How Telus robbed me for more than $700 (In my Opinion)

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When Amp’d mobile, powered by Telus, was introduced I was thrilled. I signed a 3-year contract for the sexy MotoQ with an End the Boredom 125 (ETB 125) plan, including unlimited Data, and Amp’d premium multimedia services like streaming Much Music. I even received a free slingbox to get unlimited streaming cable TV on my MotoQ. This sounds amazing right? It was, until Amp’d went bankrupt only 2-months later, and I realized Telus is (in my opinion) the most evil company you can possibly imagine.

Here’s what happened:

Telus announced the AMP’d plans would no longer be available. I thought, “that sucks, but it’s not Telus’ fault. They can’t provide services they don’t have access to”. Telus Mobility called and offered me several nice incentives to sign another contract and choose another plan. They even offered to give me another free phone and pay for the accessories I purchased previously.

I listened politely and reviewed my options. Unfortunately for me, there weren’t any new plans that suited me. I purchased the phone and ETB 125 plan because of the AMP’d multimedia enhancements and data plan. Telus wasn’t offering anything similar. I declined their offer for a new service. The kind lady on the phone mentioned that I should choose a new plan because if I didn’t, my phone would eventually be disconnected from Telus, but in the meantime Telus would simply charge me for the minutes I was using.

"I said I'd be happy to pay for the minutes I use"

That doesn’t sound so bad right? Wrong, begin Evil Part 1:

Evil Part 1 – We will continue to charge you for services we’re no longer offering which were the ones you signed up for

Telus charged me the entire monthly fee for the ETB 125 plan which they were no longer offering over multiple billing periods. So, I was charged for Premium multimedia services which were now disabled on my phone. To give you an idea, the ETB 125 was ~$137.50 per month, while the bill for the minutes that I used on a comparable Telus Mobility plan was ~$40.00 per month.

When I called Telus customer service repeatedly to talk about this, the woman on the phone contemptuously told me, “you should have chosen another plan, and you wouldn’t have this problem”.

To make it worse, Telus wouldn’t credit my account for the 3-months of free ETB 125 service they were supposed to provide, which was clearly written on my contract.

The woman on the phone said “There was never such a promotion”. Pulling out my hair, I politely offered to fax her my contract, since she was unwilling to go and find it. Honestly, I don’t even think they kept their Amp’d contracts.

I couldn’t get anywhere with this woman, nor any one of her belligerent “same response” clones during any of the other calls I made. So, I decided I’d try again later.

Later, I was in full dispute mode because now Telus was asking for upwards of $500. After being forwarded to a new special Amp’d support team (which in my opinion was a special task force assembled to minimize Telus’ losses on the bankruptcy, and to squeeze out former Amp’d customers who wouldn’t drink the Telus “Kool-Aid) I asked for a detailed copy of my bill.

Why were these people so mean? I actually found out later, from an inside source, that Telus actually has an A and B designation for customers. He said Telus trains their service representatives to treat B customers differently, and differently for me meant with great contempt.

“We don’t mail out AMP’d bills. They are only available on the ampd.ca website,” said Liz with a voice so Icy it felt like getting a freezing needle in my eye.

Well, I responded “The Amp’d website has been shutdown because the company is bankrupt, so how would you suggest I get my bill so that I can feel comfortable that the $500 you're asking for is the right amount?” She said she could send it to me, but nobody at Telus would discuss the amount with me.

“She said I could either pay for the alleged amount, or be taken to their credit agency where my credit would be ruined.”

She wouldn’t give me an employee ID number or her last name. Surprise Surprise. She also wouldn’t transfer me to up, sideways, down, or diagonally to talk to anyone else about my bill. She also didn’t care that I was still being charged for AMP’d services they could no longer provide because “I had a chance to sign-up for another plan”.

So basically the Telus message was “Sign up for a new plan because we can't provide your old one. If you don't cooperate with us we’ll overcharge you for your phone. And, if you don't do exactly as we say, we'll ruin your credit”.

Knowing a fair bit about basic contract law, I figured eventually I’d find a way to talk to a rational person at Telus, or win out in the end because no party in Canada can materially alter their consideration in a contract and force the other party to comply. It’s called a breach which terminates the contract –even if you’re Telus. What I didn’t know, is how truly evil Telus can be.

Evil Part 2 – We demand payment for the incorrect bill we’re not willing to review AND a $700 dollar termination fee for the 3-year contract we (Telus) can't fullfil.

At this point, I’m at Met Credit, their credit agency. At first they said the same thing as Telus “pay or we’ll ruin your credit”. After explaining the entire story, I actually found my contact there willing to help me out. It’s scary that the credit agency team was nicer to me than the Telus team – even when I was still a customer.

I still didn’t have a bill so Met Credit asked me to try and get it again. Interestingly, I could talk on the phone with Telus representatives and they would rattle off everything on their screen to the smallest detail, regarding my account, but none of them would send it to me, so that I could consider making a payment. I must have spoken to 8 people over the course of a week. Every time I asked for the bill, i was put on hold. Afterwards, the person i was talking to came and said in a small uncertain voice "Sorry sir, I cannot send this bill to you". Ludicrous.

Later I understood it was partly because nasty Liz wrote on her computer that I’d declined her offer to send the bill to me. Of course, the rest of the context of that call wasn’t “noted”. It’s funny because the Telus contract says you don’t owe Telus any money until you receive an invoice. I shared this clause with Metcredit and my guy agreed.

Since I had never received an invoice because the amp’d.ca website wasn't live, they eventually sent me an invoice, after we (the metcredit contact) and I pushed.

The “not so funniest” part was that the detailed invoice, after a month of trying to get it, wasn’t a detailed invoice at all. It contained two lines. ~$500 (plus interest) for the plan I wasn’t using, and now an additional ~$700 (plus interest) for a termination fee!


Quickly I was talking to the general manager of Met Credit. He offered to help me talk to Telus about what went on. After he forwarded my story to some unknown person at Telus, their official response went something like this:

“Since you had a chance to pay for your bill and declined to have it sent to you, and because you didn’t want a new plan, we’re charging you the $500 amount, and a $700 early termination fee.”

Remember, the $500 was a bill charged based on a premium plan they weren’t even providing me over the billing period, and the $700 dollars was a termination fee for a 3-year contract they could no longer fulfill.

Near the end of this whole nightmare, I wrote an email to Telus and MetCredit letting them know that if they made any alteration to my credit while knowing about what really went on that I would take action. They read the email and responded.

MetCredit promised that my credit would not be altered while we were researching my account. Unfortunately, my first contact moved to another division during a crucial 7-day time where Metcredit automatically affected my credit. My account slipped through the cracks and was damaged.

With no other option, shamefully I paid the full amount, including the (in my opinion) illegal ~$700 charge. I thought any damage to my credit, however small, was not worth the $1,200 I should have witheld from Telus until they agreed to ratinonally determine what I should pay them.

So Telus, here we are. I thought about taking you to court and representing myself. But, then I realized you have lawyers, probably an army of them, on retainer just in case one of the customers you victimize actually has some fight left in them.

I don't think winning my money back in court would affect any change in your policies. Further, the amount of time it would take to get it done wouldn't be worth the effort. I think this is what you usually count on.

Canadians will learn how you treat your customers. Maybe someday you will learn to treat them with some respect.