An Example of Horrible Customer Service by Telus
I really don’t like to talk negatively about any company or person but today I’m making an exception about Telus (I don’t think I’ve actually ever really done this before). I just finished a good 1-2 hour call with their customer service department about my last bill and I was very angry and frustrated. I know I should wait a day or two to publish this but I’m going to break my self imposed rule because of the insanity of it all.
It started about 3-4 months ago when I bought myself a new Palm Treo 700wx from Telus (one of the bigger telco’s in Canada). It’s a great looking phone that was going to serve all my needs (top of the line). What I need from my cell phone is the ability to talk on it and read my emails (very simple). I still enjoy getting email messages sent to my phone about my daily sales, etc. Nothing too crazy, no more than a few messages a day (summaries, etc.). That being said, this phone was going to be perfect. I got the data connection for 4mb/month for $20-25/month (I can’t remember the exact price). There’s no way checking my emails every 60 minutes would use up 4mb of bandwidth a day, assuming most of the time there’s no new emails and those that do come in are summaries of at most 10-100 characters.
As part of the package I got they also gave a discount of $400 on the PDA bringing it down to $200 (with a three year contract). As well they gave me free unlimited bandwidth for the first three months so I could test out the internet. I was excited to get my new phone.
Within a week or so later I noticed that about a third of the time the person on the other of the line couldn’t hear me when we initially connected. This is annoying to say the least!!! So I went back to the store and they were more than happy to exchange my phone with a new one. Great. The downside was that it was going to take at least a week since they had to order in a new one because they couldn’t just exchange it for what was on the shelve. I don’t understand but fine, I can go along with that since I get to keep the current one in the interim, with calls with no voice and all.
A week goes by and I get my new phone. At first everything seemed to work well but within a month again the same problem. Many times the other person can’t hear me. So I started to surf the net about this problem and it appears to be very common with this phone. No one is doing anything about it, no firmware/software upgrades, nothing. And you can’t really change phones without paying the full price of the PDA (ie. the $400 difference). Not only that but the phone crashes at least once every other day forcing a hard reboot. This is not uncommon. So in the meantime I’ve decided to wait a bit for a firmware update. Still nothing as of today (I just checked).
Now you’d think the story ends here, but this is just the tip of the iceberg, the really interesting part is just about to begin! My three months of unlimited bandwidth have ended and now I’m on the 4mb/month data plan. I haven’t really been monitoring my traffic because its not accurate. I did try to surf on the net when the bandwidth was free to see how it all worked, which was interersting, but because of this I knew that my current bandwidth usage wasn’t indicative of my email usage. So I didn’t even bother to check the numbers. Either way, once the unlimited bandwidth was over I only checked my email every 60 minutes for 1-5 messages a day with 10-100 words of content. Nothing that’s bandwidth intensive. Nothing that should use many megabytes of data month. So you think…
Last week I received a bill for a whopping $406.71!!! How come? Because I used 86Mb of bandwidth to check my 50-100 email messages a month. Yes, that’s right, its not a mistake. I immediately called Telus which led to the conversation I just finished with their customer service representative a few minutes ago. The first thing I questionned was the accuracy of this bandwidth usage. It made no sense at all, 86mb a month to check and read 50-100 emails… He confirmed it, I was using about 4mb of bandwidth a day to check my emails. I told him that was impossible, that it didn’t make any sense at all. At this point I was put on hold for about 10 minutes as he confirmed something with the technicians. When he returned he told me that each email check would cost me about 100kb of bandwidth, regardless if there’s any email or not. This is completely laughable. At those numbers, checking your email and finding there’s none is transffering more data than a complete 100 page MS Word document. How much data does it take to say you have no new emails. Not 100kb.
Not only that, but if that’s true, doing some quick math, it would cost me 50-100mb of bandwidth a month just check my emails once an hour! If you do the numbers, where we know people check about 5-10 minutes in a corporation, that would be about 500mb a month per user (not counting the email content). The math makes no sense, the bandwidth costs would bankrupt everyone. Later in our phone conversation after a few more technical support discussions, he did admit that these numbers made no sense and that 4mb per month should be ample for my usage. But it didn’t really help to solve the issue and took a lot of pushing for him to even admit that.
