...
One thing to avoid: In Australia, an ISP is required to "join" TIO, but there have been some cases of ISP's failing to join; in these cases, the fees wouldn't apply, at least until the ISP is belatedly persuaded to join.
To make this work, a large fine for failure to join should be part of the enabling legislation.
... have assured me Telus doesn't suck that match.
damn. ... doesn't suck that *much*.
Here in Pittsburgh, Comcast dropped 4 channels from their analog lineup, and are charging customers the same price. I didn't care about two of them, but BET, G4, TruTV, and (believe it or not) The Style Network were all channels that had shows we watched. I talked to a Comcast drone over the phone about this, and he said that it was a business decision to allow for more HD channels. I realize that there is a difference between wireless carriers and cable TV companies, but the concept is the same -- we're being invited to pay more for less. Now, I get one single channel from Cable that I do not get over the air -- TBS. There aren't any competitors I can switch to, even though a separate cable company services the folks across the street. Friggin' sucks!
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Dealing with telus for me was nothing but severe pain in the backside. They care nothing about customer satisfaction. They will screw you over and cheat you out of your money as much as they can, and when you finally leave, they then proceed to harass you with endless calls and try to con you into switching back with false incentives.
Here is an example of their borderline criminal conduct. I used to subscribe to their home phone service. I had it on automatic payment (big mistake) One day, I noticed that my bill had been steadily increased from $30/mo for a single line to $40, $60, and then as high $80/mo for the past few months.
I called them trying to sort it out. After several hours of navigating through the labyrinth of automated voice menu (no, 0 for operator did not work) I finally got put on hold for over an hour to speak with a human, and was cut off while waiting in the queue. After a few tries I finally got though, and got an explanation. Apparently, they had been taking the liberty to 'introduce new services' onto my account, without notifying me, and took my not noticing and canceling them a sign of agreement to adapt those service.
They of course, refused to refund the charges because I had been 'enjoying the additional services' so I requested to cancel them on the spot. Apparently I could not do that either because I don't have this password somehow set on my account.
While I was contemplating canceling the whole account and start over with a new number, with the hassle of informing all my contacts of a number change, Shaw called to promote their $25/mo digital line. So I switched. For the past year I have not paid over the $25/mo I agree to pay. There had not been additional features secretly added to my line.
However, Telus was not happy about my switching. They called about 3 times a week asking me to switch back. Their call usually started with a pompous voice asking me to identify myself to them. They even demanded that I explained to them why I switched, to which their representatives received some colourful words from me and a request to never calling back again.
Then they called again offering me ridiculous deals such as a comparatively lower 3-month INTRODUCTORY rate (and it would eventually go back up) if I switched my phone AND internet services to them. At this point, I started threatening with a harassment suit if they didn't stop calling. The call finally stopped.
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.
"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."
Isn't it wonderful - If we want to break the contract it's a hundred to two hundred dollars, but If the phone company breaks the contract it's no big deal...
Telus is Evil I tells ya, EVIL!!!! It was a happy day when they called me to try to convince me to come back after I cut them out of my life. I told them they would have to take a long hard suck on my *** before I would ever come back to them.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
So, from now on, can the US purchase oil from you Canadians if we send back 75% of the Vaseline we produce from it? It sounds like you all need it up there...
-SaNo
They are not permitted to hang up on callers; as long as they remain on the line and are not abusive. This is standard across may call centers, as disconnecting the call constitutes refusing to help with the customers problem and not acting reasonably.
The agent will eventually try anything to get you to go away as their calls per minute rate is dropping all the time you stay on the line, and most are paid bonuses based on how many calls they handle in day/week/month.
Some call centers are allowed to put you on hold for a considerable length of time, in the hope that you hang up; don't hang up.
If you are cut off while complaining, write them a letter with the time and date of the call, tell them you were disconnected while attempting to sort out your problem, and give them a reasonable time to get back in touch with you to rectify the problem (say 14 days).
If you get to the next step of legal action, after the reasonable time has expired, they don't have a leg to stand on; all because they disconnected your call and don't respond well to letters.
Yes, this is why I stick to prepaid. It cost more for calls/data, but they can't force me to stay on / pay ridiculous fees to leave if I find a better deal. They've tried hard though to get me onto a plan (at least onece a month).
I had to take Bell to court to get that cancellation fee back... they only agreed to settle out of court when I filed a motion asking for class action status. After they told me to bugger off when I went through the better business bureau, I basically resigned myself to the conclusion that even if I ultimately had to fork over the cancellation fee, it would cost them far more than the $200 it was worth. They were bad enough that I went back to Rogers, after having left them 10 years earlier over being screwed over by shitty customer service.... I still feel like I'm nothing more than a number to them, but they have improved significantly.
But what I really wanted to point out is that, back in the day, the service was really good. I have no experience with Bell Mobility in the early days, but my first cell provider was Cantel AT&T, nearly 15 years ago. Their service was amazing. Really good customer service. It didn't really go downhill until after Rogers bought them out... it became Rogers AT&T, and sorta went downhill, then it became Rogers Wireless, and it became shit. Pure unadulterated shit. So far, not so bad, though. I'm relieved.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
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.
licet differant, aequabitur
Canadian wireless companies are the worst in the world.
