Forum Discussion
Refusing to reimburse for email I never knew exist
I had Telus Pure Fibre in my previous residence. In a separate account, I had a cell phone. Telus is claiming I had a Telus email that I never knew existed, and has been billing (through auto payment...
I recommend you consider informing the CRTC and warn Telus that is what you will do if they don’t refund.
Let me describe my issue. My brother in another province used Telus for home internet via the old wired connection. He died in December 2021. As executor I was clearing out his house in early 2022 and the Telus internet was working for several months, with the Telus bill being automatically paid by my brother’s bank account. Mail was received from Telus stating they were going to discontinue wired internet service and they wanted to switch customers to fibre. I called them and told them my brother had passed away, and I wanted them to proceed to switch his house to fibre. They told me only my brother could authorize the fibre, and I could not take over the account. A few weeks later I noticed the wired internet was dead, I assumed the wired internet in the area was now disconnected permanently, as that was what Telus warned would happen, and I assumed Telus cancelled my brother’s account as they were told he was dead.
In January 2023 I noticed Telus was still billing my brother, who they knew was dead, over $80 monthly. Not only that, the wired connection had been dead since about May 2022. So Telus was billing a known deceased person over $80 monthly for non-existent internet service. I called in to complain and asked for 6 months of refunding, but they would do nothing except to cancel the January 2023 payment. I regret not complaining to the CRTC about this atrocious situation, I was burdened with too many time-consuming estate issues at the time.
Really Telus customer service was unacceptable and just a greedy money grab. They seem to have a policy of never refunding customers. The representative was zealous in denying my brothers estate any refund, I think they must be penalized if they ever do a refund. Their policies need to change.
I did file a complaint with the CCTS after recieving zero assistance from customer service. The very next day, I received an text message from someone claiming to be a manager at Telus. She said she would refund the money, but wanted to talk to me first. She called the next day (she said her phone service was not working - ironic). When we spoke, she sounded very helpful and explained why their system had not let anyone in customer service know there was this outstanding account. Her explanation made sense. She said she would send a cheque (because I no longer have a My Telus account) with reimbursement of the full 11 months worth of overcharging. She explained that the cheque would be cut either at the beginning of March or the end of it. Obviously I haven't yet received the cheque, so I can't say for certain that my issue has been resolved. She said she would notify the CCTS that we have come to a resolution. I need to check with CCTS to see if she's done that yet. I can see plenty of loopholes or problems with this outcome, including that it could be fraudulent. I am tentatively hoping she was legitimate (I still have her contact info) and that this is resolved. If this is legit, it's amazing to me just how quickly Telus acted once I had filed the complaint with the CCTS. I highly recommend anyone having customer service problems should file a complaint with the CCTS.