In any case, after I explained to him several times that this wasn’t possible, he said that the bandwidth was coming from my cell phone. They had the serial number of the cell phone registered. I told him specifically that I didn’t use the net to surf but only for those emails. After about 10-20 iterations of exactly this (how many times can you tell someone you’re not surfing the internet)I finally convinced him to call the technicians to see what kind of bandwidth was being used. He came back and told me that at least half of my bandwidth was directly from surfing the net on Internet Explorer on the cell phone. He called out several dates, including yesterday, the day before, etc. Basically he said every day I surfed for at least 2-3mb on my phone. I told thim this isn’t possible. He then insisted it happened or that someone else was using my phone to do this. The phone is attached to my hip. It’s not possible.
So what’s going on? What’s causing this? I’d like to know to. The technician just kept insisting I was using my phone to surf everyday. So right there on the phone, I removed the check every 60 minutes to see what would happen (and killed all running applications). Now before I proceed, please note that when you connect to check emails, the phone doesn’t disconnect right away, it sometimes stays connected. That’s ok as no data is being transmitted, hence no bandwidth costs. Going back, I just confirmed with him that I had nothing connecting to the internet. Within a minute the phone connects back to the internet. I check with him on the phone the list of active applications. Nothing is open. I manually disconnect. Within another minute or two it connects again. We both have no idea why. I repeat this several times and I can see he’s wondering why but won’t admit it for obvious reasons. I ask him if he can check with his technician if there’s any activity going on right now with the phone to which he strongly insists he can’t. So here we have a connection that’s being monitored, that I can’t close, and he can’t tell me if there’s any data moving back and forth. Great…
At this point I ask him if there’s a way I can force it not to automatically connect, or at least something to monitor what the phone is doing (some kind of utility that will give me something). He says no. The only thing I can do is to either delete the connection completely (and hence continue paying for a service I can’t use) or to turn off the whole phone which is even worse as I get nothing. I simply cannot set the phone to only manually connect, it’s all or nothing.
After a few minutes of this he then tells me he wants to check something and goes away for another 10-15 minutes. When he comes back he tells me that it shouldn’t matter anyways, that no data is going back and forth when the connection is idle. I then remind him again of the 4mb I’m suposedly using each day. He doesn’t really know how to respond, so he repeats himself again about the idle connection. Then he proceeds to suggest that I should upgrade my data plan to a higher more expensive plan to cover my usage where I’ll pay another larger amount per month each and every month. I quickly explain to him that he’s not only asking me to pay for something I’m not using each month, but to pay more for it! To pay another $60/month for something I’m not doing. Not only that it might cover my current usage, I have no guarantees that more bandwidth won’t be used since I’m not the one doing this. He confirms this and suggests an even higher plan where were getting to $100/month or more. Again I explain to him that he’s asking me to pay for something I’m not using!
He then suggests I reset my phone, to do a complete reset in case there’s a software issue (I’ve not installed any third party software). I can accept this, but what if the issue persists. I’ll be going over my plan each day. So I ask him the cost whereby he looks it up and confirms it will about $50/day extra should it persist with the same bandwidth usage. I ask him if theres something we can do so I don’t get charged $50/day should the problem persist. Remember this is my second phone because of defects and I’m experiencing problems again, my faith in a replacement phone is extremely low, especially when it’s going to be out of my pocket at $50/day. He goes back to suggesting a higher plan to cover the full bandwidth should it continue ($100-$150/month). I ask him about getting real time bandwidth usage data or a technical person to assist us. He informs me this is not possible and that the bandwidth usage information will be delayed by at least 48 hours. He guarantee by how much exactly.
At this point I’m thinking this is getting nowhere and I just want out of the whole thing. I can live without my email notifications if this is the cost so I ask him if I can just cancel the data connection ($25/month part of the plan) where he informs me that with the phone I purchased this is not possible for at least a full year. At this point, my options are extremely limited and I have no idea what to do.
My options are:
- Keep the current phone (where on a third of the calls people can’t hear me) and delete the internet connection completely. I continue to pay $25/month for 10 months ($250) for a service I can’t use because it’s broken.
