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Reports Indicate Telus Cancelling “Unlimited” Contracts

Several people have written to say that Telus has begun to exercise a clause in their consumer contracts cancelling "unlimited" data plans for those consumers that are viewed as heavy bandwidth users.  More here and here.

24 Comments

  1. telus cacelling contracts
    It’s really Telus trying to sqeeze people into accepting a lower limit service plan so they can make tons of money off people who use the internet for more than just email.

    The Connect 75 plan was promoted as unlimited.

    The next plan down was the Connect 60, now the highest plan offered at $65/month for 1 Gb. Extra data on this plan is $10/Gb.

    If an unlimited plan holder does 10 Gb/month Telus figures it is losing out on an extra $90/month – 9Gb over x $10.

    Yet, the lower plan holder is allowed to pay for the extra data, as long as you pay it’s okay. Whereas the unlimited plan holder, who pays a premium for unlimited service, is told that his 10Gb is excessive and he/she is violation of the TOS.

    People have reported that Telus reps have admitted that it all comes down to data usage. It has nothing to do with violating the TOS. Reps admit that there is/was an undisclosed 5Gb cap on the unlimited packages.

    In review of the charges against Verizon last year does Telus really think they can get away with it?

    see

    [ link ]

  2. Bill Hillier says:

    Telus cancelling “unlimited data to go
    Bell already got away with it, at least so far. My “unlimited service” with Bell was cancelled last March due to what they deemed as excessive use. Now Telus is doing it, will they get away with it…most likely. I and many others complained to every agency that would listen about the Bell cancellations but to no avail.
    I’m going to lodge the same complaints against Telus maybe this time someone will understand that this is just WRONG!

  3. EV-DO in NS says:

    Telus ‘Connect 75 Unlimited’
    I can confirm what Rob has posted above. The Telus representative admitted to me that the Telus ‘Connect 75 Unlimited’ data package, advertised as “Unlimited” in the same column where lesser data plans had a clearly defined numerical usage cap, has an unstated 5GB usage cap.

    The rep also admitted that the ToS prohibition against the ill-defined ‘multi-media streaming’ is enforced selectively only against those that are exceeding the undefined secret usage cap.

    There is also some speculation that the cancellations are being most aggressively pursued against those in the areas where Telus EV-DO service is provided by Bell / Aliant towers (NB, NS).

    I have filed a complaint against Telus to the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS). It is especially important to complain to the CCTS.

    CCTS: [ link ]

    I have also complained to the Competition Bureau about Telus Deceptive Marketing Practices for promoting a wireless data plan as being “Unlimited” when in fact the secret usage limit is a ridiculously low 5GB.

    See also: [ link ]

  4. CCTS
    NOTE i recently mentioned my issues to bell and said i am placing a CCTS complaint FOR EACH OF DOZENS of issues i have had.
    If they investigate even 1 thats 1000$ that bell loses.
    Makes me feel better knowing that they dont profit buy being jerks.

  5. in da bush
    americans are laughing at you all
    they get 20-50 megabit and what is going on here?
    84$ for 5-7megabit and a 60GB cap?

    sick they say were all being ripped off.
    hrmmm yup.
    And if the CRTC rules as i suspect that bell can throttle ( note that i once foretold about some aspects of the latest copyright bill 4 months before it was tabled)
    NOTE telus and videotron moving to “cap and allow you NOtrade”
    P.S. pun on carbon tax is meant to show you how they are stopping your use and not allowing you to control YOUR data.

    Next up in canada no more health care for free, yes the harper gov’t put a man in that wants to provitize everything, then when we have mroe cash avail in the coffers we can hire more police and armymen to be JUST LIKE BUSH.

  6. in da Bush
    Martin and all the other Lieberals were far worse than Harper…too bad morons like yourself don\’t see the light. Anyways, your time is over. No more Socialistic Medicine for you. Imagine that..doctors being able to prescribe what they want and not have the Big Gubmint breathing down their necks. Try Sweden next time, loser.

  7. CCTS
    Thing is, Bell is owned by pension fund, which means we probably all end up paying for what they sepnd on dealing with complaints

  8. Rogers
    And Rogers just started screwing anyone texting to the US out of 0.25c per.

    The fun part? Check out [ link ]

    Cheaper to run a Verizon phone on Canadian roaming than it is to buy a Canadian phone. How fucked is that?
    Verizon will also activate any EV-DO phone on their network (was announced on Slashdot a while ago).

  9. record the call
    someone call them up and mumble that you are recording the call (and proceed to do so when you ask about this cap).

    Also take screenshots of the website through the internet archive and put it all together on wikileaks.

    Watch them try to get out of that!

  10. T-Mobile
    Actually, you might want to look at T-Mobile and get one of their 3GPP handsets. They can use the internet (802.11b/g) and they don’t charge you airtime for those calls.

  11. No Contracts
    I think the best way to fight these guys is to NOT sign another contract. Go month-to-month. If you sign a “contract” then they have a legal hammer to use against you if you decide they suck (mostly just costs you money). If you go month-to-month, the worst they can do is say they don’t want to do business with you. The basic idea is to take the power away from them (the “contract”) and give it back to yourself (money).

