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  • Wireless Entitlement

    I'm now working in a call center for a major Canadian wireless provider (who also hawks cable, internet, and home phone packages, but I'm only trained in the wireless side), and there are days when I can fully grasp just how entitled people are.

    For example...

    Last week seemed to be filled with calls from people with high cell bills, claiming to be single mothers and demanding that I give them a break on their bill. Why? Because as single mothers they just can't afford how high their bills are!

    I will admit that I told one of these callers that as a single parent myself (which I have been for most of my kids life, and he's 26 now) that I would never have signed up for something quite so expensive if I knew that I would be struggling to pay for it, and that high-end cellphones with massive data plans were never a necessity in my life. This after seeing that this particular caller had one of our $150+ shared plans with three extra lines that she just had to have so that she could keep track of her kids. When she asked me if my kid had a cellphone I admitted that my kid does but they've got my old cellphone and it's pay-as-you-go, that if the kid wanted something better that they could figure out how to pay for it. I didn't tell them how old my kid is, but that's besides the point...even at 15 yo my kid got my hand-me-down phone with a $10 card put on it each month. And it was a flip phone, no less!

    And let's not forget the people who figure that by cancelling their account that they will get out of paying their bills. Especially if they have massive data overage or long distance charges that we can very clearly see are valid charges. Today alone I had one guy lose his shit when I told him that he could certainly go ahead and cancel his account but that he would be on the hook for the $1000+ bill and the remaining subsidy on each phone on their account, and that if he didn't pay then he would get to deal with collections and the massive hit his credit score would take. That got me called every name in the book before I cut him off and transferred him to retention.

    I do get the odd really nice caller who is just grateful that I can decipher their bill for them, especially after they've made multiple changes to their price plan and add-ons during their billing cycle. But so many callers expect us to kiss their asses and give them credits they don't reserve, figuring that threatening to cancel their accounts will make us do their bidding. Or that asking for a manager will somehow get their every whim catered to, but what they don't expect is to be told that the manager can't wave a magical wand that makes all the changes the customer wants either.

    It's one thing when a customer requests something reasonable or has a valid reason for wanting a credit. But for a customer to demand a credit just because they've been a 'loyal' customer for however many years, is just so much bullshit. Sure, we may have a loyalty offer we can make, but we can't pull them out of our butts just because a customer demands it, and, yes, I've actually told a customer this.

    And when a customer calls us to demand the same deal that a buddy of their's got...oh my fucking god. No matter how you try to explain to them that loyalty offers are tailored to each customer, or that as a new client there aren't any offers available for them, or how the different plans work, they just won't listen. Sure, your buddy may have a plan that costs them $60/month, but they also only have 500mb of data, and 1000 anytime minutes, and unlimited Canada-wide texting...but you've got 6GB of data, and unlimited Canada-wide calling and texting so there's no way you're going to get all that for only $60/month.

    I will agree that our wireless plans really suck, unless you can get in with a decent promo offer, but such is the way for most Canadian wireless providers these days. I'll stick with my own pay-as-you-go plan...I've got all the data, minutes, and texts that I need and it's significantly less than even our lowest post-paid plan.

  • #2
    Phone plans

    I have not been able to find a phone plan I like in Canada, I am on Bell but I would drop them in a second if I find a good deal.

    However, in the USA I have a Trac-Phone, and that is pay as you go. While I had a problem with one cousin who borrowed the phone while I had a lot of minutes on it (She used over half of them), one beauty is no matter who I lent it to if if I use it a lot I never end up owning money. It has X number minutes on it and if you use it too much it just stops working - no extra billing.

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    • #3
      Quoth earl colby pottinger View Post
      I have not been able to find a phone plan I like in Canada, I am on Bell but I would drop them in a second if I find a good deal.
      I gave up on Bell a few years ago, after being a lifelong customer. But they'd screwed up on too many things, too many times, over the years. My landline (yep, still got one ) is with a LOCAL ISP, where you can actually walk in the door and talk to a real human being!