- Keep the current phone (where on a third of the calls people can’t hear me) and reset it hoping it works. If all goes well no extra costs and I’m happy. If something goes wrong I pay $50/day for at least 2-3 days ($100-$150 minimum, probably more) before I can even tell if there’s a problem. And then I disconnect the internet completely and try again for another round of costs.
- Keep the current phone (where on a third of the calls people can’t hear me ) and get a much higher plan paying $100-$150 more a month to cover the additional bandwidth costs ($1500 for the remainder of this year alone) and figure out the issue. Minimum cost is $150 if I’m lucky and I can resolve it in a month.
- Return the phone and try one of the above (same prices).
- Return the phone and get a non-PDA phone where I have to pay the $400 difference and save $250 in data costs (paying $150).
In no case can I guarantee I won’t pay at least $150 more (probably more) for something I didn’t do!!! Think about that. That’s insane! No matter what I’ll be charged at least $150 to figure out what’s wrong. I explain this to him, that he’s given me no good options, only terrible ones. This is EXTREMELY poor customer service to say the least. I’m absolutely not impressed. He can’t find another solution and he’s at a lost for words. He quickly restates the options, says he put a note on my file, and quickly says a very polite goodbye (I will admit he was very polite and friendly throughout the whole discussion). And I can’t blame him for wanting to end the call quickly, I’m pretty much left with only horrible options.
I will also admit that he did go ahead and offer to credit me the $400 amount when I was listing these options. But he also let it slip that for this month I was already at about $200-$300 in additional bandwdith charges! I asked him if we could also credit this balance to which he answered no. He could not credit this additional amount. Same problem same issue but he couldn’t (or wouldn’t) do it. So I’m going to be out another $200-$300 on top of my costs to figure out this issue (probably another $150-$250). They can’t help me with that. Talk about poor customer service. At the very least if you can’t credit me (knowing there is an issue) than at least help me solve it without charging me more money! Horrible horrible customer service
At this point I just don’t know what I’ll do. I’m going to sit on it for a day or so. I’ve already completely disconnected the internet so I’m now being charged for a service I can’t use.
I’m just completely amazed and apalled at the customer service of Telus. It’s beyond ridiculous. Will I ever go back to Telus once my contract is done? NO. Will I ever refer anyone? NO. But worse yet is that they got me upset enough to publish my story here because I want to help prevent others from getting caught in a similar mess. And if you look at the reach of this blog, the amount of money they were able to extract from me will cost many multiples more in negative PR than they’re getting!
*** UPDATE ***
To give you a better idea of the scale of this issue, up until I was credited the $400, this would have been a $950 issue at a minimum: $400 (current balance) + $300 (next balance) + $250 (cost to resolve the issue) minimum. It’s now a $550 issue.
*** UPDATE 2 ***
I’ve sent emails yesterday to two of Telus’ main PR contacts from their website and still haven’t received a response from either… If you have any suggestions who else I should contact please let me know.
*** FINAL UPDATE ***
You can find the conclusion of this story on my follow up article: “Telus Customer Service“
· May 13th, 2007 · 2:11 am · Permalink
Perhaps your account is still tied to the old phone you returned and someone is using the heck out of it?
The customer support sucks either way though.
I once had a friend who had a fight with a wireless company. Although his check for his payment got cashed the money didn’t get credited to his account and on top of that they add a charge saying since he hadn’t payed that his account was canceled and he now owed a cancellation fee.
He finally convinced them that he had payed and they credited his account in that amount, but strangely they claimed he still owed the cancellation fee!!
· May 13th, 2007 · 8:53 pm · Permalink
Hi Leroy,
Actually this the first phone I use with a data plan, so my guess is it’s probably something else. The phone has been flaky since day one, and it continues to try to reconnect to the internet all the time, even when I don’t do anything… My guess is there’s something bigger that’s wrong. The problem is that I can’t debug it without absorbing the costs and that’s just not right!
· June 6th, 2007 · 9:07 pm · Permalink
Telus’ customer service is absolutely horrible.. And they always try to deny you any credit or deny to transfer you to somebody who is more capable of making decisions such as these.
