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The Day Telus Cut Me A Cheque

By crooky | April 27, 2008

I checked my mail this morning and much to my surprize, something that looked like a cheque from Telus flashed before my eyes. My heart quickened. My pulse raced. Visions of rounding errors and villas in Mexico ran through my head. As I tore the envelop asunder, I found this:

$1.23??? Seriously?

Here’s the back-story: I ditched Telus as a service provider in every way, shape and form back in May, 2007. The reason? Back in Spring, 2007, my family and I moved out of our 900 sqft apartment into a 2000 sqft townhouse. There was a bit of a hiccup in the real estate deal and it turned out we were going to be homeless for two weeks in between leaving the apartment and moving into the townhouse.

To say that this was a logistical nightmare is an understatement. I’m still dealing with paperwork from that move. However, I was very organized with the utilities. I phoned them all in advance and let them know that I would be moving, that there would be a gap in my services and that I needed everything to be working on the day I moved in - heat, light, power and of course, Internet.

Telus brags about how good they are at moving people’s accounts. Evidence A:

“Moving is easier with Telus”??? Compared to what? Trying to move with no arms and no legs? I phoned them over three weeks before the move to let them know the situation and had the NERVE to request a change in my phone/internet plan - specifically, I wanted the Internet but I wanted to ditch the phoneline (a.k.a. “bare” ADSL).

They said “no problem” and mailed me a new router/modem for my bare ADSL account and to thank me for being a loyal customer for the past decade. They assured me that when I moved in, the Internet would be working. I emphasized that this was important because I was switching to VOIP for my telephone service and I really needed it working when I moved in.

The move was a headache but I thought “thank god I arranged to have all of those utilities moved over in advance so that I will be able to get down to work right after moving in”. I’d been on vacation for two weeks! I was behind on my work. Plug in modem on Day 2 - no Internet. Day 3 - no Internet. Day 4 - no Internet. You get the picture.

Two weeks of service calls later and they agreed to send out a technician. He comes and digs around and apparently, there’s nothing wrong. Another week of this and I’ve had it. I call them up, tell them to cancel everything and that under no circumstances would I be paying any bills for services since moving because they hadn’t provided any services.

This is where the fighting started. I get my first bill from them after moving - for $500. That new modem they sent me “for free”? They billed me for it. They also billed me for two months’ worth of Internet and phone service that I didn’t get. I mailed them back their fucking modem and they took about $300 off the bill but still refused to waive the fees for services that I did not receive. In that bill was not only services I didn’t receive but a $45 move charge.

I steadfastly refused to pay the bill for months until they sent a collections agent after me. Fine. I paid the fucking bill because I didn’t want my credit rating damaged by these assholes. Now, I’ve closed my account, paid the fucking extortion fees and THEY STILL KEEP SENDING ME BILLS! This time, they’re for a credit of $0.45 or something stupid like that.

This goes on for the better part of a year until today when, I guess they woke up and realized that I wasn’t coming back as a customer (LOL) and cut me a cheque for the money they owed me. My small victory is that they’ve probably paid 10x that much to mail me bills telling me that they owe me less than a dollar for the last year.

So, to summarize - Telus sucks dick. I’m now a Shaw Cable customer and they’ve been amazing. I went to them after finally giving Telus the finger and they had me online in 2 hours after I called them. This included a trip to their store to pick up the free modem they gave me (Telus made me buy mine).

I’m looking for creative suggestions as to where I should spend this winfall of $1.23. I wonder if they’ll cash it at Money Mart.

Update on May 2, 2008: Hey Telus, if you’re reading this and you think I’m being unfair, you shouldn’t have sold my contact information to third parties. I did not agree to it and I know it was you because you spelled my first name wrong on my account (”Arron Cruikshank”). I get no less than five pieces of junk mail a week thanks to you. FUCK YOU.
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Aaron “Crooky” Cruikshank is the Principal and Founder of Friuch Consulting. He has written professionally about science and technology for ten years.

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Topics: Levity |

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