My new partner lives in Scotland, and since I still have a landline, i thought it best to go for the international $4.85/month "add-on option" to my current long-distance landline services. My landline bill is usually $78 + tax per month. i dealt with FIVE different agents in getting this add-on added to my services, yet not one single agent informed me me that there is also a VERY high per-minute charge to make these calls. Yes, i'm an older person and not completely convinced that mobile phones are the only way to go.... I also thought that, having been their customer with the same landline number for 20 years, this "add-on" would entitle me to free long distance international calls. WRONG, SO VERY WRONG. i found out the hard way when Bell blocked my long distance to anywhere (ontario, usa, etc) after only 2 weeks.. yes, my partner and i spoke many times over those two weeks, but Bell could have blocked my ability to call (and therefore, to investigate the situation) LONG before my bill hit the $2000.00 mark - YES, TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS. I just found out the amount, as Bell were unable to tell me any information about current billing before today. While i may be older, i am also a scholarship student, and now have to figure out a way to budget and make some arrangement. this amount is outrageous, i could have flown my partner here & back twice for this amount... sick to my stomach.

In January 2014 my boyfriend who we have been residing together for 18 yrs. had forgotten that he had already made a payment to Bell Canada for December 2013 bill, He made 1 payment on Jan. 7, 2014 for $103.00 and another on Jan.22, 2014 for $103.00 which gave us a credit of 103.25, Well Januarys bill reflected the double payment and a zero balance owing and a credit for the $103.25, I noticed that they had charged a late payment fee and thought it had to do with the fact that we were behind on payments but after receiving this months bill and noticing that they are charging late payment fees on our credit 103.25 I went back on the bill from Dec. and the amount owing was $102.75 to be paid by January 15, 2014. On Januarys bill dated the 26th they had charged $1.06 in late payment fees and on Feb. bill $1.03 late payment fees and we still have a credit of $33.66 which should really be $35.75 that's $2.09 that they are illegally charging us for late payment fees. So now they are charging us late payment fees on a credit that they owe us. So I called Bell Canada to speak to billing, spoke to a girl named Jennifer who tells me that because my name is not on the bill my boyfriend has to call, yet meanwhile believe me over the last 18 yrs. there has been more than just this issue and I have had to call them numerous times, I was so mad as he doesn't have time to deal with these issues, It's not like I was trying to change any services, just wanted them to fix the bill. So tonight when he gets home a call to bell will certainly be made and my name put on the bill so I can take care of these stupid issues.
I have to wonder how much they really owe us as he tends to always pay a couple of bucks more than the bill is.
How many other people do they do this to? A couple of bucks here and there from possibly a couple of million people, Wow that certainly adds up.

Ongoing issue number 2

My 75 yr. old Mothers bill, what an ongoing headache this has been 3 yrs. ago she moved to an apartment so I called bell Canada for a basic phone and T.V service I was quoted the price of the services for a phone and T.V. well every month for about 8 months I had to call them to adjust the bill as they were over charging her, I thought it was finally resolved but after speaking with her today she tells me how much her monthly bills have been and wouldn't you know it they are over charging her again. So now again I'll have to spend hours fixing up there mess.
I truly hope Bell Canada falls they don't deserve any ones business.
We will definitely be going with another phone provider because bell Canada has been nothing but a headache over the years.

Yesterday i purchased fibe tv line from bell.
Bell sent over 3 technicians
these three technicians "worked" practically all day from 9:30 am to 6pm and when they were done...hours later
I realized that they had stolen THOUSANDS of dollars worth of jewellery and watches from my family (now this is not from a lack of supervision or the placement of the items. they were taken from closed drawers and jewellery boxes.)
I called bell and the police where a report was taken....but not by bell
after countless calls and attempts at making reports and being yo-yo'd from one person to the other finally i got though to head office only to learn that not a single report had reached them.
Bell shows a complete disregard for the action of their employees and i am yet to see any action taken on their behalf.
All in all the ,message i am getting is...too bad so sad.
DO NOT LET THESE PEOPLE IN YOUR HOME and if you choose to then be prepared to spend the day watching closely enough to smell their breath. and you might want to practice being in three places at once considering the number of technicians they send out.
The items which were stolen are sentimentally irreplaceable.
If i cannot get any justice then atleast i can warn other people that they CANNOT be trusted.. because if something this unforeseeable happens to any of you... well...too bad, so sad.

I am making a claim in Small Claims Court against Bell Canada for over billing, failing to deliver a promised Internet speed and deliberately wasting my time in an attempt to discourage me from complaining. They over charged me by hundreds or thousands of dollars and refuse to give me back a nickel.

If you can send email that would help me to [email protected] or visit the site and use the contact form -- http://SeekPhone.info, I would very much appreciate it. Many people have complaints, but none have contacted that mail address yet.

I have assembled some information and am working on more to establish that my various complaints are not particular to me. Bell has a long-standing pattern of such abusive behavior going back at least a decade.

