The Long Road

07/03/2003 Archived Entry: "Bucking Fell"

So over this past weekend, dAN had tried to call me a few times and told me he wasn’t able to get through. I dismissed that as pretty much his phone having some kind of issues since I was able to get calls from other people (some ppl still use the phone believe it or not). When I finally decided to listen to dAN and tried calling home from the cell phone, I encountered the problem dAN described. All of a sudden a bunch of people were telling me of the same issue! Its pretty easy to know if you are having problems making outgoing calls but problems with incoming calls are hard to know about.

So I calls Bell. They have a neat little voice recognition program that tries to understand what you are saying, pretty cool except she didn’t understand “incoming calls” and patched me through to an operator. I describe the problem to the guy and the only thing he says is “I notice your phone line isn’t protected”. He then proceeds to describe inadequately what “protected” means. I finally drag it out of him that it’s some kind of insurance, I was picturing physical coverings for some reason...like armoured wires.

Anyways, the guy tells me that to get a technician out here would cost at least 70$ because our phone lines aren’t protected and therefore not for Bell to fix. Then we get into a discussion about what if the problem is with the lines outdoors (which are up to Bell to maintain/fix) and the only thing he tells me is that he doesn’t know if they problem is with the lines indoors or outdoors and that I should buy Protection. Then I ask him if the technician comes by and determines that it’s an outdoor problem, would I still pay 70$ and he says that I should buy Protection. I called them for information and assistance and basically got a telemarketer!!! Very aggravating!!! I ended up politely letting him go in frustration, hoping that no one will have anything important to call my house for.

This was such a horrible customer service experience, I’ve yet to determine if this is worse than my Back To Future Shop epic or not.

Replies: 11 comments

the line insurance thing is such a crock

the worst part about it is if you read the fine print, you're not allowed to cancel it for 12 months after purchase ... BAD bell ... very very bad bell ...

Posted by melpie @ 07/03/2003 05:39 PM EST

Yeah, Bell Sucks Huge!

AND... the protection is a joke! The odds that YOUR wires are a problem is virtually nil, and they should send someone out...DO you have call answer???? Cause if you did that would narrow down the problem a TON! if incoming calls arent coming in its THEIR problem! OBVIOUSLY the line itself works! They probably have a programming error!

Posted by Laura Ann @ 07/03/2003 08:44 PM EST

I remember a friend of mine was told to get protection when they activated their hard line and the person trying to sell it to her had her in such a tizzy over it, she was convinced it was worthwhile. Grrrr!

Posted by Romer @ 07/04/2003 02:22 AM EST

Well I have always gotten the protection, it is only 2$ a month and if you ever need them to come look at anything inside your house it is definitely worth while. Bell is not responsible for wiring inside your house, and there is where many problems lie (is that the right lie?) since the major lines outside would affect more people than just you. And if you aren't happy with Bell why don't you just change providers? My parents have been with sprint now for almost a year and they have no complaints.

So in conclusion I defend the insurance. Since Bell isn't responsible for the lines inside your house it only makes sense that they charge you some kind of a fee if they ever have to come check it out.

Simpson, Homer. That is all.

Posted by Mike @ 07/04/2003 10:20 AM EST

It does make some sense that your in-house lines are your responsibility, but my issues are with the customer service guy who did nothing but try to sell me protection. what a fuckah. why do i have to pay for someone to come and determine if the problems are internal or external? (which is the general impression i got)

We don't have call answer, i actually have no idea what could be wrong, tried unplugging all the phones and weird stuff like that. and stop blaming programmers!! we never make mistaques!

Posted by Rayne @ 07/04/2003 11:58 AM EST

"and stop blaming programmers!! we never make mistaques!"
Do I even bother to corraect the mistakes in these two sentances then? ;-)

Posted by Andrea @ 07/04/2003 01:33 PM EST

I have to agree with Mike...for just a couple bucks a month, my parents saved a tonne of money in the end. As for a programming prob, it doesn't sound like one.

Posted by Jen @ 07/04/2003 05:43 PM EST

I guess it depends on the situation. The person I was talking about was moving into a place just built. If anything had been wrong with the internal wiring, it would have been fixed and paid for by the land lord.

Posted by Romer @ 07/05/2003 02:19 PM EST

I guess you just have to keep your cell on...:P!

Posted by dAN @ 07/05/2003 05:30 PM EST

but .. a couple bucks a month, discounted ... over like say 5 years ... probably how long it will take for you to have a problem with your wiring is way bigger than $70 ...

their loading fee on that is probably quite big (too many insurance and finance courses for me ...)

but ... bell can be bad about phone problems .. usually they first ask you if you have portable phones in your house, and if you do, they recommend that you get rid of them and just use their vista whatever number phones ... which you have to rent of pay muchos dineros for ... quite the ploy

Posted by melpie @ 07/06/2003 02:06 AM EST

this is just like any other insurance, you pay to prevent the possibility of having large costs. Take car inruance for example, you put so much money every month into and and in the end the discounted present value of your payments is likely to far exceed the accident costs you could be likely to pay. The insurance company needs to make money and cover their reserves. If for 2$ each month for each person bell is providing technical assistance to you (for which they have to pay money to someone) then they could potentially lose a lot of money in expenses, so to me the fee cost makes sense.

Who would have guessed all these courses I take would actually make sense in real life.

Posted by Mike @ 07/07/2003 10:11 AM EST