  12. NO contract and NO phone from carrier
    @ No Contracts:

    I would say: NOT to sign another contract and NOT to buy a phone from them.

    Why? Because they sell you locked phones even if you are NOT on a contract with them.

    Buy your next phone online or from shops that sell unlocked phones. The prices are often better but even if they were 10% more, it is still worth it.

  13. Arthur Goldsmith says:

    Revenue
    Don\’t just avoid signing contracts with these companies, become a shareholder. The more like minded shareholders the better. And if they\’re reaping nutty profits, because of unfair pricing, well not only do you have a say as a shareholder, you\’re making some money back too 🙂

  14. Seriously
    You cannot use an unlocked CDMA phone on telus’s network. Unless your ESN is registered in their system you cannot register a phone.

    Don’t invest in the company as a shareholder. Unless you have many millions of dollars invested in the company your opinion doesn’t count and they will not listen to you. TELUS is only concerned with keeping it’s shareholders happy and as long as Darren Entwhistle keeps bringing them bags of money, I can assure you they ( the shareholders ) don’t care about how you, the customer is treated.

    This is similar to when there was the labour dispute at TELUS. The shareholders weren’t crying out for workers rights, Darren said that by playing the game how he wanted it to be played he would increase revenue which, again, is all the shareholders care about.

    Now on the Telus Communications side, the majority of the calls are handled by TELUS International / Ambergris solutions. How many of you have spoken to a TELUS international agent and had your order done incorrectly, or had issues getting technical support.

    I am a former employee of TELUS, and I remember when TELUS International first started handling some of our calls. It was a ‘Temporary solution’ to take some of the pressure off during the labour dispute. The labour dispute has long since ended, and TELUS is continuing to shed it’s ‘expensive’ union workforce in favour of contractors, and getting rid of union workers inside the call centers and moving all of it to TELUS International.

    None of this is being done so that you the customer gets better service or that you the customer have access to the newest technologies faster. It is done so that the executives at TELUS can continue to receive large sums of money for little to no work, so that the shareholders continue to make obscene amounts of money and so that Darren Entwhistle can also continue to receive absurd raises ( google how much he gets paid, it’s silly )

    Now I did mention Unions in this rant. But I’m certainly not pro-union and I’m not really Anti-union. I am however quite apathetic towards the TWU ( Union which represents Canadian TELUS Employee’s ) Their greed along with TELUS’ greed is what caused the labour dispute, and it also resulted in the employee’s getting a worse deal than what they started with. I went from being a Temporary Employee to being Part Time Occasional even though I was still working full time or more.

    What I’m trying to say is,

    Don’t do business with TELUS
    Don’t fall for their win back plans, switch away and stay away.
    Tell your friends what a terrible company TELUS is and encourage them to leave.

    But above all, please educate yourself, if you agree with TELUS’ business practices then by all means, continue to do business with them.

    ‘TELUS has the potential to be such a great company’
    – Quote from a friend and fellow former TELUS employee.

  15. While I don’t think it’s right to call something “unlimited” and then try to secretly impose some sort of limit, if Telus wants to cancel an unlimited package they offered in the past and no longer offer it in the future, that’s their own business, isn’t it? As long as, at least, any customers who might be on any contracts are given the option to walk away at no further obligation. If they aren’t giving those customers such an option, then that’s where I’d call some serious shenanigans by Telus and they should be held completely accountable for that. Unless Telus was providing a network usage meter for its customers that did not require even the slightest bit of technical skill to utilize, they can’t possibly claim that people were using excessive bandwidth applications to try to purposely violate Telus’ TOS because the reality of the Internet today is that it is full of multimedia, and it’s almost impossible for a layperson to avoid unless they are being deliberately conscientious about which websites they visit.

    While I don’t agree with Telus on this issue, that doesn’t mean I won’t defend their right to control the volume of traffic allowed on a given connection that’s on their own network, if that’s what they wish to do.

  16. I think it’s high time someone challenged the definition of “unlimited”. How can someone say “unlimited” and have a soft cap or hard cap or any other kind of cap? The definition of the word unlimited means that there is no bounds, no limit and not bounded by EXCEPTIONS. Either the CRTC has to come down hard on the Telcos or we should push our MPs for a law that stops this practice of misleading marketing. (But then again, it’s the same folks that breaks campaign promises so our country might have just become a forum for liars and cheats or maybe the Prime Minister will slap a lawsuit on me just for defaming him.)

  17. Vidéotron has escape also when they change my unlimited plan to a limited plan one month after i sign a 1 year contract.

  18. The “Free” Market Works!?
    So Mr. Prentice was right.

    The free market works just fine in Canada.

    Whereas the market is FREE to bend any Canadian consumer over whatever barrel they want, when they want, however many times they want and Canadians are FREE to complain to politicians who are equally FREE to ignore their claims until they need to BUY your FREE vote at the next election.