I was in this terrible loop with telus about internet services, which I did not have at my new condo, but they continued to bill me even though I called in asking to close my account. They do not keep accurate records (aka notes on your file) about your conversation or agreements over the phone. The only pleasant representative I spoke to was a lady whom I stupidly did not ask to get her name. She told me that she understood my situation, it was ridiculous if I paid these charges, and kindly credited me these charges back. However this was after weeks of phoning in and being told to “wait” 24-48 hours for a manager to call me about this situation. SADLY, these phone calls (she called my Telus cell phone) are not recorded.
I was shocked to hear that some of thse phone calls were not recorded or stamped or have no mention at all on my file. Eventually I had to start the cycle again, starting from the bottom (phoning the 310 number), getting a brand new rep, explaining my situation for the umpteenth time and being told to wait 24-48 hours for a manager to call me. During this time, I received a notice from Telus’ Collection Agency that I need to pay this outstanding balance on the 29th of May. Finally I was contacted by a manager who indirectly called me a liar after I explained these “mysterious” phone calls to my cell. And I was also left with the outstanding balance to pay and no solution. I even asked if I could get credited due to my circumstance. No dice. Not even for a poor student.
I can’t give any great advice except only that you record your conversations with telus yourself, by tape recorder or writing, so you have evidence of things.
Best of luck to you, and I hope this situation gets resolved
· June 10th, 2007 · 2:02 pm · Permalink
Telus has demonstrated for a while now that they put profits ahead of customer service, keeping jobs in Canada, and keeping their word. Are you familiar with their recent attempts to claim copyright over private videos and TV newscast criticizing them?
https://itschironboy.blogspot.com/
Part of the reason their customer service sucks as bad as it does is that employees cost money. Your complaints may very well have been handled overseas.
· June 13th, 2007 · 2:43 am · Permalink
I don’t have a suggestion, but I have a similar, behind-the-scenes, story to tell.
I’m a microISV now, but earlier I used to be a game developer for mobile phones. On one assignment, I was coding a game for one of the top mobile phone manufacturers.
The game had a “leaderboard” feature, where if you thought you had a good score, you could upload the score to the leaderboard operated by the mobile network operator(s). While coding this feature, I noticed something very curious in the specifications – apart from sending the player’s scores, we were also supposed to send a lot of data which NEVER changed. This size of this redundant data was about 5-10 times the size of the actual “high scores.” This seemed a very obvious wastage of bandwidth, and I asked the Project Leader about it. He was an employee of the handset manufacturer, and he told me that *** ==> this was deliberate, because mobile network operators would prefer to promote a handset that caused larger bandwidth-usage bills to be generated.
· June 13th, 2007 · 9:29 pm · Permalink
Based on some of the comments you guys have already made, never mind the personal conversations I’ve had offline, I suspect that this will be a lengthy issue to deal with. I expect to make the next phone call sometime this week to deal with the second large payment…
Also, since I’ve last written about this I’ve turned off all data connections. The only weird thing is that as soon as I reset the phone (power, etc.), it automatically resets my internet connection. Even if I change the username and password so that it fails to connect, it fixes this and starts connecting. So I’m always extremely careful when turning on and off the phone.
I don’t know what I’ll do to resolve this issue either, we’ll see soon enough. I’ll post an update after my next call.
· June 23rd, 2007 · 5:20 pm · Permalink
[…] A little over a month ago I wrote an article entitled “An Example of Horrible Customer Service by Telus” describing my recent experiences with Telus and my cell phone. Today I’m writing the follow-up of what actually ended up happening. […]
· June 23rd, 2007 · 10:02 pm · Permalink
For those of you interested, you can now find the conclusion to this saga on my updated story: Telus Customer Service.
· September 26th, 2007 · 7:47 pm · Permalink
I lost my service and tried relentlessly for 3 days to contact someone at Telus that could provide the service to repair my internet and phone. I was driven to frustration by the circular automated answering service. Even when I hit “0” and actually got a real person they would talk down at me as if I was speaking in tongues. I finally gave up and decided to cancel my internet and phone service with Telus. Then the frustration escalated as the service reps not only misled me but openly lied to me about what was happening.
