Telus Business Practices during the Covid-19 pandemic.

[Kimi]

So I recently decided to end my Optik TV and Home Phone service while retaining the Internet.

The reason I did this was because of the recent increases in price of Telus Internet.

I was a loyal Telus Customer for over 7 years, never missed paying my bill on time in full.

I am an older person and vunerable to Covid-19.

Earlier when the pandemic started, Telus gave some concessions to customers

like allowing you to go over the data cap , while billing you for the overage they

would credit that on your bill for 3 months or so. a nice gesture. Of course they ended that policy months ago as Covid-19 rages on in my City.

Now, they want me to return the PVR to Telus or they have threatened to charge $250.00 after the time to return it is up.

They want to me to find a box to place the PVR in and to print my own label and then go to a Canada Post outlet.

Firstly I don't have a printer. I gave up printing years ago because printers are designed to consume large quantities of ink and I refuse to do this.

I would have to expose myself to go to a public library to print the labels. 

Secondly, I don't have any boxes suitable for this.

If I do find a suitable box somewhere I know from experience that Canada Post will

ask me to purchase one their boxes which incurs me a fee I can't afford right now. They do this because they have standard sizes you need to adhere to for shipping.

I also don't want to have to visit Canada Post during a global pandemic as I am staying away from unecessary public  exposure.

The PVR I have is one of the very oldest models. It has been paid for probably ten times over and certainly Telus have depreciated

this asset of theirs so it is absolutely worthless to them. 

And also when I made these changes to my account I spent over an hour on the phone to reach the first Telus agent.

Of course their next business practice was to transfer me to their retention department which entailed another hour long wait

on the phone. I had to keep telling the agent (over 7 times ) that I no longer wanted to keep the telephone service as he tried for me to retain

the services.

The last time I checked the Telus Stock price, it indicated that Telus is a corporation with $36.84 billion dollars of assets. A Mega Corporation.

Darren Entwistle the CEO  pays himself a salary of $14 million dollars a year.

Why is it so difficult for a customer to do business with Telus? Why do I have to risk my life in a global pandemic to return a worthless PVR box to Telus? 

Why is the price for their lowest tier of Internet (15 Mbps, with a 200 gig data cap) now $80 dollars a month? 

I mean these business practices make it very difficult for anyone to be a customer of Telus. 

I am very upset with this corporation as are many others. Just do a search on the internet for Telus Internet reviews.

I think Mr Entwistle should do a google search like this every once in a while. It is very telling.

sincerely, a very frustrated long time customer.

[BillTelusCust]

@Kimi 

Dear Frustrated Long Time Telus Customer.

First of all, if  you are going over  your data allotment each month, I think it is a lot cheaper to change to an unlimited plan or at least one that suits your usage. The free overage was generous but it should have allowed you to see which type of plan you should actually use.

I cancelled my Optik TV quite some time ago (due to it not even working for one TV over their old lines), but when I did so, Telus sent me boxes which were specifically made for the equipment and they also sent me pre-printed labels for it. They also allowed a generous amount of time to return the equipment.  The process was touch free and seamless.

I'm not sure if anyone else has had more recent experience with returns.  Did you ask them to send  you boxes and they refused?  Because they only sent them to me when I was asked about it.

[AbBowhunter]

Hmmm sounds like Telus must have spent a crap load of money recently and is looking for was to save money perhaps... Of course the will do that on our backs as customers all while not supporting existing products..... Great company... Not...

[BillTelusCust]

I checked, the $5 per month price increase could have been avoided by signing a contract, and the old price continues.

As to the question about how the lowest speed is still $80, there's the base cost of the infrastructure and modem, and other things associated with service that are there no matter what the speed is.  Sort of like how there's a minimum on power and water bills since running a power line and meter or water pipe and meter are fairly consistent..  The usage or speed increments are not such a big cost.

They have special plans for people on low income, which I believe is $9.95 a month if one qualifies.