Fed Up with Telus service

[MelAhKneeDee]

Your company has really ruined everything that I always found so great about being your customer. Your company used to be about the customers, listening to their concerns, and making them happy. Unfortunately, Telus has decided to abandon these ideals that once made them great and joined in making the quest for the almighty dollar the most important thing to them. I have been loyal to Telus for around 12 years. Mind you I had different accounts several times during that time due to financial strain but once I got back on track I always came back to Telus. In fact the thing I loved most about Telus was their diversity of options to help you keep in contact with those who are important to you even when money was tight like their $2 a day option ( when in doubt, if you could scrape $2 together you could use your phone for the day) or buy a small package of voice and text for $10-$15 to get you through. Now, I can't even use a balance on my account to make a phone call if I want to. No, I have to have a $20-$30 plan or my phone is a paper weight until I can do so. Without paying the money for a monthly plan I can't buy any add-ons, I can't even load a few dollars on my account balance and pay-per-use at a certain rate per minute. Isn't that the whole point of pay as you go? You pay for and use the features you want and can afford at the time- some months you purchase a plan when you have the money to do so, then you might live off of your $3.29 cent balance paying by the minute, then you get $10 so you buy an add on for a small mixed pack of voice and text, etc, etc, etc... What you have done to a great company and their ideals is atrocious and makes me sick to my stomach. You like everyone else have given up on your customers come first policies and jumped on the wagon with the rest of the "let's make as much fuc*## money as we can and who cares about the customers, they need their phones, they'll pay whatever we tell them to". I am sadly disappointed, and will be shopping around for a new service provider for my cellular needs over the next few days/ weeks. I will also be recommending to my many friends and family members who I persuaded to change to your company to find another provider as well. I know you're massive company probably doesn't care about and isn't scared to lose small numbers of clients who only amount to double digits because we you already have more money than you know how to do with but I felt this needed to be said. Everyone I've spoke to about this issue says the same thing as I have said to you- we're not happy and we're not staying around with a cold hearted company who puts it's customers as last priority.

[Mobility_Princess]

I couldn't agree more. From being in the Telus neighbourhood and linking these pages I have read them from a customer's perspective and thought "holy geeze this makes no sense if I didn't work for Telus!". Luckily I can easily submit feedback and ask them to change it. However, it's not my decision. I just send in the input and ask them to change it. They are changing the website a lot and continuously. I just find there is a lot of outdated stuff on here too. @Lola you should put an idea in the ideas section! 

Regarding the top ups @NFtoBC got it exactly right as usual :p. Telus no longer allows customers to ACTIVATE new accounts that use their balance only for pay per use. That's why the information is still relevant and up there. Our old customers who have never let their accounts become deactivated and have had the same account from the beginning can still enjoy this service. It's only new customers who must adhere to the rules of having a prepaid plan when they activate a new prepaid account. Why? There's a cost to Telus every time an account closes due to inactivity after 90 days. There's a cost for having to hold that number for 90 days in case the customer requests it back. There's a cost for opening a new account that's only going to be used a couple times. There's a lot of costs associated with prepaid accounts. There were also a lot of customers who did not understand how the pay per use features worked and did NOT like them. We had a load of complaints of customers who were not offered plans or did not understand the difference between topping up and plans. So this simplified things so much in the prepaid world. 

[MelAhKneeDee]

When I started this, all I was trying to get across was this:

