Caleb Hunt (.com)

*edit* April 15 – Heh, waddya know. Checked my Visa statement today, saw the credit was posted yesterday.

I’m a huge fan of pre-authorized payments. I bill almost everything automatically to my credit card. I like not having to remember to pay my bills and only pay one bill at the end of the month. I usually don’t have any issues, but Bell Mobility has made me re-think my pre-authorized payment route on some of my services.

See, my cell contract was up with Bell in January. I put my cancellation notice in with them 30 days in advance and asked them the exact day I could port my number out without penalty. I documented the rep’s response, got her name and number, and on that fateful day in January – said ‘bye-bye’ to Bell Mobility. I was fully aware that I would be getting one final bill from Bell, which I did. However, one month after that – I was billed $200 for an ‘early-cancellation fee’.

Livid, to say the least, I called Bell back and was like “OK – what gives, I have confirmation from Christina emp# 6021736 that there is NO cancellation fee”. After 25 minutes of holding, the rep comes back and says ‘You’re right, that was an error, we’ll issue a you a cheque for the balance because your account has already been closed and we have already debited your credit card’. No $&*@, you debited my Visa $200+tax, and I want my money back.

It’s now been over 90 days, I’ve since placed two calls to Bell Mobility (each a month apart) saying ‘Where’s my money? I’ve been out this money now for 3 months… I’d kind of like it back, it’s not yours, why am I waiting so long for this?” Each time ‘oh sir, it’s coming it’ll be there in a couple weeks’.

I know it’s only $200, but it’s the principle. They took it, it was their fault, now I have to play the waiting game simply because I was a good customer who every month paid their bill without fail thanks to a pre-authorized credit card bill. Of course there’s no urgency now,  I’m not a customer, they can’t simply credit my account – and for whatever reason, can’t refund it directly to my card. It’s a joke.

If I wasn’t on pre-authorized billing, I would have called them to say ‘I’m not paying this bill, it’s wrong’ and they would have said ‘You’re right, ignore it – it’s been cancelled’. Why is this such a hassle?

To anyone thinking about cancelling any service you have, I HIGHLY recommend that before you cancel, you take pre-authorized billing off your account so that when the final bill comes – you can pay it however you like, you’re not at the mercy of the company who’s billing to have their systems straight.

Screw you Bell… Last time I recommend your services to anyone.

So last night, I logged into my Bell account to monitor my usage, knowing that my billing cycle is coming up in a few days to find my text message usage looking like this:

Beginning to wonder, I decided to check out the ‘ol #belltwit hashtag on Twitter search to find that other people out there have started getting their bills and low-and-behold, people are seeing charges on their bill from the whole “we’re not charging, oh wait – we are charging. Nah, just kidding, we’re not really (or are we?)” fiasco from when they re-enabled Twitter SMS support late last month. Finding an interesting post from @empty_space, I decided to email Bell’s CS as per his step-by-step directions which he claims success in getting credited for charges. I followed them to the letter, and got this response from a Bell CS rep this morning:

I have reviewed your last three invoices and I did not see any Short Code Program charges.  However, on your unbilled usage charges, I noticed some charges for such service are currently on pending.  I regret we are not able to adjust them for you as they are valid charges.

 

I wish to clarify that Short Code Programs are text messages sent to a short code (a 5 to 9 digit number), just like a phone number.  Many companies advertise short code numbers to interact with their clients (examples:  text voting, contests and chatting).  Kindly note that short code program text messages and their associated charges are billed by those third party companies and automatically placed on your Bell Mobility invoice.  These may cost up to $5.00 per message.

 

In your case, this could be related to one of several sources.  I have listed the possible sources with their corresponding short codes:

 

(CBC Top10 22210, Chum TV Generic 332211,  Olympic Alerts 86767, Sportsnet Alerts 843638, Oil of Olay 12121, Dose mblog pills 74557, MRX Alerts 235235, Canwest Alerts 987987, Warner Bros 43892,  Extreme Sports 360360, Wireless Developer Agency 32852)

 

If you would like to stop receiving these short code program text messages, you must send a text message to the appropriate short code with the word “STOP”.  You should then receive a text message informing you that your mobile number is no longer subscribed to that service.

