Complaint Review: Fido Microcell Solutions - Montreal Ontario

To Rachelle in Newcastle, Ontario: I'm a (Microcell) Fido Solutions customer, too, so I can relate to your frustration. I spent some years in the "telco" business, and as far as Fido's customer relations go, they are l-a-c-k-i-n-g. Call two CSRs, and you're likely to get two different answers, not entirely different, but certainly not the same in real terms. I suspect you got caught up in their too-often confusing explanation of "solutions" to keeping your bill down while commuting. Fido, a subsidiary of Rogers Communications (which runs a REAL cross-country cellular network, but charges for every minute, outgoing and incoming), is a "communications reseller". It has its own "network", which is not really a network in the sense of plant and equipment, but simply a collection of urban customer bases. Simply, it resells Rogers' services in urban centres. A typical Fido Urban package costs a fixed amount per month, allowing the subscriber a maximum number minutes of outgoing calls, with an unlimited incoming calls. Supplementary enhancements can be purchased for extra outgoing minutes if one is reaching their limit in any month, avoiding exorbitant per-minute charges. Fido defines "urban" as "Greater Toronto", "Greater Ottawa", etc., and precisely defines those areas on maps located on their website. For a few extra dollars each month, a customer can subscribe to their "Suburban" package. That simply takes your coverage at your prescribed rate of billing into the suburbs, and that outer area is defined on their website, as well. If you either initiate or accept a call while outside the "Urban" or "Suburban" zone (i.e., your area - whichever you are subscribed to), BUT WITHIN the "local, non-long-distance calling area), you'll incur an "airtime" per-minute charge of $0.30, which just happens to be their base (worst) long-distance rate. Worse, should you be outside of the Suburban zone, where long-distance begins, and initiate or accept a call, you'll be charged the airtime $0.30 per-minute charge, PLUS the base long-distance rate of $0.30. Fido is relatively inexpensive as a "city phone", but just don't venture too far out of your backyard if you want to keep your bank account. Rogers, et al, on the other hand, treat their entire network as one area, meaning you can move about and make local or long-distance calls with the country, with no differentiation in what constitutes a minute, be it local or long-distance, initiated or accepted. Of course, that means paying more per minute for outgoing calls, and incoming calls being treated the same as incoming calls (chargeable). I'm in BC, so I'm not familiar with the geography of Durham, ON. I can tell you, however, that the base or "Central Office" of your telephone number means absolutely nothing in terms of Fido's definition of "urban" and "suburban". In Ontario, they are using telephone numbers established by Bell Canada, which would have delineated its local and long-distance areas with "area codes" and "local exchanges". Fido has no ability with which to "draw the area code / local exchange" map; it simply draws a line on a geographical map. In fact, if you take your cellular phone to, say, Montreal, and while there, call a at-the-moment local Montreal number, Fido will charge you LONG DISTANCE. Fido can be cheap, but you can't leave your backyard. Rogers will take you everywhere without additional charge, but you pay (more) for every minute, outgoing AND incoming. I hope that helps explain a bit, but you still need a solution. Are you "urban" or "suburban"? If you are "urban", and given WHERE you made and/or accepted the calls I'm surmising you were charged for (at regular $0.30 "airtime" rates), had you had the "suburban" "endorsement" (I think it's $5 per month), would your bill have been drastically reduced? If so, tell them that the "totality" of their various CSRs' explanations amount nothing less than a convaluted explanation and DEMAND that your account be recalculated with application of the monthly Suburban rate. If this is the case, that could reduce your bill a huge amount. Make sure that ANY discussions you have regarding this are with a supervisor, and demand their four-digit employee number. Also, set your cell phone on Record prior to making the call; doing so will cause the phone to NOT emit a (recording notification)beep every ten or fifteen seconds, leaving them non-the-less knowledgeable. (For the future, assuming things go at least reasonably in your favour and you continue with Fido, ask for a cheap long-distance rate for any coverage you require, and that they state WILL be charged as such; for a monthly fee the per-minute long distance rate should fall to 3 per minute.) All telcos within NAPS (North American Telephone System) subscribe (usually within their filed tariffs) to allowing a customer a "one time mistake". I've seen customers have entire long-distance charges incurred over months vacated due to a "reasonable lack of understanding" by the customer, regardless of whether the customer simply did not or could not understand "the deal" or whether it was the telco's CSRs' fault. If your situation has to resort to that, and you can argue for it, you will be allowed that ONLY ONCE, and the telcos "share" a name list, meaning you wouldn't be able to plead lack of understanding a few years later with another telco. One caveat, however. Fido is NOT a "telecommunications company" as defined by the CRTC, the watchdog over all broadcast and private communications networks in Canada. Rogers, Bell, Telus, and CN are; Fido is simply a "reseller". It may work, just the same. You have one other tact that may be available to you. I'm not giving you legal advice here, so if you feel you need to pursue this angle (assuming your relationship with Fido really "goes south"), you may need to consult a lawyer, first. Canadian law states that a "person not of the the age of majority cannot be held liable for obligations arising from the receipt of goods or services not of necessity", or words to that effect. If you have not yet reached the "age of majority" (usually "the drinking age" in a province, not to be confused with age at which one becomes an adult (18)), you can't GENERALLY be held liable for non-necessities. For example, if an "under age" person somehow manages to finance a brand new BMW and can't make the payments, the courts will generally grant the finance company nothing more that a repossession order - no going after the debtor for any residual balance owing. However, if the finance contract related to a "beater" that the debtor uses to ensure they can get to and from work, they'll be held liable for it, as it is a "necessity of life" (in the circumstances). Now, was your phone, given the service area, billing rate, and everything considered, a "necessity of life". If it more a "convenience" than a "necessity", Fido could be made to whistle for their money. I'm not suggesting that you attempt to engineer having your obligation vanish, but if push came to shove, it MIGHT be a negotiating point, but do check with a lawyer, first! One more thing. As I'm writing this, the television news is reporting that a further allowance of frequencies (bandwidth) has been allocated to entire spectrum of cellular providers in Canada, and furthermore, the major providers, Bell, Telus, and Rogers, have been limited in their bite of that allocation, ensuring the new entrants and smaller providers share at least 40% of the increase in bandwidth. As I mentioned, Fido uses the Rogers network. The "40% guarantee" to the little guys is an "anti-monopoly" measure designed to ensure the Big Three (read Four) can't monopolize the market as they've been starting to. Competition should be increased, and the pack of them are now faced with lower rates from the newer, and smaller, companies. Fido is having to prepare for a possible EXODUS of its customers. Unless they're suicidal as an enterprise, they'll come more than halfway with you. I hope this helps. Mic North Vancouver, BC, Canada