When I first activated my prepaid service this time around I was expecting Telus' awesome prepaid service that I had been super loyal to since I started using prepaid. When I looked at the site before activating, things looked like they hadn't changed. So I went ahead and activated my phone and chose the $22 plan with $10 evening and weekend add on. Once the plan expired, I was left with like $6-7 on my balance. I was a week or so away from having any substantial amount of money so I thought to myself, well if I budget the $6-7 it will probably get me through if I save it for important calls/ texts. Come to find out that I couldn't do that and it really sucked. The other thing was, even if I could come up with $3-4 to get my balance up to $10 so I could add the minimum plan, there was no way for me to top it up with that small of an amount because you can only top up by a minimum of $10. Then I thought about it, I will never get to actually use that $6-7 dollars, whether it rolls over or not, so isn't that nice for Telus to just get to keep my money. This may not make sense to those of you who would always have the money to top your account up by $10 increments, but for those who don't, this REALLY sucks. So I wasn't interested in what benefits I was reaping by keeping my account topped up and by being on a plan. I was worried about being able to survive in a world where you really have to have a cell phone with very little money to do so. So forgive me if I'm not really worried about how much it might cost Telus (a multi-billion dollar company) to accommodate those of us who don't have a lot of disposable income. This just makes my point about how they have stopped putting their customer first to chase down a few extra dollars. As many of you have made the point to mention, most people prefer the new services and are willing and able to purchase monthly plans without too much thought. So then wouldn't it be great if Telus stopped looking at the $5 (or whatever the cost is) they might spend if I let my account expire, and offer me a service that is so great that I would never consider letting my account expire. I stopped topping up my account as soon as I realized that these services have changed and am currently shopping around for another provider that will let me spend my money the way I want to. If Telus are able to let older customers follow the old rules, than anyone can because it's obviously not a system upgrade issue if there are still people on the old system.

Also, one other thing that made me mad is that I put the $22 plan on first and added the add-on 3 days later. Of course my plan expired first, but didn't I get to use the other 3 days of my add-on. You apparently need to have a plan in order for an add-on, that you've already paid for, to work.

[NFtoBC]

@MelAhKneeDee

To my knowledge, you could never top up less than $10. That part has not changed. If you top up, the $6 to $7 is still in your account, and would be available to put towards your next purchase. For instance, adding a $25 top up would allow you to purchase the same $22 + $10 plan and add on again.

[Mobility_Princess]

Oh okay, now I understand a little better. Thanks for clarifying. Telus allows the old customers to continue using the old system because they have not had their account deactivate due to inactivity for 90 days. It's the same thing as a grandfathered plan or feature on prepaid. Some customers are still using really old prepaid features that we haven't had for years because they have always had money on the account for the feature to renew from the balance from or an active credit card for the feature to renew from. Even though a new prepaid account or even an old prepaid account could not go on telus.com or call in and  buy one of these old features because we no longer have them. It's the same thing with the old pay per use from your balance only policy. It's a special feature that had to be active on old accounts. Anyone who had an account deactivated for inactivity and had to create a new account will not have this special code and we have no way to add it for you as it was grandfathered. This way the customers who have always diligently kept their accounts up to date and active will get to keep using them. If you are activating new accounts then Telus has no way to recognize you as a loyal customer because to them you are viewed as a new customer each time you activate a new account.

-After the $22 feature expires you can still use the next 3 days to use the evening and weekend calling feature. After 6pm until 7am or from Friday at 6pm until Monday at 7am you'll have unlimited local calling. 

-After any 30 day rateplan has expired you can use any left over balance on your account at a pay per use rate however, you will no longer be paying the .15 per min rate. You will be paying the .50 per min rate. Your  balance will be expire if you do not top up the minimum top up of at least $10. If your balance had already expired. You can get that balance BACK within 7 days by topping up again. After the 7 days the balance is lost. You do not need to call in to get the balance back. Even if you top up online or through the automated #123 the balance will be restored. 

It sounds like the plan that would be most beneficial to you would be if you saved up enough money to do the $100 plan which is good for 12 months. It includes 400 local mins total and 400 texts total. This way you would not have to constantly worry about balance expiration when you can top up. Of course it would take time to save up but, I think it would be the best option for  you.I'm not aware of any company that will allow you to spend $5 a month in prepaid services. Here's the closest things I could find for you:

Rogers: 

Extremely similar- Smallest plan is a base plan of $10 for 50 mins, 50 text for 30 days. 

Bell:

They have a very unique system. They have plans and the pay per use system. You can use a credit card or the prepaid cards but, the minimum top up is $15. You get money back or features back based on how much you top. 

Virgin:

Has pay per use rates and prepaid plans. Starting at $15 top ups. 

Also have a $25 activation fee

Fido:

Has pay per use rates and pay per day rates however you have to pay a monthly access fee to use them. It's $15.75 for the monthly access fee and the smallest top up is $10. 

