Phone Companies Still Putting the Screws

In the summer of 2009, Blogger Michael Geist once again rounded on the phone, especially the cellular, companies for doing their best to continue screwing Canadian phone customers, this time with the help of the federal government. A project was under way in a government department to prepare a web or computer program to assist Canadians in sorting through the confusing morass of cellular service offerings in their search for the best deal, but due to industry lobbying the government abandoned the project with a few weak excuses. Thanks, Michael, for your efforts.

This reminded me of a recent effort I made to discover the source of a change in policy by
Sasktel Mobility [cellular service provider] ending automatic expiration of cellular service cards sold by the utility, and loss of unused paid-for cellular time.

I had canceled my cellular service some years ago [after my initial contract expired] because I only needed the phone for emergency use during holiday travel, which occurred only several times a year. Why pay every month for no service? Use of the Saskatchewan-based cell phone in the US was prohibitively expensive [in my view], which was another nail in the lack-of-value coffin. I would have purchased cellular time cards for use in Canada, but the automatic loss of both phone number and unused paid-for time, plus the need to ante-up another $25.00 activation fee every time I needed to revive the service, angered me so much that I dropped the idea entirely of using a cell phone in Canada. I hate getting screwed at every turn.

The new policy only requires the making of one phone call every 150 days after initial activation, and the purchase of a new card or block of time within 150 days after having used up the last card or block of time to prevent inactivation and the need to re-activate. That seemed reasonable to me.

Did this happen because the phone carriers have had a change of heart and decided to be fair to their customers? NNNOOO!!! The Saskatchewan legislature amended the Consumer Protection Act in late 2008, added some new provisions to the statute [sections 77.10 to 77.16] prohibiting the sellers of "Prepaid Purchase Cards" [of which cellular time and use cards are an example] from including an expiry date in or relating to their cards and rendering any expiry date invalid and ineffective. the law also requires the seller of such a card to inform any card customer with information detailing the effect of this law on the card, and, further prohibiting the seller from charging an inactivity or dormancy fee in relation to the card or charging any other fee in relation to the card. Regulations attached to the statute can vary these terms, but not the basic thrust and effect of them.

I also discovered that some cellular service stores and kiosks for Rogers and other cellular service providers claim ignorance of this change in the law and are still selling cellular cards with expiration dates. The ripoff continues.

I now own a $20 card, have an activated cellular phone number, and can use this service anywhere in Canada.

That does not end the story. When I travel to the US I use a recent-model LG cell phone purchased for $12 from Walmart in the US and a $20 card that needs no activation fee that provides me with a US phone number and calls at $0.10 per minute. One brand of these phones calls itself TracPhone, another is Net10. Use of these phones involves no roaming, long distance or other charges. Calls back to Canada cost $0.05 per minute more than in-US calls. There may not be similar consumer protection relating to cellular card sales in some or many US states. This does not concern me much, because having a cheap phone/card combination in the US makes it worthwhile, despite the expiry of the card after 30 days for the 150 minute card [$20]. I never stay in the US for more than 30 days at a time, usually less.