Blah, blah blah… The only short code that I have EVER used has been to 21212, which is Twitter. It’s interesting to note that he didn’t find any charges from the previous 3 months of bills, yet during that time – I DID send updates to Twitter’s 21212 and was NOT charged for them, and all of a sudden, I’m now being charged. I have NEVER ONCE sent a message to any “Premium” service provider.

Just got off the phone with Bell, had quite possibly the most frustrating experience dealing with one of their CS reps who is adamant that I am sending / receiving messages from a premium provider called “my thumbs” and hellbent on charging me the fees as “they are premium messages”. Twitter is the ONLY service I use and it is supposed to be FREE… Looks like I’m going to *really* have to fight for this one, they aren’t budging.

Help anyone?!

Still following the #belltwit drama, and according to the CBC (as of about 7pm), it looks like Bell is actually stepping down from it’s position of “Twitter SMS Messages are Premium messages and therefore requiring a cost of 15 cents per sent/received message” despite the claims on Twitter’s blog that states: 

“Twitter and Bell have agreed that Bell customers on the company’s text messaging bundles will be able to receive unlimited incoming Twitter SMS messages at no extra charge.”

Looks like the good guys (being us) win? All that remains to be seen exactly whether or not these claims hold true. ..

I got my monthly reminder from Bell that my bill was ready to view online from February, and upon checking it, I noticed that there were indeed NO extra charges for any SMS’s to/from Twitter since the service was re-enabled on the 20th. The SMS events show up on my bill as “Short Code Programs” with a big fat zero beside it for charges. Even when Twitter was inactive from November until this past week Canada, I was able to send updates to 21212 with NO extra charges from Bell at all. And of course, prior to November when Twitter had full functionality in Canada, all incoming/outgoing tweets were always billed as “Short Code Programs” with NO extra charge outside of my regular text message bundle.

When I checked my “unbilled usage” for this month, I noticed that there were around 38 or so “Short Code Programs” which were obviously Twitter related,and wanted to find out if there were any extra charges associated with them outside of my unlimited text package. So I called Bell Mobility’s customer service at 3:30 today and spoke with a CS representative, who was absolutely clueless on the Twitter/Bell sms fiasco (although, I was not really surprised) and after a short hold confirmed that YES there were indeed charges associated with them, when I asked “How Much?” She said there were just over $5 worth and sure enough, 38 * .15 = $5.70. I was being charged for both incoming and outgoing SMS’s to Twitter. So after trying to explain to her this service was supposed to be free (as per what Twitter said their agreement with Bell was), and that they had always been in the past (explaining I had never been charged before) she said:

“This company (Twitter) is charging us, so we’re charging you what they’re charging us – We have no control over it. You’ll have to contact Twitter about the charges”. 

Well, it was at that point I said “this is going nowhere” and hung up. So, with pending charges on my account for next month (of which I’ll fight later – if it comes to that) I’m optimistic that differences were indeed worked out between what Bell thought was going to happen and what Twitter told us was going to happen… But that will remain to be seen on my next bill, I guess  I’ll have to play the waiting game until next month. *sigh*

Interesting development in the Bell/Twitter partnership I last blogged about. CBC Blog Watch is reporting that ALL users who use Twitter service via SMS with Bell Mobility will be charged 15 cents PER MESSAGE. Incoming or Outgoing it does not matter, messages will be charged regardless of whether you have an unlimited text message package or not. Apparently, it’s a “premium message service” so Bell intends on charging  a premium price for it. Bell has confirmed these charges (in their official press release), but Twitter’s own blog states that “There are no limits and no added fees (beyond your normal texting plan).” So WTF Bell? Who’s right? Who’s wrong? I guess I have to wait until my bill shows up tomorrow to find out…

What we were beginning to think was an awesome PR move has turned into an epic PR FAIL. If these developments are true, what ticks me off the most is that there was NO prior warning to these charges (Bell broke it’s own EULA on that one) and that even before Twitter service was canned in the first place back in November, there was never any cost to send messages to 21212 via SMS to update your Twitter status – so why all of a sudden is it now a “premium message”? There is some interesting twitter chatter with the #belltwit hashtag.

All I know, is that I am now closer than ever to ditching my Bell BlackBerry in favour of competition, this may be the final straw…  Could this actually be grounds to break a contract without penalty?