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Cancelling Our Bell Cell Phone Service

The time has come for us to cancel our Bell cell phone service. We’ve been on a 3 year contract that is almost at the end now, just over a month left. The service has been pretty decent for the most part. We have good coverage in most areas (one of the reasons we switch to Bell for cell phones 3 years ago) and overall it’s been a relatively good experience.

Now, we’ve drastically changed our usage patterns over the three years and we no longer really need to have two phones. Our total usage is probably less than 10 minutes a month now as we only use the phones on a random occasion and all calls between the two phones are free. With the contract we were locked into having service on two phones with Bell. Unfortunately, that’s one aspect of the contracts that can be a pain in the ass. At $50 a month for the two, it’s been annoying since my phone has been dead most of the last 6 months as the battery is shot.

So I called Bell up the other day as I wanted to find out our actual contract expiry date. After getting that, I chatted with the agent for a bit and she said that it was possible to setup my cancel now, even though I still had more than 30 days (bnut less than 60) left in my contract. She said it wasn’t an issue and I wouldn’t have to pay any cancellation charges. Hey, fantastic. Of course, she couldn’t actually setup the cancel, I had to talk to a Custom Retention Representative. Oh yeah, woo-hoo! Deal time! ;)

Anyhoo, I waited on hold for a few minutes and got the second rep. She was quite pleasant and asked a few questions about why we wanted to cancel. Then she said she had an offer because we were such good customers (damn straight, other than my mortgage and car payments, Bell gets the most money out of me every month). So, she goes into her spiel. For only $35 a month she’ll give me basically the same service I have, plus call display on both phones. Oooo, Ahhh. That’s not a bad deal. $35 instead of $50. OK, keep talking but wait a sec, is that $35 for each cell phone or $35 for both? She goes on and explains the deal and I sort of tune out for a second but tune back in when she says: “…for a total of $54.40 a month before taxes”. Huh? Where did the $54.40 come from? I thought is was $35? Turns out it’s the $9+ system access fee, for each damn phone! I quickly ask why I would pay more than my current rate and she can only come up with “well, you’re getting call display for free”. Wait a sec, I don’t care if I get call display, I’m still paying more for service I don’t really want to keep.

Anyhoo, needless to say I ended up telling her, no, just setup my account cancellation. Uh-oh, nope, can’t do that. If I cancel now I’ll pay $299 cancellation fee for each phone because my contract hasn’t expired. WTF? Anyhoo, after I re-iterate what the first agent stated, she just keeps saying they can’t cancel more than 30 days before the end of the contract. Blah Blah Blah.

So, I said, fine, I’ll call back in 12 days and cancel (12 freaking days) to which she then asked, “Is there anything else I can help you with today?”. So I told her “Yes, you can set it up to cancel my service 43 days from today.” Nope, no such luck. She kept pleading that the system couldn’t do it, etc., etc.

One more reason on the growing list of why I am getting rid of Bell Canada services and taking my money elsewhere.

12 thoughts on “Cancelling Our Bell Cell Phone Service”

  1. Gotta luv Bell.
    Apparently they’ll be at our place sometime between 8 and 9 to connect our services.

    8AM and 9PM ???!!?!!!?
    yeah. wtf?

    Cheerio!
    A

  2. Are you sure is was 8AM and 9PM? Maybe they meant somewhere between Nov 8th and Nov 9th. ;) Do you have your net access at the new place through Bell?

  3. nope.
    Not that it would be a problem. There’s two open networks where I am now.
    There’s bound to be one at the new place.

    Cheerio!
    A

  4. Let me know who you decde to go with. I have been annoyed with Bell as well. They suckered me into to resigning a 3 year deal.. looking forward to finding new rep, but I don’t want Telus.

  5. I’m going to end up going with Virgin Mobile. We don’t use enough minutes so the pay as you go option should work well for us. Factor in the free caller ID, voice mail and received text messages and you basically get a fancy pager for next to nothing AND you can make phone calls with it if you really need to.

    Instead of over $600 a year, we can get more useful service for $100 a year. Well, $200 a year if we got two phones.

    Oh, and Virgin Mobile uses the Bell network so you get the same coverage as with Bell.

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  8. I was with bell for a few months paid for service i did not get. phoned bell they do not care pay the bill or will put you in court I’am now in court with them they are a very BAD company. I was with them for 35 years .SAY NO TO BELL.

  9. my three year cell phone service has one month left, I tried to tell them that I did not want to renew the contact, they let me listen to music for one hour and a half without taking my phone. Today, I just receive a letter from Bell Mobility, in which they told me my later payment will be charged 3% monthly. you know what I mean!

  10. In the process of cancelling every Bell service I have with them.
    TV is going to Shaw 25$ a month instead of 38$
    Phone is going to Acanac 120$ year instead of 90$ a month
    Mobility is still up in the air, any recomendations?
    Internet is going to Radioactif

  11. I have 4 months left on a 3 year Bell mobility contract. They have provided poor service, i’ve had to get a new sim card 3 times, now for the past 3 months they have charged me for text messages that either don’t exist in my phone records, or for texting people on my supposedly ‘free’ numbers. For the past 2 months i’ve received an apology and a credit, this month i blew my stack and said i want to cancel my contract because of all the trouble they’ve caused me, but they are demanding i pay a cancellation fee. I’m furious! The rep told me i would have to complain to the commissioner if i wanted to escalate the issue. Trouble is the commissioner want specific dates and times of problems which i don’t have record of. IMO, if I were to repeatedly not pay my bill on time, or only pay a portion of the bill each month bell would have grounds to cancel the contract so why doesn’t it work both ways? Anyone have any idea what I can do?

  12. Bell reps will tell you anything to get your contract but will not back it up when you cancel.
    I signed a contract last spring but before I did I told the Bell rep that I may be moving to Australia for a year starting Jan. 2013. He said ” No Problem “.
    Bell will freeze your account until you return and you will then complete the contract.
    When I phoned Bell today to request this because I am moving in a month they said no way can they do this.
    I went back to my rep and he said yes they can do this.When I phoned back to Bell Cellular supervisor he told me that it will cost me $500.00 to break my contract.
    Bell makes their own rules and changes them to their convenience.
    I do not know where to go from here.

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