In a last ditch effort I spoke to a rep who belittled me over the phone and said your service is cancelled but we will send you a final bill for the equipment you have, I was told the bill would be $128.12 but when they received the ADSL I would be refunded $105.09 ( they lied again) I went to the post office and sent the equipment back to Telus. Then I received another bill for $128.12 less 25.83 for service to Jul. 29/07 when the service was lost on JUL 20/07 and no credit for the returned equipment. Now Telus is constantly harassing me for $102.29 and adding on late charges every month.
There must be a class action lawsuit against Telus somewhere, I WANT TO JOIN THIS LAWSUIT>
· September 28th, 2007 · 8:44 pm · Permalink
Hey Steph,
I just read your article I am going through the EXACT SAME THING. same phone same everything. Luckily they credited my account for the data usage (I didn’t have a free 3 month unlmited plan)
All I did was check gmail every 30 minutes and it would use 4megs a day or something ridiculous like that. I’ll have to check the bill for exact numbers.
Please contact me regarding this. I’m afraid to see what next months bill has in store for me
I’ve completely disabled gmail only was it can check is if I enter the username and password
· September 29th, 2007 · 1:53 pm · Permalink
To be honest D, I don’t know what else I can tell you… My story actually has another whole chapter which I didn’t publicly air but gets even worse than what I posted. I did however record all the telephone conversations, which are very interesting!!!
That being said, I’ve decided at this point to take the loss and move on. What I ended up doing was changing phones to a basic cheap phone. You would think I could return the other phone and get my money back, but it doesn’t quite work that way (I won’t get into details here). I just ate the loss and moved on. I didn’t want to deal with it anymore.
I’m sure if I shared my final story there would be even more outraged people. Especially if I posted the recorded conversations I had as I moved up the command chain. I’m just at a point where it’s no longer worth it. I lost several hundreds of dollars and thankfully it’s all over now (I hope…). I will never ever go get another plan or phone from Telus. I will never recommend it to anyone. I will do my best to avoid any corporate plans I see linked to Telus. It’s been a horrible experience.
And to think of the money they spend on acquiring new customers when it would have been much much cheaper to do right by their existing customers…
· October 6th, 2007 · 3:44 am · Permalink
I recently went through a poor customer service experience with TELUS. I recently purchased a Motorola Q, and was wondering about data plans. The rep was telling me about Pay-Per-Use data, and how much it costs. He told me that it costs $32 per MB, but If I only used 1000 KB it would be $1. I figured I could afford that, but I was weary of whether that was true or not. Next day, I went to myTELUSmobility.com to look at my charges for data. I had used 791 KB. and it said… $26???! WHAT!
This is ridiculous. I called up TELUS immediately. They were fakely sympathetic that one of their crappy client care reps misinformed me badly. Turns out you pay for the % of a MB you use. for 512 KB, it costs $15.00.
They didn’t even give me a credit for their own screwup. I have quite an expensive bill already, and TELUS isn’t giving me anything but bullcrap.
Now, The Q broke. It stopped making calls. We take it in to the TELUS store (this was a week ago, Saturday Sep 29th.) They promised it by Tuesday. When it was Wednesday and I hadn’t heard anything from them I called them up to see what the dealio was. Apparently she’s “sorry” and forgot to fill out paperwork which she needed to submit. That’s gonna take a few days. Did I mention I was not offered a loaner? I really wish I woulkd have goine to my regular TELUS dealer, but this one was closer. So now I’m phoneless. I’m paying $40 for voice, and another $16 for features. Back to TELUS. The person at the TELUS store told me to call TELUS loyalty and retention. Fair enough, maybe I can bitch a P4000 out of them.
This is where this story gets interesting.
Thanks for calling TELUS L&R…
Hi, I have gone through quite a big experience through getting my motorola Q fixed. You’re the people who handle the repairs, and one of your dealers managed to screw something as simple as a form up, so now it’s taking forever to get my Q replaced.
Why did you even call loyalty and retention? We can’t do anything..
Well, that’s just plain terrible service, because I’m paying quite a fee for your quite subpar service…
Sir, would you be interested in cancelling your contract with TELUS Mobility?