I was looking into plans that would cover Canada and the US as if it was one big roaming/calling local area. US providers used to offer a $25 add-on to their national plans to cover Canada too, but they were getting raped by Rogers/Telus so they quit. Now the only way to cover both is to go with Rogers/Telus and take a Canadian number.
A plan with 1600 minutes costs on the order of $450 USD with unlimited data, and that's not "REAL" unlimited data. They also charge for text messages and many areas in Canada are "roaming" even though it's a national plan.
A comparable "nationwide" plan in the US with "real" unlimited data costs about $120. Too bad we can't just add on $25 any more. The problem is that Canadians were buying those plans and taking them home because they're SOO much cheaper.
Absolutely. It has happened in NZ, where Telecom decided it made a mistake and stopped offering their unlimited plan. But they still allowed the current users to make use of the plan until their year "contract" was up.
In the US it's prorated (flat rate was ruled illegal recently, and I don't think most are using flat rate anyway), so it's not necessarily as much as you say. And honestly, I don't see why there shouldn't be a penalty for breaking a contract I agreed to. As far as the phone company, it sucks that they can do this, but what's your alternative? They're allowed to set their terms of service within reason, and I think this, while onerous, is within reason.
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
They didn't eliminate the plan, rather they're removing people from the unlimited plan who go over what they deem fair use. If you don't go over that amount, you get to keep the plan.
It is, of course, all about maximizing profits at the cost of a consumer base that doesn't have many choices.
Don't worry if you're a kleptomaniac, you can always take something for it.
I just LOLed on the train because of you. Now people are staring more than usual.... Thanks for that.
What you can do is to try and get retention plans, plans given to customers who are ready to quit.
I called Fido and asked them to match one of Koodo Mobile's plans with a better price and features. Telus has and is still pushing Koodo mobile strongly out there and they're stealing a shitload of customers because their plans are cheaper in average and there's no SAF (system access fee) so you can use them or Virgin Mobile (also no SAF) as a reference of what you are looking for at cheaper prices.
For $22 + tax + SAF (around $30 a month), I'm getting unlimited evenings and weekends, 200 daytime minutes, 100 sms and call display. All I cared about was calls during evenings and weekends which for some reason (greed) is normally expensive and I made it clear that's what I needed in order to stay with them.
The longer you've been their customer, the better the plans you can get. Just don't go to them like "You guys suck, give me more or I'll quit!". Make clear demands, you need unlimited SMS, unlimited local calls, and so on. And yes, DO NOT HANG UP, that's probably the most important thing here, but be ready to quit if they insist they can't (won't) listen.
In the end, they need us, and it probably doesn't hurt them to give you an awesome plan because 95% of their customers are getting ripped and don't care.
Everything I said there was accurate, i never insuklted or belittled anyone, and did nothing offensive of any kind.
WHy did you mod me troll?
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
The rates are only getting worse. 7 years ago, you could get a plan that included real voice mail, caller ID, free evenings and weekend from 4 pm to 8 am, and free lunch hour, and all for $35 total after taxes and all charges, and now you have to pay $30 even just for a basic plan, no vm, caller id, evenings and weekends starting at 9 pm. So by the time you add all the features you actually want, plus the system access fee, you end up paying $55 for what would have cost $35, 7 years ago. Even with all the advances in tech, and the fact that everybody has a phone, it still costs way more for service than it used to. I used to be able to get pay as you go, with 25$ for free evenings and weekends starting at 6, and 30 cents a minute for each extra minute. So for $35, and no contract, you could get evenings and weekends, plus 33 other minutes, which also included caller ID and voice mail. To get a similar deal, even under a contract now, you could easily spend $50. You might get 100 daytime minutes, but you'd be on a contract, and there's no way you would spend less than $50 a month, whereas, a lot of the time with the caller ID plan, I would only spend $30 a month.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Telus is a joke, no way I'd ever do business with them again.
OTOH, a friend of mine lost his cell phone so I suggest calling up Telus with the intent to leave because they don't offer the iPhone to see what they might do(let's be clear, he doesn't want an iPhone, but we know this particular phone is going to receive some sort of response from the Telus rep.). Not mentioning the lost phone to them at this point, he proceeds to tell them that he would like one of them new-fangled iPhones that everyone is talking about. Telus rep says sorry we don't have that phone. So he says oh okay, I'd like to cancel my service then. They proceed to go through the big laminated list of reasons the iPhone is crap, and he just simply says yeah, that's fine, I'll just cancel, how much is it to buy out my contract?
At this point they go ahead and offer him a new Blackberry Pearl at no charge, and he informs them that this wouldn't be sufficient and he'd still like to proceed with canceling his services. They step up to the plate again and offer him an unlimited data plan in addition to his current Telus package at no charge, for the balance of his contract (2 1/2 years).
Of course, he accepts this offer. So, although I hate Telus, sometimes they serve their purpose, such as situations like the one above.
Of course after he finishes talking with the Telus rep he proceeds to call them back immediately to report his lost phone so that it is deactivated.
