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Petition Against System-Access Fees

Liberal MP David McGuinty has supplemented his private member's bill that legislates against system access fees with a petition on point.

9 Comments

  1. Vincent Clement says:

    The cell phone companies will just increase their monthly plans by the amount of the System Access Fee. Or they may introduce a ‘Regulatory Compliance Fee’ like the American carries have.

  2. Increased Fees
    I would be very happy in the cell phone companies increased their monthly fees by the amount of the “System Access Fee”. Other than actual government taxes, the bold-letter price quoted in an ad, in my no-so-humble opinion should be the price I can actually buy something at.

    I am surprised that no cell company has yet advertised $0/month with a fine print of $35 system access fee monthly.

  3. i hope it passes
    Good, about time. How anyone can argue for this is silly. Why should consumers have to dig through fine print to figure out how much a simple monthly phone bill is?

  4. Increased fees are OK
    I have a “$20” Fido phone plan. However, adding the $7 SA fee increases my “$20” phone plan by a whopping 35%! (I’m not even going to get into the 911 fee). Considering that the SA fee is NOT now a government required fee, I really have to wonder how advertising a $27 plan for $20 is not fraudulent advertising.

    So if they want to market the plan as a “$27” plan, that’s fine by me. But what they’re doing now is just wrong. And by not passing on the savings to their customers when the government dropped the real SA fee, the wireless companies showed nothing short of contempt for said customers.

  5. Since Fido was bought by Rogers. I’ve seen the SAF added. Now, my $45 City Fido plan has been changed to $50 and now txting to the US cost .25 cents each txt (People complain about data plan costs, but the true rip off is being charged that amount on such a miniscule amount of data).

    And yes, I know that I could have saved if I had just signed a contract. But I’ve never been on a contract and I almost feel like it’s extortion of sorts.

    In any case, I’ve signed the petition.

    Thank you

  6. Its a larger $$$ problem than I think most of us realize.

    This is not just an access fee limited to cell phones. All household services seem to have ‘access fees’. There are access fees on land lines, power, and utilities.
    Administration charges (retailing the printing of your bill), Local Access Fees, Municipal Gas Property Taxes, electricity delivery charge?? I am getting off topic.

    The Bell Cellular bill is 8.95 for an access fee, and another .75 for a 911 access fee.
    My cell company was overcharging me each month by about .19 for GST. It only stopped once I called them multiple times. So if 5 million people are getting charged….19 cents… it is huge.

    It is staggering to do the math with, say for example using the above numbers, IF 5 million customers are paying $44,750,000 a month for the system access, $3,750,000 for 911 access fee, and $950,000 overcharged in GST.

    49 Million Dollars a month … something to think about.

    They did offer to email my bills instead of mailing them, without any reduction in my charges, even though doing so would be good to the environment and save them millions in post charges.

  7. System Access Fees
    Maybe I can’t get Fido to support my *unlocked* Nokia E61i phone so I can send and receive text messages and e-mails, but I can jump in on the petition and the class-action lawsuit and possibly get a little money back.

    Personally, I find most of the documentation that cell phone, phone and cable companies provide about service plans and rates is confusing. I think it’s deliberately made that way in order to force consumers to buy more expensive service plans than they need or want.

  8. text message and bell
    Besides the system access fee, Bell is introducing a new way to ding us. From Bell’s website and my latest bill:

    “Effective August 8th, 2008, there will be a price change for text messaging affecting all monthly price plan users.
    Clients with a text messaging bundle will be affected in that received messages will now be deducted and when roaming or sending international text messages.
    Clients who do not subscribe to a bundle will pay for every incoming text message.”

    Why am I expected to pay for incoming text messages I have no control over? Is that even legal?

  9. Wpg, MB
    I just want the same treatment that consumers in UK and the USA are getting. I don’t see why these companies need to make so much money so quickly instead of appeasing customers and having a long lasting impression.