Well, I just spend $300 on a device that works with TELUS, TELUS, and only TELUS, what do you think?
Sir, there’s no need for sarcasm…
Well, apparently TELUS finds the need to provide crappy service that happens to be VERY expensive…
Sir is there anything I can do for you?
Yeah, give me my month of service free and give me a HTC P4000.
I can’t do either of those things
May I ask why?
Because you don’t deserve it, you’re being impatient sir.
TELUS didn’t give me a loaner device, and a cellphone is quite an important thing in my life.
Oh, you’re not on a loaner?
No..
Sorry sir, I still can’t help you.
You sure about that, you sounded like you could?
Uhhhhhh… no…
I’m pretty sure you’re lying to me…
Oh, ok you’d be right, you were being kind of rude to me…
Why wouldn’t I be? I have every right to, after TELUS treated me like crap.
I guess that is true…
Unfortunately sir I can’t give you a loaner, we’re over the phone
well of course…
but you should go to your telus store and demand a replacement.
yeah, that’s what I wanted to hear.
thanks for choosing TELUS
Yeah, long convo, but I got something out of her, and she told me what I wanted to hear. It’s pretty poor customer service to be lying to your customers. Either way, the TELUS store won’t replace it. Or give me a loaner.
Love ya bunches, TELUS!!!! >_
· January 30th, 2008 · 4:15 pm · Permalink
Steph, thanks for airing this great article! I dislike Telus to the tenth degree, worst company I have ever dealt with. I’m in the middle of being on hold, and moved around to dept because no one can answer my question or deal with my issue. The strains of “Memories” singing on the line make me want to pull out my hair and scream! Ok, a bit dramatic, but Telus makes me crazy. The reps are inept socially unaware idiots. Best! Leanne
· April 24th, 2008 · 4:16 pm · Permalink
Hi there,
Just posted a blog about Telus and how much their “customer service” sucks and I’ve linked the post to your blog.
If you read my blog and you don’t want to be associated with it, please let me know and I’ll remove the reference.
http://www.stupid-files.blogspot.com
· April 27th, 2008 · 12:50 pm · Permalink
Hi,
I just read your story and it seems you had a lot of fun. Seven people is a lot to get to someone who can handle the issue. Of course, if you look at their competition it’s not much better. And that’s why it continues, there are few alternatives. At least for now…
· May 30th, 2008 · 6:38 pm · Permalink
darren.entwistle@telus.com
He’s the president.
· June 12th, 2008 · 7:00 am · Permalink
First off, after a couple of weeks of going out of my mind at having all 3 services,…phone(simple land line, absolutely no frills!),cable T.V.(1st modem had to be re-
placed and the remote still malfunctions!) and Internet(never seen so much junkmail in my entire life!!!)(and all newly installed I might add!),screw up repeatedly…..I got a bit threatening and got finally through to this guy [—Edited to remove contact information for legal reasons—]
I didn’t know I had so much company, so many fellow sufferers! What in God’s name can they be thinking?!? Don’t they know the competitions stiff?
I’d be interested to know what their market share in the 3 Western Provinces is? I expect it’s pitiful, at least in B.C.
I think that what gets me the worst is when you talk to somone in customer service or in tech support and they say they’re going to do something and it just doesn’t get done!! I’d find it impossible to work there knowing I was depending on at least one other fellow employee who I probably don’t even know to make good on my promises to customers and also knowing that the chances were good that that faceless fellow employee was just as likely to make a liar out of me!
Strange as it might seem, I hope they manage to get their proverbial cah cah together because, for me, at least the rates are competitive and I’ve no desire to be always shopping the market and having to jump from one provider to another every 3 or 6 months or 1 year ’cause I can’t afford not to!
· June 12th, 2008 · 9:33 pm · Permalink
Hi Paul,
Just to let you know I removed the contact information of the person you suggested we all contact for potential legal reasons. It’s ok to express negative views about a company, but I’d prefer not to specifically direct people to a specific employee (unless it’s for very amazing service) on this blog.
I hope that you’ve been having better luck since you posted your comment. Unfortunately you’re not the only one to experience serious issues with these service providers.