      My cellphone is with Telus and it's a pay-as-you-go system. I have absolutely no internet access unless I'm at a place that has free WiFi, but it's not something I miss. I can make and receive calls, and I can text, and that's pretty much all I need. I've thought about looking into their plans but ... at this point, haven't really got much reason to do so.
      Customer service: More efficient than a Dementor's kiss
      ~ Mr Hero

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      • #4
        I keep a Tracfone at home, it's the house phone since I had my landline disconnected. But I don't really like Tracfone much, their quality isn't so great. I had to have two phones (house and personal) replaced because they weren't going to work with their networks anymore, and while they sent me the replacements free, they were both crap. I never could get the personal one to work right so I deactivated it and got an AT&T Gophone.

        It's a step or two up from Tracfone but does not have as many capabilities as an iPhone. I pay $25+tax for a monthly service on it but if I want internet capability outside my own house I have to pay extra, so I don't bother.
        When you start at zero, everything's progress.

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        • #5
          We started with TracFone. We used it so rarely, we ran out of clock time before we ran low on minutes.
          When the coverage started to get erratic, Mrs. TGK switched us to Red Checkmark.

          Back to the OP: Why did they buy a plan they couldn't afford in the first place?
          I'm trying to see things from your point of view, but I can't get my head that far up my keister!

          Who is John Galt?
          -Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

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          • #6
            Quoth taxguykarl View Post
            Why did they buy a plan they couldn't afford in the first place?
            TGK, You have been here long enough to know the answer to that question.
            Life is too short to not eat popcorn.
            Save the Ales!
            Toys for Tots at Rooster's Cafe

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            • #7
              Here in Australia I have a landline that came with my internet connection (free calls in Australia) and I have a mobile phone that costs me $5 a month pre-paid.

              The only thing wrong with the mobile is that the cost of calls is huge, so I keep it for emergencies. The rest of the time it is off. So when I tell some business that I don't have a mobile, they look at me like I'm some mutant.

              The times someone has pushed me (and somehow got hold of the mobile number) even though I tell them to ring on the landline, they will always try the mobile first (and last) and complain when they can't reach me.

              I have been paying the $5 a month for about 10 years now ($30 each 6 months in advance). I pay it that way because the money then accumulates in the account. I finally (this year) hit the limit. They won't allow me to go over $500 credit in the account, so I had to make some calls to get it under $470.
              Last edited by gerund; 10-31-2018, 12:31 AM. Reason: Too meny words

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              • #8
                Ugh. I used to have a prepaid cell through Red Checkmark, as well as the landline. I don't go out much, so the landline is a really good way to get hold of me (and is marked on call sheets as THE number to call), yet 90% of the time it's "Oh lookie! A CELLPHONE! Let's call that instead!"

                Thing with Red Checkmark's prepaid plan is that it costs a dollar per day if you make/take a call, for any reason. Sadly, it was, 90% of the time, some stupid thing that was already handled or could be done with a 10 cent text.

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                • #9
                  Quoth Buzzard View Post
                  Ugh. I used to have a prepaid cell through Red Checkmark, as well as the landline. I don't go out much, so the landline is a really good way to get hold of me (and is marked on call sheets as THE number to call), yet 90% of the time it's "Oh lookie! A CELLPHONE! Let's call that instead!"

                  Thing with Red Checkmark's prepaid plan is that it costs a dollar per day if you make/take a call, for any reason. Sadly, it was, 90% of the time, some stupid thing that was already handled or could be done with a 10 cent text.
                  Just to bring up Total Madness......my doctor's office has my home, cell, and work phone number. On a snow day last year, I tried to call the doctor's office all day to see if my appointment was canceled. I never could reach them, so I assumed it was. Got back to work the next day to find out that they'd called my WORK number - TWICE. They called the ONE number that I wouldn't be at, if we'd had a snow day too. Nobody thought to call any of the other numbers.
                  Yeah, I raised a total ruckus in that office and made sure that they removed my work number from all records, and now I make a point of never giving out my work number.
                  My vet's office knows to call my home AND cell number and leave messages. Every time.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Welcome to my life.

