Bell Mobility: Cell Phones as Modems and Criminal Behavior

Do you own a Bell Mobility cell phone?
Do you want to use it as a modem for high speed internet?
Do you know the definition of the word ‘Unlimited’?

These three questions form the basis of my story. Like many other people, I live in the country, and was unable to obtain high-speed internet service. So, you can imagine how excited I was when I heard from Bell Canada that I could use one of their new Novatel Wireless U720 USB Modems to connect to a local cell phone provider and finally obtain high-speed internet! I bought the $300 modem from them and signed up for an ‘unlimited’ data plan on a month-to-month contract, so I was able to cancel the subscription at any time without incurring any cancellation fees. All excited to finally use my new service, I brought home my merchandise and started to surf the internet. That happened on the last week of December 2007.

The download speed was only about 512 KBPS. Now to many people, that’s nothing, but keep in mind that I’ve been using 28.8 KBPS dial-up for almost a decade now, so I was amazed at how fast the pages loaded on my monitor.

Two weeks went by and on January 9, 2008, I received a notice by courier that I was using my high-speed internet connection too much and that I either had to give Bell Mobility a call, or my account would be suspended. I saved all of the documents, including the letter itself, so here’s what it said:

“RE: Excessive Data Usage on your Bell Mobility Account

Dear Bell Mobility Customer,

You currently subscribe to the Connection Card Unlimited Email and Internet plan from Bell Mobility. Although it is stated in the service agreement, we want to bring to your attention a matter that is of great importance that will impact your service with Bell Mobility. This Plan is subject to acceptable use terms which state that usage that consumes excessive network capacity in Bell’s reasonable opinion, or causes our network or our ability to provide services to others to be adversely affected, is not permitted.

Your current data usage consumes excessive network capacity and is adversely affecting our network. (Please note that data consumption in excess of a certain amount, while recorded for purposes of determining network usage, may not appear on your bill). Activities such as web broadcasting, file sharing services, streaming video for the purpose of surveillance, and operating an email, web, news, chat, or other online service will drive data consumption to excessive levels.

Please be advised that if you do not call us at 1-888-457-7304 by noon on January 14, 2008 to change to a data plan that more accurately reflects the value of this excessive data usage, Bell Mobility will terminate your data service effective midnight January 14, 2008 in order to maintain the availability of our data network generally to our clients.

Sincerely,

Cameron McCuaig
Vice President, Client Care
Bell Mobility”

Now keep in mind that I don’t use web broadcasting, file sharing services, live video streaming, and I definitely don’t operate an email, web, news, chat or other online service. Also, I’m not one of those people that signs contracts without reading them. When I first purchased the modem, I had to review a 10-page contract document clearly outlining the terms of use regarding the modem and Bell’s internet service. On the first page of the contract, it clearly outlined the features I purchased with the modem. This included: “1X Data Roaming Rate”, “500 Data Minute Bundle”, “Data Unlimited”, “Digital Data To Go”, and “Email & Short Messages”. Note the feature “Data Unlimited,” as in “Unlimited Data Transfer” and I specifically talked about that with Bell customer support prior to purchasing the modem.

As a result, I picked up the phone and spoke with Shalini, one of the company’s representatives. I was informed that unless I limited the amount of my internet usage, my service would be cancelled. I informed the representative that I had a signed agreement saying that my usage was ‘unlimited’. She told me that the word ‘unlimited’ doesn’t really mean ‘unlimited’.

I told Shalini to look in the Dictionary and read the definition of the word ‘unlimited’. Apparently, Bell Mobility thinks that what is clearly written in a legally-abiding contract doesn’t apply to them. It’s interesting to note that Bell Canada, which owns Bell Mobility, actually does know the meaning of the word. Let me explain. I signed up with Bell Canada for an “Unlimited U.S. and Canada Long Distance Plan” for my telephone service for only $60.00 a month. In this case, the word ‘unlimited’ really does mean ‘unlimited’, as in, ‘without limit’. However, Bell Mobility seems to think that an “Unlimited Data Transfer Plan” doesn’t really mean ‘without limit’, but instead means “Unlimited Data Transfer Until We Say That You’ve Reached a Hidden Limit,” which they defined to me over the phone as being 10 GB a month (even though I clearly read the entire contract and not once does it say there’s a 10 GB monthly transfer limit).

Afterwards, I spoke to another Bell representative named Andre. I asked him to point out the problem with my account. He was silent. When I argued that the company was bound to honor their written agreement, he pointed out their loop holes to get out of it. In fact, after speaking with more executives of the company and being repeatedly told that I had gone over the ‘limit’ on their ‘unlimited’ plan, they threatened me with a bill in excess of $10,000 due to the slowing-down of their network by my “high consumption.” In response to that thread, I told them what they were doing was illegal and I’d see them in court. A class action lawsuit would appear to be the only remedy in this situation, since I alone don’t have the money to sue such a large company as Bell Mobility.