· October 13th, 2008 · 4:34 pm · Permalink
Hi Paul!
I thought I let you know Telus does not take responsiblility for damaging computers when their people say shut down security services and I got in one hell of a fight with them. I also tried to change phone companies and found out in 2007 that Telus interfered with the phone line transfered I kicked them out of my place and told them if they do not admit to these charges they do not get paid. They are very sneaky. I have learned the account was turned over to a collection agency in the last week. I am calling heavy handed and crossed the line. E-mails went to the CRTC and Business Bureau. I am also considering filing charges against Telus because they wrecked my arm as a result of the damage to my computer which I have since replaced.
· January 20th, 2009 · 4:16 pm · Permalink
Ok Guys
ENOUGH….. i had SHAW for years and yes they are a HORROR show
1. They dropped a screwdriver on the motherboard – nothing was done and I had to buy a new computer before the plug and play days
2. They had terrible reception of cable – it was always the house I lived in and funny that – I moved four times while I was with them
3. They rip you till you are blind with their HDD
4. If your cable goes down or hydor goes out you are SOL for phone service
5. They sent my final bill to collections after 45 days – i was told when I closed the acct that there was no outstanding bills they sent it to collections for EIGHTEEN DOLLARS
6. Their phone service was irregular their internet worse depending on where you live it is NOT a direct pipe into your home has to go through a neighbourhood hub first and then farmed to your pipe.
TELUS has worked hard in 18 months to clean up CS. It’s a committment from Darren the CEO. He actually encourages clients to let him know of the short comings. Now I totally question people when they do not ask for a supervisor or manager to speak to or return their calls. you know I have read these entries and the anger just pours out… is that how you all talk to CS folks They are in call centres listening to complaints so walk in theri shoes for a bit. How would you honestly deal with your anger and venom spewing out??
TELUS mobility is a separate arm of the co. The stores you go to are NOT TELUS employees they are resellers adn are at the mercy of the TELUS mobility. They follow rules too and its NO different than Rogers or Bell.
When you call a mobility call centre you are connected in Canada, When you call TV you are connected in Canada, when you call phone service landline you are connected in Canada, when you call for ADSL you are connected in canada AND/OR Phillipines ONLY. If you have TV you never ever call ADSL or landline again ALWAYS CALL TV line. That one trumps them all – your service is rapid and their staff knowledgeable.
How do I know this? I too have been through the pain. BUT in the long run I spoke to many many people and ESCALATED when I needed to and along the way spoke to staff in the Call centres and learned some of the mysterious policies and ways that make up TELUS. They have also been through some major changes in their internal systems and standardizing and upgrading so notes are there and not going cyber space.
I speak for myself and many many others TELUS is a far better deal compared to SHAW for TV and internet services.
· January 20th, 2009 · 9:29 pm · Permalink
NURSE ONE you need a Doctor you are sooooo full of it. You must work for Tellus as real Tellus customers are switching to other companies because HELLUS is the crapiest service and rip off scam artists around.
They are corporate bloodsuckers.
· January 26th, 2009 · 10:20 pm · Permalink
EMAIL The President of Telus!
darren.entwistle@telus.com
I email him directly every time I have a problem. Suffice to say, I no longer have problems….
· July 6th, 2009 · 1:46 pm · Permalink
NurseOne, i am not sure who you talked to at Telus, but I have just gotten off the phone with 4 different Telus “customer service agents” all within the same support group. (about 2 hours on the phone) I had asked to speak to a manager SEVERAL times, and the only responses I received were “Managers are not trained to take phone calls” (way to make them sound smart…) or (i like this one) “i do not have the ability to transfer you to a manager, i can transfer you to someone in my support team, but they will tell you the same thing” i had also told them i will be cancelling my plan, to which they replied “sorry to hear that” They would rather loose me as a customer then to pass me to a manager to resolve my issue (mine is a payment issue)
I am not sure how you escalated your issue, but it is impossible. Either that, or your issue was a small issue.
i have NEVER had a company treat their customers with such rudeness. Telus will never again get my business.