                    I've worked at Wireless call centers for going on 8 years now. How I've managed to last this long I will never know.

                    I'm here to tell you the customers are not going to get any nicer. I work in a high level complaint department and you would not believe the level of entitlement I see. One dude wanted a $11 000 credit because of"pain and suffering"

                    Hell, if they gave those out I'd be a millionaire by now.

                    Another person demanded SEVEN YEARS of FREE service. Yes, SEVEN years

                    My personal favorite though is the guy who said he'd sue us for $13.8 Million because he claimed we were violating the law by following our policy when in reality he just didn't understand said policy.

                    I get also get a lot of complaints from accounts that have been referred to collections. You'd be surprised how many people think we should eat the charges because they weren't happy with our service and why should their credit report get dinged for that?
                    "If we refund your money, give you a free replacement and shoot the manager, then will you be happy?" - sign seen in a restaurant

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                    • #11
                      Nothing much surprises me any more, tbh.

                      I've had callers dispute valid charges, demand credits they aren't entitled too, demand a supervisor when there is no real need, refuse to let me authenticate their account, and so much more. Canadians are supposed to be nice, right? Yeah, the grand majority of the ones I've been speaking to on the phones are anything but nice. Especially when it comes to their cell phone bills and not wanting to pay for valid charges. Yeah, have fun with that strike against your credit because you refuse to pay.

                      I get a kick out of folks who threaten to leave us and go with another company because they let their bill get ridiculously high and are now refusing to pay it. Or the ones who are pissed because they've been reported to the credit bureau due to bad payment history - I had one missus threaten me the other day because I couldn't remove one such report from her credit history. Sorry, lady, you don't pay and end up letting your account get majorly delinquent, well, that's all on you.

                      Honestly, I'm just finding it hilarious how many people think they can get credits they don't deserve, free phones without having to change price plans to cover the subsidy amounts, or want what their buddy has even though said buddy is on an ancient plan that is no longer offered! I can even handle the folks who claim to have worked in a call center so they know how things work, yet as soon as they start with their idiotic demands I can tell that they have NO idea how call centers operate.

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                      • #12
                        Quoth KuariKaydrith View Post
                        I can even handle the folks who claim to have worked in a call center so they know how things work, yet as soon as they start with their idiotic demands I can tell that they have NO idea how call centers operate.
                        Maybe they had supervisors in those other call centers that always caved into the customers that screamed, yelled for supervisors and were generally obnoxious. And they expect the same from you.
                        "I don't have to be petty. The Universe does that for me."

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                        • #13
                          Quoth Ironclad Alibi View Post
                          Maybe they had supervisors in those other call centers that always caved into the customers that screamed, yelled for supervisors and were generally obnoxious. And they expect the same from you.
                          Sad but true. I know several of my coworkers are shocked that I have no problem with pushing back when a customer is making unreasonable demands that I know a supervisor will not handle. My supervisor appreciates that I do that because it means less needless calls that she has to handle. I used to take supervisor calls at a couple of my previous call center jobs so I'm usually pretty good at de-escalating and figuring out what their actual problems are so I don't have to make a needless transfer to a supervisor.

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                          • #14
                            I'm in the "prepaid, no contract" camp myself. Briefly tried TracFone, hated them. Virgin Mobile works quite well for me. OK, so I don't have unlimited data, but even with streaming music during commute time, I never get near my "we're slowing your connnection down now" cutoff, so what I have is fine with me.
                            "Crazy may always be open for business, but on the full moon, it has buy one get one free specials." - WishfulSpirit

                            "Sometimes customers remind me of zombies, but I'm pretty sure that zombies are smarter." - MelindaJoy77

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