This was approximately a month and a half ago and so far so good, Telus is honouring their offer of unlimited data, and he's still paying the same $48.xx a month he was paying prior to this escapade, and enjoying his new Blackberry phone.
This is slightly different. This is company has a contract with the customer, and is using it's "we reserve the right to change any term and any time and/or cancel the contract for any reason without penalty" option to extract themselves from a contract they no longer wish to honor.
This is not valid. You cannot arbitrarily change a contract and force the other party to honor it, it just doesn't happen. Our legal system would not allow it, because it would open up options for me to agree to provide computer support to that cute girl in the next apartment and then suddenly turn her into my sex slave for all eternity.
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From
http://www.telusmobility.com/about/mike_pcs_pt_policy.shtml
18.
Changes
These service terms (including any rates and charges) may be changed unilaterally by TELUS from time to time on at least thirty (30) days' notice to you, and such changes shall become effective once you use the service after such thirty (30) day period (which use shall be deemed conclusively to indicate acceptance of such changes.
So according to this, they could change the contract so you agree to provide computer support to that cute girl in the next apartment and then suddenly turn her into your sex slave for all eternity. And if you don't like it, you have to submit to arbitration instead of going to court [well, you could go to court, but they would generally say [at least here in Canada], you agreed to arbitrate [clause 15].
So there! I would be surprised if a similar clause is NOT most other cell phone contracts (in the Americas, Europe and Asia and everywhere else).
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Having worked at all 3 of these companies (and still at one of them). The problem is/was their billing/rating solution.
The problem is that all three had in house billing solutions plus crappy red tape policies and bad development practices. As all you slashdotters know, this makes for bad software.
The unlimited plan was unlimited not because they cared but because the in house solution was crap and could not rate data usage, couldn't keep up with the flow of data from switches. So Telus had two options, not offer data, or offer unlimited data. There is a new vendor solution in place, the one that can rate data, so here we are trying to get out of unlimited data.
Oh, and those who had capped data plans and stayed under the cap, well too bad, you could have used unlimited all along, too late now.
I used to be a Telus customer. Quite possibly the worst service ever. About three years ago I was paying $60 a month for a plan with fifty text messages (incoming = 25, outgoing = 25) and around 200 cellular minutes (incoming and outgoing combined). The overage charges exceeded $0.50 a minute for outgoing and $0.25 for incoming (if I remember correctly). There was no voicemail or caller ID on this plan, unless I opted to pay an extra $15 a month. Here in Korea, my phone costs $50 a month regardless of minutes and text messaging... plus I get free, unlimited broadband internet with unlimited live TV streams (+100 channels/shows). It's just not worth it to own a cellular phone in Canada.
we reserve the right to change any term and any time and/or cancel the contract for any reason without penalty
Funny how they can reserve a right that they never had in the first place.
For cell phones maybe. I wouldn't trade our Internet access for your phone rates though.
... And your government is the the one spending hundreds of billions of dollars that you don't have to support a "war" with no discernable enemies.
It's a small shaft, I'll live with it.
My favorite issue with Telus was in dealing with contracts and their "bundled" bills.
My grandparents signed up for internet with them, and supposedly for the first while the internet rates were lower than normal. After a while, they decided to cancel and move on to Shaw. When they called in to do so, Telus told them that they were locked in a (3 year I believe) contract.
Now keep in mind, this is not like a cellular service. There's no documentation, no terms of service provided. The box that came with the DSL modem had only the usage manual. Nothing signed, and nothing anywhere stating a contract.
According to the phone agent, the "contract" was presented in a click-through on the software used to setup the modem. However, in this case I was the one that setup the modem, and had done so through their webpage (not using the software CD, and not seeing any click-through contracts).
Telus - of course - could not provide anything to support their "contact", but the rep actually told me "if you don't like it, take it to court." When I asked for their legal contact info, I was told for that I'd have to "get a lawyer, and have him figure it out."
At the same time, Telus is also the local phone monopoly, so bills for ADSL and phone service are combined. I tried to get *those* separated so that I could at least deal with VISA about the DSL service without getting dinged for non-payment on the phone part. Telus will not separate the bills.
I've had plenty of issues with Telus on my own, but this case was the worst. Trying to trick senior citizens into believing their into a contract without any corroboration is just plani evil (and I did check the old advertising for the plain, no contract was mentioned).
Umm it IS an internet connection. It is for a data plan... that means internet... this is for a wireless card that you plug in to your computer to get internet access. In fact, it has no voice plan.. you can't use it as a cell phone. Did you even read the SUMMARY? It says that lots of Canadians who live in rural areas use it because it is the ONLY (meaning no alternatives) way of getting broadband internet access.
If you agree by contract to allow the other party to change the contract without further consent from you then they are not forcing you to honor the change -- you agreed to the change beforehand.
Whether the clause is legal is another question most probably related to the practical aspects of you as an individual being able to negotiate contract conditions with the much more powerful (legally speaking) service provider. Personally, I have always thought that it would not be considered equal under the eyes of the law, yet you find it in every contract you sign today. So likely it is legal (at least in the US, not sure about Canada).
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.