In March of 2007 I resided in Grande Prairie Alberta and I had just purchased a home in Slave Lake Alberta, I called Telus to Have my phone & internet service transferred to my new home. At the time The telus rep offered me a internet phone package that was to give me a Flat rate of $90 per month and the first 6 months were to was to be $80. I was to receive a 7 mega pixal digital camera and the term of the contract was 3 years. April 25 2007 the telephone service was disconnected as per my request and I moved to the new community. AT this time I had a $401 credit with telus.
May 1, 2007 my phone service in Slave Lake was not working. I made a call to my spouse and asked him to call the house to make sure the phone was working. My Number was not working but he called the number on his call display and it rang in our house. A call into telus was made and I was advised that they could not turn on my phone because the last person in the home had not requested their service be turned off. After convincing Telus that I had purchased the home and was the owner they finally got my telephone turned on... oops, no they didn't. The phone still wasn't working. After several calls to telus, finally a service Rep came to the house to address the issue... He found a second business line in the house and determined telus had hooked up the incorrect line. He repaired that problem and on May 17, 2007 the phone finally worked. Still no internet. Calls to telus, the modem did not show up on may 3 2007 as promised. Low and behold I was told that the order was lost... So another contract same conditions except the camera was no longer offered, but I would get a new computer. This never arrived to this date. internet finally installed May 28, 2007.
The bills started coming in and they were incorrect. Month after month calls were made to telus to have the phone bills adjusted and fixed.
Issues with the bills
1) eventough the phone was disconnected in Grande Prairie (GP) I was still being billed for the service, along with the service for the Slave Lake (SL) phone service.
2) I was being billed for some equipment on a monthly basis and no one I spoke with @ telus could tell me what this equipment was. I had no equipment I had my own telephone and I had the modem that I was being charged for with my 3 year contract.
3) month after month adjustments were made to the bill but it was never corrected. At one point one of the telephone service reps advised that my billing was being sent to investigations to have it looked @ that that I would not receive any disconnection notices or hassling phone calls, so that the bill could be fixed.
4) In March of 2008 I ordered my phone disconnected in SL, I was moving out of Province to Ontario, No land line service available so I was given a $120 cancellation penalty for terminating the contract. I have no problem swallowing this cost. I asked them what to do with the modem @ that time and I was told it was mine and to keep it.
5) When I ordered the service disconnected I advised the telus rep that I would send a forwarding address and sit down and Go through the bills when I landed and send a letter and if I owed money I would send payment @ the same time. I did this on May 16, 2008. I know they got the letter because the bills came to the new address. Telus owed me a refund!!!
6) I was told by one of the Telus reps In early 2008 that my billing would be looked @ in August 2008, because telus had done some upgrades and that something happened and information was lost or crashed or something and that this billing problems affected so many customers that my billings were slated be reviewed until August 2008.
7) My services for SL were terminated as requested but I was still being billed for the GP services in August of 2008. This was the last written correspondence I received from Telus. I find to very strange that a person can still be billed monthly charges for a phone package that was disconnected @ a customers request a full 16 months earlier.
After this I never heard another thing from Telus... I just assumed that once they had reviewed my billings in August 2008 that the issues had been resolved and that I would receive a check in the mail.
Jump ahead 3 years January 11 2011 a notice was sent to me from CBV COLLECTION SERVICES. I never received this until March 10, 2011 (I had been in BC on an Urgent family matter for 3 months).
Low and behold a bill for $804.54. I called the number on the notice and connected with Bill Passineau. I asked him to to Speak with M. Duarte (the person named for me to contact). He would not transfer the call and advised me to make the payment. I explained that I did not owe this money and I wanted to talk to whoever I could to have this fixed. He told me if I paid $602.00 right away the debt would be wriiten off. I explained that I would not pay this bill and please put me through to someone who could help me. He told me I was a waste of his time if I wasn't going to pay the bill. He then offered me a another deal. Pay $438.00 and the bill would disappear. I refused, I told him if I paid on this bill I would be accepting responsibility for a debt I do not owe. He hung up on me. I called back hoping I could connect with someone else, no such luck I got Bill again. He told me he did not hang up on me that he told me to have a nice day before he terminated the call. This time he told me to write a letter and mail it to dispute the issue. I asked him who I should address the letter. He told me Just manager (I didn't need a name in his view), This is when I asked for his name, he asked why I needed his name & I told him I was planning to put him in the letter.
After this call I thought I would try Telus since this going to collections was their error maybe they could fix from their end. I found a telephone # for corporate office in Vancouver and called.