The BBB (notorious for NOT listing complaints against companies), shows hundreds of complaints against Bell. It gives Bell its lowest rating (F) of its thirteen different ratings. Amway, a company with a less than spotless public record has the highest possible rating (A). The number one complaint at the BBB is over billing.

I am looking for any material that people can supply that might help me with my claim and in particular to establish Bell's pattern of overcharging and dealing in bad faith. Any information you can supply as to the nature of the complaint, the investigation and resolution (if any) would be very much appreciated.

Just an Email with your story (mailto: [email protected]) would be helpful.

None of the agencies charged with oversight is doing its job, as far as I can tell. There are plenty of agencies that should have stopped this behavior and there is plenty of legislation to do it with. Despite that, after ten years of this, it goes on.

Here is an older CRTC decision that clearly shows that despite the obvious bad faith on Bell's part (you can see background at PIAC's site), the CRTC was unwilling to make a decision that would act as a deterrent to future abuse. The decision they made here still left some of Bell's victims over-charged. I would not be going to court now if the CRTC had done its job, because Bell would not have over-charged me in the first place. It is decisions such as this that has made illegal over charging a money-making proposition for Bell. (sic -- in one court decision, DeWolf Vs Bell, they were found to be in violation of the criminal code)

http://liveweb.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2004/dt2004-8.htm

For Bell, cheating customers is a net profit making activity even though they officially lose some (all as far as I can tell) of the formal challenges made against them.

Note that I contacted the CRTC quite some time ago with my complaints before during and after filing my claim against Bell. So far there has been no response at all from them.

I also contacted a cynical body (CCTS) that claims to be an impartial body that accepts and mediates complaints against a group of companies that includes Bell. It is funded entirely by the group it is charged with overseeing. Their (untimely) response to my complaint was to send me back an Email asking me to enter into a legal agreement before they would investigate. Whether by accident or design they sent me back a PDF file with their claim set up, with part of my information missing, part incorrect, and a status of
CLOSED. That is, they had closed my complaint prior to investigation.

Bell has a very well documented habit of essentially 'negative option billing' customers such as me. It is completely outside the bounds of acceptable business behavior. It would never be tolerated from most businesses. Bell, without my knowledge or permission, simply changed the rules by which it billed me and started billing me more than ten times (more than 100 times in one instance) the real value of what I was getting. This is a very common practice with them. In my case, it was contrary to an explicit agreement. However, I submit that no customer should ever have to continuously monitor a vendor to prevent the vendor from deliberately cheating them by suddenly over-charging, contrary to their original agreement. Bell is absolutely notorious for this.

Please be one of the few people that actually responds in a timely fashion. So far, despite plenty of postings and contacts to various people and agencies only two have responded. One was a columnist who has had numerous complaints sent to them about Bell and the other was someone who successfully sued Bell themselves. They are being very helpful. However, I am expecting Bell to defend very aggressively and would like as much evidence as possible to increase my chances of an award for punitive damages.

In my complaint, which is typical of complaints against Bell, Bell promised me a thing and delivered something else. They also promised me a price and charged me something else. When confronted the first
time, in 2005, they gave me *some* of my money back. The second time they did it, they offered me no compensation at all (it's worse -- see below).

Bell uses a variety of noxious practices. I would very much appreciate it if people could send along any stories and/or supporting material that would help me to establish this beyond doubt. These practices include:

# Improper Charges

# Cutting off Service

# Unauthorized Billing Increases and Changes.

# Threatening to cut off service resulting in fees (this is disallowed by legislation, but they threatened to do it to me anyway).

# Refusing to give a street Address and contact information. I was actually unable to ever get the name and street address where I could provably deliver court documents. I ended up delivering them to a Bell Store and half expect Bell to claim it never was served.

# Deliberately unpleasant/frustrating customer service. In one case, someone claims to have spend a thousand hours with them. I personally have had several weeks of time wasted and the number
continues to climb.

# Attempts to Frustrate -- "Customer Avoidance"

# Charging without consent. They just change the rules and slap the charges on your bill.

# Passing the buck in a deliberate effort to frustrate complainants.

# Over billing and billing issues

# A policy of aggressive upselling that includes complete falsehoods about the service offered. They do this as a matter of course constantly while pretending to deal with a complaint.

# They have policy of misrepresentation. For example, their bills read 'savings' highlighted and circled when they are charging the maximum rate -- ten times or more what customers usually pay. This is one of the ways they manage to over bill and get away with it for so long before people notice.

# Offering and charging for wrong Internet speeds. This is a particularly egregious practice. They offer and charge for 3-6Mb service on lines they know can carry much less. In one case personally known to me, this went on for years, during which the client complained. Bell finally admitted that the speed being charged was not possible on that line. No refund was offered.

# Harassing Calls -- Despite telling me on three different occasions *NOT* to pay my bill while they 'investigated', their collections people repeatedly harassed me. I am not alone in this.