    Corrupt, greedy and in dire need of change… ah now that’s Canadian politics at its best!

  19. Mobile’s Inevitable Death
    Here\’s why Canada\’s mobile oligopoly is working so hard to kill data users…

    VoIP Goes Mobile – by Olga Kharif

    [ link ]

    Gorilla Mobile and other carriers are allowing cell-phone users to make calls for virtually free using Internet technology

    Scott Goldman uses his mobile phone to call friends and business contacts all over the world, from Britain to Australia. But the Southern California-based consultant doesn\’t pay a dime in international tolls to his mobile-phone carrier, AT&T, the biggest in the U.S.

    Instead, Goldman places the international portion of the calls-roughly 100 minutes a month-through a service called Gorilla Mobile that relies on Internet-based technology to route wireless calls virtually toll-free. Goldman, a user of Apple\’s iPhone, estimates that he saves hundreds of dollars a year with Gorilla\’s service. He stands to cut wireless bills even more by signing up for another, iCall, that\’s due for the iPhone in the coming weeks. The service will let him place low-priced calls from WiFi hotspots-bypassing the AT&T network altogether. \”Once I can make calls using the WiFi network, I will, in all likelihood, reduce the monthly minutes I have [with AT&T,],\” Goldman says.

  20. CCTS COMplaint and small claim says:

    CCTS COMplaint and small claims court
    BTW
    i solved a 160 debt bell owed me ( at least so far )
    with threat of 16 separate complaints to the CCTS.

  21. EV-DO in NS says:

    Latest news…
    Based on the number of hits to my ‘EV-DO in NS’ blog (which peaked at more than 1000 per day a few days ago, but has now dropped off considerably), it seems likely that Telus (probably having been burned by the client, media and public reaction) has abandoned or scaled back their campaign. If anyone else is still getting letters or calls, please post the details here or on Howard Forums.

    I believe that I have pulled the run out from under their claimed prohibition on ‘multi-media streaming’ since they actually are advertising it (even now) as a capability of EV-DO. And this was the claimed violation in my case. Details on my blog (Google EV-DO in NS).

    The admission by their spokesman Jim Johnson that the real issue is the excess usage of the “Unlimited” service will help the authorities with their inquiries.

    The fact that even the heavy users are using on average only a very small fraction of the available bandwidth of just one EV-DO channel reveals that the issue is almost certainly more financial than technical.

    I’ve lost count of how many times I was told that my ‘Unlimited’ service was really really unlimited. I’ll really have to make a list for later reference.

  22. Blog = EV-DO in NS says:

    Telus Connect 75 Unlimited
    Today Telus terminated my “Connect 75 Unlimited” service.

    Amusingly, they pulled the trigger about 5 or 6 days earlier then they should have, thereby violating their very Terms of Service where they’re supposed to provide a minimum 30-day notification period.

    So I called them up and (after almost an hour) ended up speaking with ‘Bobby’ in Management. After I explained the facts to him he agreed to reinstate the service for another 5 days (to get back within the 30-day period).

    He also tried to sell me the 1GB per month (LOL) “Connect 65 VERY VERY LIMITED” (joke) plan. I didn’t accept his insane offer. They must be living in the past if they think that “A gigabyte per month should be more then enough for anyone.”

    Bobby also as much as acknowledged that the issue was my over use of their “unlimited” wireless Internet service. This latest admission, combined with many other available facts, makes it perfectly clear that Telus has engaged in something called Deceptive marketing Practices. They offered a service that was presented as being “unlimited”, failed to communicate any specific limit (even now), and then they are actually terminate selected clients that they feel are using too much of the “unlimited” service.

    It’s called Deceptive Marketing Practices.

    Bobby also stated that Telus would not be offering refunds on the cost of hardware that will now go to waste. I’ve got an EV-DO modem that was about $300 only ten months ago. Not to mention many other investments in related networking hardware. This statement by ‘Bobby’ is at odds with what previous communications from Telus have stated.

    Any lawyers out there want to start a Class Action Lawsuit? Contact me via my blog at EV-DO in Nova Scotia (Google EV-DO in NS and you should find it).

    And for the Competition Bureau (if they’re reading), it’s now real. Telus is actually cutting off clients based on their undefined ‘overuse’ of a service that was sold as “Unlimited”. This is a crystal-clear example of Deceptive Marketing Practices.

  23. Blog = EV-DO in NS says:

    An Update
    Telus called and left a message that they would be offering refunds on the hardware. This makes three times they’ve said ‘yes’, and only one that they’ve said ‘no’. So I guess ‘yes’ it is then. Maybe.

    This still doesn’t address the issue of Deceptive Marketing Practices regarding secret limits on “Unlimited” plans, especially in NS and NB.

  24. just got my letter
    I just received my letter from telus stating I am violating the terms of service with my “excessive” use of my “unlimited” wireless plan. I have attempted to call them twice now and apparently the person I need to talk with is on holidays and will return my call. I had no idea all this was happening until I did I little research online. Thank you all for the ammo.