Min $3 dollar 5 min talk rate plan change

[kikithecafekief101]

So. Starting Oct 2nd people like my dad will have to pay min $3 dollar for 5 mins of talk and after that pay per min is going up 10 cent from 0.50 to 0.60. Is this currant? Correct? My dad only needs the phone for like phoning Bcaa if he needs. I see even on home internet, internet 15 is going up, etc, by $2 dollars. Everything is gettin so expensive.

[NFtoBC]

Welcome to a world with a growing economy. Inflationary cost increases are to be expected.

[timetowaste247]

At least he isn't in the group that was forced into a $10 / month plan. The prepaid plan change is a mess and you aren't the only one upset about it. I wish they would have just increased the pay per use rates if they wanted more money rather than charge for stuff that we will never use. Isn't that the reason most of us went prepaid anyway. 

[TwitchyPuppy]

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@timetowaste247 wrote:

At least he isn't in the group that was forced into a $10 / month plan. The prepaid plan change is a mess and you aren't the only one upset about it. I wish they would have just increased the pay per use rates if they wanted more money rather than charge for stuff that we will never use. Isn't that the reason most of us went prepaid anyway. 

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Increasing the pay per use rates? People don't want to pay more, especially for a service not frequently used. People who were already paying $10/month or $100/year can still do that, they just have more for their money, now!

[timetowaste247]

You hit the nail on the head there people don't want to pay more for their phone service and that is exactly what Telus is doing.

For $10 last month I could talk locally for 33 mins and make 250 outgoing text messages with unlimited incoming. The $5/ month was a given but the talk time was pay per use and in a typical month I wouldn't talk anywhere near 33 mins. I would typically spend less than $10 and get exactly what I need.

Your "more for your money" $10 plan. Does give you 50 mins of local talk and a whole 50 incoming and outgoing texts. Half of this plan I would never use in a month and the other half is insufficient which is already is costing more.

The $100 a year plan is even more of a rip off. Is essentially a one month plan stretched over a year and charged at 3 times the amount. The only reason current prepaid subscribers even look at that plan is because it's the cheapest one and they don't plan on using their phone much. The real kicker is when those type of people use their phone they are probably outside their local calling area and have to pay even more money.  

The people that are being switched are being moved from a $0 plan with pay per use rates only and are now being asked to pay $3 - $10 more per month and will most likely still pay all the per use rates they were paying before because these plan have practically nothing in them. I would rather see the per use rates increase and not be slapped with a random charge and as an after though maybe we could throw in a couple of minutes of talk time to appease them a bit. 

[TwitchyPuppy]

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@kikithecafekief101 wrote:
So. Starting Oct 2nd people like my dad will have to pay min $3 dollar for 5 mins of talk and after that pay per min is going up 10 cent from 0.50 to 0.60. Is this currant? Correct? My dad only needs the phone for like phoning Bcaa if he needs. I see even on home internet, internet 15 is going up, etc, by $2 dollars. Everything is gettin so expensive.

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Hi 🙂

Your father won't have to, if he doesn't want to. It's been offered by default and he'll be migrated automatically to that plan on October 2nd. So he's free to call customer service or visit a TELUS store to choose the plan that best suits his needs!

[BRYAN_]

That's all find and dandy but I have a 5 dollar add on for text that's not offered any more and with that add on I get .15 cents a minute now I'm going to pay .60 cent that's just wrong and the fact that telus just ups and changes people plans to get them to look into other plans should be criminal.people need to stand up and say enough is enough telus became part of the big 1s because of there customers but that could change because of there customers 😰

[Rob19544]

I agree Bryan, my wife's plan which is the prepaid $5 text only plan and same as mine, automatically had the $10 option added, which I promptly phoned Telus to have removed and after 3 calls (2 callbacks plus 2 20 min holds and 2 "heartfelt" apologies from them for the inconvenience) it was reversed and the account re-credited.

I logged back in a couple of hours later, and to my utter dismay they had added a $3 for 5min talk plan!!!

This is unfair business practices!!

ANYBODY THAT FEELS THE SAME WAY AS US ABOUT THIS NEGATIVE OPTION BILLING CRAP (ADDING FRAUDULENT AND UN-AUTHORISED CHARGES TO YOUR ACCOUNT) SHOULD ENSURE THEY LODGE A COMPLAINT TO THE CRTC AS WELL AS EXPRESSING THEIR DISPLEASURE ALONG WITH OTHER LIKE MINDED PEOPLE ON FACEBOOK!!!

[Azteker]

Is this $3 rate plan mandatory? I have this plan automatically added either and I totally don't like it.

