Recently I got a cell phone with Telus. It was my first phone so I was really excited about it. I mainly got it to contact my parents for picking me up at sports e.t.c, but I would use it to commucaite with friends as well.
We got a “Pay As You Go” plan, where you buy the phone and get a $50 credit. It sounded great, because more money could be loaded on the next month and rolled over to the next month if I didn’t use it. We also got the second cheapest phone, but the final price didn’t turn out that way.
The first two phones we had picked weren’t available (out of stock), so we had to pay for a more expensive one that was “their best phone.” Which I didn’t really get because they also had $299 phones, but whatever. The lady started scanning a $29 memory card, then we looked at her, “Oh sorry this is a card to store your music, its very useful…” No thanks. I’ll use my iPod. Anyway, next was a $15.99 plastic case that weighed almost more than the phone itself. My mom gave into that one because she told us the warranty didn’t cover accidental damages.
Then we chose the features for the phone, which we from the started didn’t want to add because we wanted to use the phone strictly for phoning. As the lady at the store was reading the list of features she checked off each feature on the computer. Then we said, “No thanks.” And she click next.
Luckily, I had noticed that she didn’t uncheck each one and if I didn’t tell her I’d be billed an extra $70.99… No joke.
It doesn’t stop there.
I told everyone my number and the ended up texting me to chat. I didn’t really want to text, but my friends texted me and it cost me $0.15 per text I received. I wasn’t never offered a way to opt out or enable texting, but now I’ve got $2.50 or so on my bill from texting I never agreed to. I ended up purchasing the cheapest plan which gave me unlimited incoming, that was another $5.00.
So if you didn’t have an eagle eye and noticed all these little added prices, you’ll end up paying $238.33 instead of $110.55 which you expect to pay. (price of phone plus taxes)
What I find the worst out of all of it, it might have just been a bad employee, is that they charge you TO BROWSE A STORE. I was browsing the ringtone store on the phone, and I was charged $0.05 per page I visited…
I saw they had a free ringtone to download, which you could preview the entire ringtone. So it sounded awesome, get a free ringtone, awesome, eh (I’m Canadian)? But on the confirmation screen that it will cost me a 50 cents to download a free download! However, when you listen to the preview you’re downloading it already and I wasn’t charged to listen to the preview. So you charge me for something that doesn’t cost you anything… Not a good way to bring in a potential customer.
And if you didn’t pay attention to your bill then you’ll end up paying a lot of extra charges.
I said carriers in Canada, but I’ve only brushed on Telus. While I might be picking on the, it isn’t any different with Rogers or Bell (the other two leaders in the market) but I still find Telus the best. You may also notice I didn’t go into the awesome features they offer, mainly because there aren’t many… but also because you probably already know them.