· September 11th, 2009 · 1:55 pm · Permalink
NURSE ONE I don’t agree with you the least. I had been a Shaw customer for the past 5 years and decided to go with Telus just to save a few $$ during this not to blooming economy. Well I can only say this was the BIGGEST mistake, I should have stayed and most likely will go back to Shaw. While with Shaw my internet service was reliable and always accessible unless there had been damage to one of their lines and honestly I can’t remember if that had happened and if no more than once. These things do happen and can’t be controlled at times. As for customer service I can say nothing negative. They were always polite and most important they were able to solve the problem. By the way I love the feature Shaw does offer when calling in for CSR. Instead of being on hold for 30-45 minutes they offer to call you back. Isn’t that nice one does not have to tie up the phone line just to listen to some elevator music while waiting to speak to someone in the Philippines. Yes all of their technical support centres are located in the Philippines. I do have a problem with companies that outsource their service while their own country has approximately 1.5 million of unemployed people. Even worse is if the company claims it does not outsource due to the fact it can seven between $1600.- $2600. per employee per month. They really insult the intelligence of the public.
I’ve been with Telus for just a week now (and in the process to cancel my service) and have had nothing but issues and frustration. My internet service has been constantly down and unreliable. I’ve spoken to customer service 3 times and they make me do the same procedure every time without being successfull. The last time the customer service representative just hang up on me in the middle of the conversation. I wrote to the customer care department to bring up my complaint and all I get is an e-mail saying “We are sorry to hear that” . Well that does not do me any good. I’ve spend hours on the phone in the last week just being on hold and speaking to someone that is unable to help me and still have the same issues. The customer service doesn’t listen if you suggest what the problem could be they just ignore and repeat what has not worked in the past.
As for the way how we may speak to the perhaps that might be due to the bad service they provide. I had one person on the line I never new if he is still there or hang up on me and constantly had to ask “Are you still there” and he finally paid attention. If I’ve asked him a question ” I will look into this” he would just make this “aha” sound 3 times and not answer. Yes it is natural that people get frustrated and perhaps angry if they are not being taken seriously and laid to. I’ve always made an attempt to treat the CSR with respect as I know they only do their job but that goes both ways. Another thing about Telus one of the times I called technical support I was transferred to this “Loyalty” (don’t recall the exact name) department after had mentioned I will cancel my service. He was polite and spoke to me for a while, during the end of our conversation he promised to call back the next day and have someone access my computer remotely since he could not fix my problem. We scheduled a time for the next day and I’m still waiting for his call a day later. I attempted to contact him by e-mail and he never replied. I also called Customer Care again and they transferred me to what they called the superior technical service. At the beginning of the conversation the person informed me that I would have to pay to speak with him, therefore transferred me to technical services. This was the call the tech. service. rep. hang up on me. By the way the guy of the superior technical support department also advised me that there is also a fee charged speaking to the “Loyalty” department. I told him that I would not pay any charges relating this since I was not informed of it. And I never even had asked to speak to this person I was transferred by technical services without being told to whom I’d be talking to.
By the way NURSEONE I will send an e-mail president to let him know of my experience with Telus.
· February 26th, 2011 · 12:30 am · Permalink
HOW DOES ONE GET SOME REPAIR SERVICE FROM TELUS.
AFTER TWELVE E-MAILS TO 611, I KEPT GETTING THE NUMBER OF MINUTES UNTIL I WOULD GET A CALL OR E-MAIL, TO NO AVAIL.
WE HAD TO BORROW A CELL TO CALL. WERE PROMISED A CALL WITHIN THE HOUR, FROM 2:00 P.M. TO 10:00 AND HAVE NOW BEEN TOLD WE CANNOT HAVE PHONE SERVICE FOR 3 DAYS.
GREAT SERVICE AFTER 58-1/2 YEARS . . . WHICH WILL SOON BE CHANGED.
· March 14th, 2017 · 4:04 pm · Permalink
I’ve always had terrible service with Telus and I would only warn people against them, never recommend. I do currently use Telus for internet but only because it’s a small town with virtually no other option. Also I will add that I find the contracting out to the Philippines very irritating. The politeness is all fake and I always feel obligated and guilted to spend hours on the phone with this fake politeness just to fix an issue.