[BRYAN_]

Yup there forcing people to get other plans,not recognizing peoples pay per use plans and illegally removing 3 dollars from there accounts all so they can make more money.just got off the phone with a rep there not honoring my 5 dollar txt plan which provide me with 250 txt messages and a talk rate of .15 cent a minute and all that I PAY 25 DOLLARS which is good for 2 months unless I go through the money then I just top up again.But less than a week ago they took there 5 dollar for my message 250 and yesterday took 3 dollars and are now telling me unless I move up to the new pay per use packages I will be charged 3 dollars every month ill get 5 minute of talk only and its .60 cent after that and .50 cents a message. Good customer care there and on some other threads they were saying the system is doing by default and you can call them and have that canceled you can't unless you upgrade to the 10 dollar package which in my case still doesn't beat what I have but that's why there doing it because to many people have old packages that are not offered any more and there trying to get rid of them because there not making as much money with those.my thoughts they wont be making any money of me and my family once the account balances reach 0.00 cause were going to be looking else where I may pay less I may pay a bit more but TELUS won't be getting it any more

[BRYAN_]

Oh and Ill be following in Robs foot steps and lodging a complaint with the crtc you can inform me of change, but can't force me to take it.which is exactly what you did when you took the 3 dollars out of my account

[Lola]

There are some strong words being tossed around here -- fraud, for one. What's described in this thread is not fraud. There are also loopholes to most provincial negative billing laws that allow for what Telus is doing, because the customers, being a customer of Telus, has agreed to service from Telus, and that agreement allows for what Telus is doing. Customer authorization, or express consent before implementation doesn't apply here. Express consent applies mainly to financial products and services like credit cards and loans. For instance, your credit limit can't rise without your express consent; because too many rises can affect your score, people need control of that. But this is not a CRTC complaint anyway. If you have a negative billing complaint, it should go to Consumer Protection, or whatever your province has.

http://www.bclaws.ca/civix/document/id/rs/rs/96069_01#part4 -- this is for BC.

[Lola]

BTW Telus tech people or admin, my upper-right drop menu very often doesn't show me the edit button for my comments when I'm signed in; instead I get the drop menu for not signed in. Is there another way I can reach edit when this happens?

[Rob19544]

Call it whatever legalese term you want, it's still unethical and unfair business practices and anybody that doesn't approve of the practice should use whatever avenues are available to draw attention to and stop this practice. Strong words and strong actions are likely what is required, be it a complaint to the Consumer Protection, CRTC or a Facebook campaign.

In the interim as Bryan suggests the most effective remedy would be to move your money to a plan with a different company especially now with an unlocked phone and the ability to port your number to a different carrier if you desire. There is a website called whistleout which will show all the prepaid plans available by all the Canadian carriers; there are a couple of interest. One with PC Mobile (using the Bell network) and Petro Canada Mobility which I think uses Rogers (not sure). The PC Mobile one offers a plan for $15 a month which includes unlimited Canadian and international texting and 50 Canada wide minutes, provides the provision to add additional talk, long distance or data option packages if desired, plus includes voice mail, call forwarding ,caller i.d. etc.

[Rob19544]

Bye Telus, thanks for the ride...now have a much better prepaid deal with the competition!! Stay tuned, you're about to lose another account also!

Others; if you are unhappy with your treatment (as a loyal customer) speak with your wallets!

[Rob19544]

One more small caveat: If you are considering switching to another carrier as I just did (and about to do for my Wife's telus pay and talk account) but are fearing a long drawn out process and hassle porting your number;  my whole process changing to PC mobile, transferring my number and including a couple of 5 min holds while the agent was completing the process took less than 30 mins and with an agent NOT located on the other side of the planet.

...and NO hour + long queues just to speak to an agent.

My phone was fully functional with my new account and my old ported number by the time I hung up the phone from speaking to the agent. Now that's customer service! Something telus once knew but has lost unfortunately along the way.

[vee]

I received a text message from Telus saying "You have purchased $3 Rate Plan for $3". NO I DID NOT PURCHASE THIS. They placed it on my account. No questions asked. Isn't this somewhat fraudulent? After being on hold for ONE HOUR (no exaggeration) the rep I reached said she couldn't do anything about removing the fee. But, if I liked, they could get a manger to call me. And I did like. But, did they call? Nope. Worst service EVER.

[NFtoBC]

I believe you were notified by SMS of the change a month or so ago. I was. That is all required to effect a change. Remember, your contract is 30 days, and can be changed by either party with 30 days (or less for the customer) notice.

[Rob19544]

As I said before, to paraphrase; I'm sure Telus has the legal fine print vis a vis this text you refer to, to back this and other less than ethical business practices, as recent CBC investigations have uncovered regarding the telecommunications industry (Rogers, Bell, Telus, Shaw, etc) in particular in Canada. Just because they can legally justify it does it make it right by their customers (especially long term 'valued' customers)?  Leave the legalese to their corporate law team; as their advocates, that's what THEY are getting paid for. They appear to be doing a commendable job of looking after Telus' interests so far.

And as I also said previously, let the customer decide if they are being fairly or unfairly treated.  Yes, ultimately it is a free enterprise system and these companies can do what they want and hide behind legalities, but thankfully it also allows us as consumers to vote with our wallets and take our money somewhere else if we decide to. That is one of the few tools we have to attempt to obtain a shred of fairness in the system for the consumer,  a system already heavily weighted toward the large wealthy companies.

Perhaps this will help place a tiny drop of oil in this (free?) market system in a small attempt to keep it competitive.

[Rob19544]

Anyway, further to my last post; From my standpoint all of this will soon be academic as they will be shortly losing my wife's account as well, and there will be no further Telus ties as far as we're concerned.

[Lori51]

I totally agree, but worst part is they have us by the B@lls and we can’t do a thing about it... i was also paying .15 a minute in for years, now .60   I also have the $5.00 a month 250 texting messages...I’d hate to loose that too.

Chatr may be my next carrier if Telus keeps this up.  I’ve been a loyal customer for about 15 years or more, so much for loyalty.