# Offering fake reference numbers or refusing to give any reference that would allow you to prove a call took place.

# Constantly Broken Promises (more than a dozen in my case)

# Wasting customer's time

# Billing for services not installed. Some have been billed for services they did not even get and were still refused a refund.

# Broken refund promises. It is typical to initially offer a refund, 'up sell', provide and bill the 'up sold' service (but sometimes, as in my case, not even the one promised), and then deny a refund offer was ever made.

# False claims of 'investigations'. As in my case, people at call centers say they are starting an investigation when they do not even have the power to make notes on the file.

As you can see if you look around, there are many complaints similar to the above about Bell. However, I cannot thus far get any of these complainants to contact me directly so that I can make a credible claim in court that I have first-hand knowledge of the problems not being limited to me.

If you have a complaint about Bell, please get in touch. Whatever the court will allow me to publish, I will so that that you will have a better chance at getting some of your own money back.

I have been a loyal client of Bell, but I do not trust them anymore. They have made it a rule to break their promises, and also to over bill me more and more each month.
Recently, when I complained to their billing department, they presumed the client guilty! Then, they checked their records and found the proof about huge mistakes of Bell employees. Yet, they have not even apologized to me. Over a month later, they still have not corrected their mistakes, although their supervisor promised to do it immediately. I have never encountered such disrespectful treatment of clients in any other business in Canada.

August 9th I decided to contact Bell and get a price on switching my satellite service as I wasn't happy with Shaw. I spoke to a young man and he gave me a price on bundling my services. Satellite, home phone and internet services. We went over in detail the services I would recieve and the price it would cost me. I asked him if there would be any hidden costs and he assured me that was the price. He gave me a confirmation number and I decided to switch. Upon recieving my first bill I was stunned to see that they were charging me $130.00 more than what I was quoted. I have been trying for weeks to straighten this out as each department has no idea what the other one is doing. I now just recieved by second bill and I am now overcharged over $200.00 What they promised me and what I am getting are not even close. I can't understand the people I am talking too. Now I am stuck in a contract. Beware Of Bell Canada!!!

I have been a loyal client of Bell. But they do not appreciate clients anymore. They have made it a rule to break their promises. Also, they are over billing me on a regular basis. Recently, when I called their billing department, they presumed the client guilty. Then, they checked their records and found the proof that it was the fault of their employees. Bell did not even apologize to me, and more than a month later, they have not corrected their mistakes.

I have been on the phone with Bell for hours on end the past couple of weeks, came home one day to no home phone, and no internet, was told it would be two days before anyone could even have a look at it, I work out of my home on the phone and internet so there goes working for two days. That phone call took 2 1/2 hours after being disconnected and transfered and waiting times on hold. Once it was finally fixed, at a street box the repair person said it took a couple of minutes he didn't understand why I had to wait 2 days, he was in the neighbourhood the day before. He didn't even have to come into our house to do any of the work. Our satellite service is horrible, it pixelates constantly of course there is nothing that they can do, we call and they tell us it could be the PVR but since we own it we will have to pay for the service call, we don't own it and that is the reason why but it seems to be too difficult for them to make that change in our account although when it comes to the monthly billing they never seem to forget to bill us for it. I tried to return a satellite receiver that we are no longer using to our local Bell store, nope not possible because they actually don't communicate with Bell???? I had to call and request a return, it will be 5 business before the box I need is sent to me, but I have already received the threatening email that says they will charge me for the receiver if it is not returned within so many days. I TRIED TO RETURN IT THEY WOULDN'T TAKE IT. The other receiver we have took 3 days and 3 phone calls to get it working, I guess if you don't use it on a regular basis they will disconnect it, oh you still pay for it, it just doesn't work anymore. July 1st my husbands cell phone was stolen from his car, the first thing I did was call Bell to have it disconnected, well it was quite amusing to receive a crank call from that same phone last night (July 17th), it took 4 calls to Bell to finally get a person on the phone, the first three times I just got "Thank you for calling Bell" click. The tech could see that the request was put in on July 1st but has no idea why is wasn't disconnected. Were there any charges? Who knows, he nor customer service this morning are able to tell because they are closing off the bill and it will be 2 weeks before they can do anything about it, I believe that will be about the time they have already taken the money out of my account. Oh by the way it was made perfectly clear that we still have to pay for the service even though we had it disconnected, well at least we tried to have it disconnected. Fax line well that wasn't near as bad, they were nice enought to tell me we had a second line coming in and the number for it so we could use it as a dedicated fax line, well in true Bell fashion they did not actually set the line up so that it could be used as a dedicated fax line, so once again that required more calls to Bell to get that straighened out. And why is it even after you have been transfered for the third time do you have to verify who you are and give them your address?

My home phone number is 450-455-9446 and no one on my street has received there bill. Where is my hard copy of my bill????

Why do I or any of the people on my street have not received our bill from you ????