I was put through to customer service and spoke with an agent, She tried her best to help me however she did try to tell me she had no access to my information and that the credit agency bought the debt for $602.00 and that I needed to talk with them. After explaining my concerns further and being very frustrated she did manage to look up my bill and found one for February 2008. I think she was a little surprised when I had the bill in question, she wanted to point out the arrears and I wanted to talk about the charges that were on the bottom of the same bill for the GP phone Just under the charges for the SL phone. I explained to her the amounts I had paid and the credit I had going into the SL bill. At this time she advised that she would see if a manager would speak to me, because, she had no access to certain screens to help me further. She put me on hold. When she came back on the line she advised that Telus was out of it and that I would have to speak with CBV, a manager would not speak to me. I explained my issues with my contact @ CBV and that I did not get any satisfaction from the agency based out of ST. Laurent QC. She gave me the # of CBV Collection services head off ice in Vancouver and their address. She advised that that is where my account was sent and that they had all of the same info that telus had. I advised her to please tell the manager that did not have the time of day to speak to me, that If I did not have some kind of satisfaction on this matter in the next couple of hours that I would Go to the media, Internet and anyone else I could to try and straighten this matter out. I thanked her and hung up.
I put a call through to CBV in Vancouver 1-888-311-1121 and connected with COLM RENOLYDS. This person was very helpful, He told me I could just write and letter and send any pertinent information via email. I did not need to photo copy or Fax or mail. He told me to email the manager Rishi Singh. I spent the time to draft a letter and attach approximately 70 pages of documentation to to the email... because to be quite honest I was not at all confident that telus did give all of the information, This documentation was the phone bills I received from April 2007 through August 2008, the letter I had sent telus May 16, 2008 showing itemized calculations of of how I came up with a refund owing. I was told this matter would be resolved in a week to 10 days on the outside. I then contacted Telus corporate office and was again put through to the same customer service rep I spoke to the week before. I asked her for an email address because I planned to cc Telus the email that I had drafted to CBV. She advised she could not give out any names but would talk with a mangager to see if they would now talk to me and provide me with the info I needed to forward the email. I explained to her that if the matter had not been resolved on or before April 11 2011 that I take the matter wherever I need to and I planned also get some legal advise about filing a law suit to have this matter resolved. I was put on hold and this time lo & behold I was given a tracking# and a manager would return my call within 4 hours. I again had to apologize to her for my frustrations and thanked her for her help.
I did indeed get a call back from LORI, a manager in the escalation team,
She gave me her direct line 1-780-493-3438. She advised that she did not need the information I held because she had it all in front of her and to give her some time to sort through it and she would call me back the next day. I advised her that I would be out for part of the day and I authorized her to talk to my spouse. She said if no answer on the phone she would leave a detailed voicemail. I advised her that I was still forwarding the email to CBV because I really did not care who fixed this but I needed the item removed from my equifax and I needed the money telus owed me. I told her that the matter needed to be resolved before April 11, 2011. I explained to her if a person has a $400.00 credit and paid $977.00 from May 2007 through April 2008 that is $1377.00 and if a phone package for 11 months is that is only $930.00 add some GST, some alternate billing, a few collect calls and some loonie calls this doesn't even come close to $1377.00. So how anyone can come up with a outstanding bill of $800.00 is beyond me. I told her I have all of my bills and the letter I sent to them in May of 08. I have not heard from her since and I have since left 3 messages on her direct line.
I forwarded the email and the pdf files to Rishi @ CBV. I hadn't heard from him either. On April 7 2011 I made another call to CBV and spoke with a women named Analysa (not sure about the spelling) and she looked and she said there is no notation on my file so they did not get the email. I advised her that the information had been sent in 2 emails because the pdf attachment was to large and I had to create 2 pdf files to get the information attached, I told her that the emails had arrived because I did not get it back as undeliverable and I verified the email address for Rishi. I had it correct. She advised that I needed to send another email and not to include the attachments just to summerise the dispute and that someone would contact if required further info. was required. I explained to her that she needed to make a notation on the file the April 11 was the deadline to have this problem resolved or the matter would go to anywhere and everywhere and that I have supporting documentation for my claims, so I have no worries.
I did again write another email to CBV with a cc to Rishi. I explained that April 11 was still the deadline and that any further info could be obtained from me via email or phone or that they could just open up the first 2 emails and read the attachments.
So if anyone out there has the name of a lawyer that will help me if it comes down to it I would appreciate it. Maybe if enough of you out there have had similar experiences that have not been resolved we can file class action lawsuit or something. I don't know much about in ins and outs of filing a lawsuit, but my gut feeling is that will be happening in the very near future.
I will not attach my documents to this but if anyone is interested in seeing them I will send them to you, just request an email.
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