It's no coincidence that a bell says 'Ding Dong'

Ahhh Bell. You purveyor of telecommunications services and perennial pisser-off of customers across the continent. You are the gold standard of crap service so today, my blog is devoted to you.

The telling of this story was inspired by reading George Vaccaro's account of his run-in with Verizon.

We had a run-in with the machine called Bell in 2005. At that time they were providing our local and long-distance calling as well as high-speed internet via their Sympatico arm. Phone and internet bills arrived and were paid separately and all was good. Then in a fit of organizational reoganization Bell decided that it would merge bills for phone and internet. No complaints from us, since one bill is easier than two. This was in June.

July: We got the first bill and paid it. Nice.

August: The second bill arrived. It showed that we had a credit for $40 or so on the internet portion, while we still owed $40 for the phone portion. Since this was clearly Bell's own internal accounting error, we called, waited the typical 30-45 minutes on hold, and spoke to a customer service rep who told us not to worry... he'd take care of it. Done.

September: The third bill arrived. The credit on the internet account had doubled, as had the balance owing on the phone side. They also kindly threw in a late payment penalty. Back on the phone. Hold for 30-45 minutes. Re-explain everything. Apologetic customer service rep. Bill-merging project not going as smoothly as expected. Won't happen again sir. Problem solved.

October: Guess what.

November: Our phone line goes dead with no warning. My wife was working from home at the time and relied heavily on the phone so this was a big deal. The internet still worked, so we knew the physical lines were OK. We had received some mail from Bell saying we owed such and such but each time we got one we called, waited, and were told to ignore the letters. Using Skype (and don't forget the wait on hold!) we found out that the line had been cut because of amounts owing. Before we could explain ourselves Skype dropped the call.

At that point my wife gave up. I called from work the next day but of course since it's my wife's name on the account and Bell can see that I'm calling from a strange number they wouldn't deal with me. "Have your wife call us," they tell me. "From what phone?" I ask. "From your home phone," they suggest, helpfully. Arrrrgh!

That evening after work I have wifey on standby to deal with Bell's security concerns while I dial them up on Skype. Of course now it's OK that a strange guy is calling from a strange number, and they hear me out. They offer no apologies but say they'll try to re-establish service within 48 hours. Finally! Phone service established the next day. The first call on our reborn line was to Primus, who have provided us with great prices and service ever since.

The full depths of Bell's schizophrenia were only revealed after we left. On one hand, they felt we owed them money and sent bills for services rendered after Primus took over, even though I had provided them with the required one-month notice. On the other hand, they sent us monthly letters saying - no joke - "Missing you. Things just aren't the same without you as our customer." Amen to that, brother.

We still get bills from Bell once in a while but now they just go straight into the shredder. Unrequited love? Not sure. Don't care. We have already spent at least four hours on the phone, most of it on hold, trying to help Bell pull its tiny head out of its stinky bits. We're done with them.

Bell: Don't call me. I'll call you.

Next post: Thirty two easy steps to getting fair treatment from Air Canada.