They all had the same policy of the balance expiring once the 30 days feature or plan fell off. You essentially couldn't use the pay per use anymore. 

[MelAhKneeDee]

But you can't use the leftover balance for anything once the plan expires. I had it out with a telephone agent and everything, and it is not possible. I was also not able to use the extra 3 days of my evening/ weekend add-on once the original plan was up. I even made the comment, if I want to pay 50 cents per minute I should be allowed to, and was told it's not possible. My phone physically would not dial or send a text from my balance or during the 3 days extra I had on my evening/ weekend add-on.

[Mobility_Princess]

Well, you're talking about 2 different things there. 

1. 

But you can't use the leftover balance for anything once the plan expires. 

This is correct. Once the plan expires, any remaining money on the account will also expire. That's the 7 days I was talking about. You then have 7 days to top up and get that money back. However, in the mean time you won't be able to use your pay per use options. 

2. 

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 I was also not able to use the extra 3 days of my evening/ weekend add-on once the original plan was up. I even made the comment, if I want to pay 50 cents per minute I should be allowed to, and was told it's not possible. My phone physically would not dial or send a text from my balance or during the 3 days extra I had on my evening/ weekend add-on.

Now your $10 feature even for those 3 days should have functioned like a plan. Giving you the pay per use options. Keeping your extra money all active on the account. If you were unable to call out or use the feature that may have been because there was a $0 balance on the account before the plan expired before those last 3 days. There is another clause with all the prepaid providers that there must be money on the account in order to use the features. Meaning that even though you have bought your $22 plan and had that for 30 days and your $10 feature on top of that. If you want them to be guaranteed to work. You need an extra couple dolllars on the account or they may not work. It's very rarely enforced. So if you don't have any service and you have a feature like the $10 one, typically when troubleshooting, if we throw .50 cents on the account it will start working again. If you were to check your  history on the telus.com page around those times I'm 99% sure that's what happened. 

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[MelAhKneeDee]

No I still had the $6-7 dollars on the account for sure and when I called they told me that it was true that pay per use and add-ons will not function unless you have a plan.

[Mobility_Princess]

Oh I have no doubts that you were told the complete wrong thing. For that I apologize. 😞

[Lola]

@Mobility_Princess-- I'm gonna be one of those off-topic people now because I'm far too lazy to start a question thread of my own. Yesterday I bought the LG G Pad IV, and I wanted the power pack for it, but Telus said no accessories are available. Will Telus have the power pack in future, do you think? Searching the LG website I found no sellers in BC.

[Steveathome]

I also purchased a g pad iv, after I went back to their (Telus) online add on the website. They advertise that you get a plus pack if you buy on there ( buy an lg g6 and g pad combo) I went back to the store, and they said nope dont know nothing about it. Talked to customer service they said go back to store and ask for one. I did that and they said, cant find any. Went back to customer service they said, buy one where ever you can find one, and we will put $125.00 on your account to pay for it. Went to lg canada, they said videotron has them. Went to videtron, they said you have to be their customer to be able to buy one. Went back to lg and they said sorry we only sell to providers, actually provider, as videotron appears as the only store with any. I have also tried the usa stores, similar, cant sell to you. Whats going on?

Steve

[TwitchyPuppy]

@mbp:

I don’t entirely agree.

I do have a business and my customers are my salary. I can pay my bills because of them.

If I didn’t put them first, I’d have to close my business. A happy customer is a returning customer.

It’s kinda sad to say, but, as a business owner, I work for my customers.

[dissatisfied99]

You're wrong - Telus used to prioritize good customer service. no longer..

[MelAhKneeDee]

That's what I said.... they used to prioritize good customer service but they don't anymore.

[MelAhKneeDee]

Thank you 😁

[zrock]

and this is why i dropped telus a year ago for both our personal phones and switched to a new provider.. It was not until i had switched over to the new provider and called to cancel all my accounts did the last supervisor i talked to actually try to save my business and be helpful. Their words were it should not have escalated to this point and i should have been taken care of right away..