Managing home wifi phone for mentally disabled customer

[mstacey]

I am the mother of a mentally disabled son for whom I have purchased a Telus wifi home phone.  He is often victimized by "friends".  In this case, people who come into his apartment where he lives alone to use his home phone.  

To minimize his exposure to long distance call charges, Telus has me paying an additional $10 per month of his ODSP funds to cover potential US calls.  This past month, he had $35 in LD charges to a Caribbean country (not covered by the US additional plan charge).  He does not know anyone outside of Toronto.  To further minimize his exposure, I am told that he can purchase an additional worldwide plan at a significant charge.  Money that he does not have.  Basically, he has to pay for services that we does not need to ensure that he is not charged for those same services.

Why is it that services can't be turned off like a cell phone?  Why are vulnerable people being victimized at the hands of a large organization which I truly believe have the capability to assist but don't in order to make more money?

I did escalate the issue with a lovely customer service agent, Kelly.  She assisted with this long distance charge but was unable to help with a permanent solution.

[starchoice]

My posts are getting error messages and moderation. I think that TELUS does not like competitors outdoing them.

This is the best that I can do:

Activate/Deactivate Long Distance Lock

R-O-G-E-R-S

[Just_LH]

I know.

Absolutely ridiculous thing to say that we only offer things in a package and you have to pay if parts of that package you don't want. Trying to insinuate that they can only set up an account with all LD incuded. (not the cost, only the access)

Rubbis. Money grab. 

On the cell phone (from them) I think it's the same becuase one of my senior neighbors had to pay $5 to not have data. She had no idea when internet was doing something or not. She would turn on data and beacuse she didn't have data package, she way paying for it. So it's the same money grab based on the mistake of the customer.