I also went so far as asking whether or not my “excessive data usage” could be linked to another person hacking into my account. After all, it was a wireless modem. What was I told? Bell Mobility had no way of keeping track of a user’s modem usage. What a blatant lie! If they couldn’t track the internet usage of their members, this situation wouldn’t have come to exist in the first place, with them accusing me of exceeding their unlimited transfer limit! All I was told was that I violated Section 19 of their contract, which states:

“19. Use of Service. You are responsible to safeguard your Device, and for the use of your Device and the Services by you and any other persons, except as provided under Section 17 above. You shall not use or allow others to use the Service or your Device if such use:

·         is for, or results in, any illegal, abusive, annoying or offensive activities, including making available offensive content, the commission or encouragement of a criminal offense, stalking, harassment, spamming, disrupting or interfering with the Internet, any network, computers or other devices, transmission of a virus or other harmful component, defamation, intellectual property infringement, or interference with other clients’ service;

·         consumes excessive network capacity in Bell’s reasonable opinion, or causes our network, or our ability to provide services to others, to be adversely affected;

·         is for multi-media streaming, voice over Internet protocol or any other application which uses excessive network capacity that is not made available to you by Bell;

·         is to operate an email, web, news, chat or other service.

You shall not threaten, abuse or harass any Bell employee or representative. You shall not commit, attempt to commit, or allow others to commit or attempt to commit, any fraud against Bell including fraudulently obtaining Services or Devices, or transforming outbound communications into incoming communications or otherwise fraudulently avoiding applicable charges, and shall not otherwise abuse flat rate or unlimited use plans, or allow others to do so. You shall not resell, transfer, distribute, share or exploit for commercial purposes any Service or engage in or allow any alteration, copying, reproduction of or tampering with electronic serial numbers or other identification, signaling or transmission functions or components of your Device. In addition, you must follow all other service regulation issued or adopted by us. Bell may immediately suspend or terminate all or part of your Services and this Agreement if your breach any of these ‘Use of Service’ provisions.”

Look at that statement,  “You shall not threaten, abuse or harass any Bell employee or representative.” I didn’t threaten the company! THEY threatened ME with a $10,000 bill, after which I told them I’d see them in court!

The representatives even went so far as saying that they were now in the process of eliminating their “Unlimited Data Transfer” plan due to the abuse of the service by people such as me. They offered me an alternative – to switch to a 1 GB monthly data transfer plan, but for the same $60.00 monthly price. Do they think I’m an idiot? As you know, 1 GB is nothing these days, so I declined.

Over the course of the next few days leading up to the 14^th, I refrained from using the internet, in an attempt to keep my high-speed internet active due to Bell Mobility’s claims of my over-usage of their service. That didn’t matter to Bell Mobility. They cancelled my service anyway.

What did I do wrong? All I wanted was to get high-speed internet for my family, so they could enjoy the service. Prior to this incident, I only had a dial-up modem, so this was the first time I ever had access to speeds in excess of 28.8 KBPS at home. I spent $300 buying a modem that I ended up using for 2 weeks. I couldn’t even return it for any sort of a refund due to the contract having a “Buyer’s Remorse” section, in which it said:

“Bell will allow a Client to exchange their mobile phone/PDA or provide them with a full refund, if it is returned within 15 days of purchase or 15 minutes of use, whichever occurs first, in ‘like new’ condition with all components, manuals and original packaging.”

Of course I had used the modem for longer than 15 minutes, so my $300 was a lost cause. In fact, the REAL insult was when Bell sent me a bill at the end of January 2008 with a $35 credit to my account, due to the fact I had “terminated the use of their service before the end of the month.” THEY TERMINATED ME! I have not cashed the check due to the fact that if a class action lawsuit does occur, I want to be a full, active part of it.

In conclusion, what did I learn from this experience? Don’t trust Bell Mobility, never sign up with them ever again, and spread the word to as many people as possible about how even when you sign a written contract with them, they can turn around the very next day, modify that contract, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

I’m asking everyone here to spread the word about this lousy scamming company! If we ruin their reputation, they’ll lose business. If they lose business, they’ll change their business practices, hopefully for the better. Whether it’s on Digg, Reddit, Twitter, or even Facebook, we need to get as many people as possible notified of this clear scam!

And you can imagine my outrage when I underwent a similar scenario with Google AdSense later that year. You can read my experience with Google on my article entitled, “Google AdSense: Not Worth the Time, Not Worth the Effort.”

If you’ve experienced this same problem, please post your stories in the comment section. Are you currently using Bell Mobility? If so, I suggest you consider switching to another company. Their criminal behavior isn’t worth your hard-earned dollars and the only way we’ll ever put a dent in these monoliths is to take them down one brick at a time.

They don’t deserve your business!