The IT Nerd

You have to hand it to the CBC who broke this story about Bell misleading customers both at the door, and via their call centers. They have really been pushing this issue to try and hold the telco accountable for their shady business practices. And today, they released a story revolving around using hidden cameras to prove that these shady business practices are going on:

CBC’s Marketplace and Go Public teamed up to investigate how customers are sold Bell’s Fibe TV, internet and home phone at the front door. A Marketplace producer went undercover in the telecom industry, getting hired for a job selling Bell products door-to-door, documenting sales tactics during seven record-breaking cold days and nights in December and January.

“Everybody can make a ton of money [selling Bell products],” said Mohamed Abdelhadi, the man who hired our producer, and who runs one of the third-party companies Bell uses for door-to-door marketing.

As CBC’s hidden cameras rolled, sales reps knocked on door after door — misrepresenting monthly prices, promo deals, internet speeds and Bell’s “fibre optic network” reach, often using misinformation and omission of important facts to dupe customers.

Now I watched the video that is part of this story. And to be frank Bell should be ashamed. There is no excuse for the sorts of things that are in this view. I’m guessing that getting caught red handed is what led to this apology:

CBC requested an interview with Bell, to discuss the hidden camera findings. After several weeks of negotiation, Bell declined to speak on camera and instead sent a statement.

“The examples of the sales practices you provided are in no way aligned with Bell’s commitment to providing the best customer experience possible,” wrote spokesperson Nathan Gibson.

“We apologize to anyone who may have been adversely affected by this conduct.”

That’s not even close to an acceptable apology. Saying sorry is easy. Now to be fair, they say they’re taking corrective action and the company who Bell hired to sell their products (as Bell outsources that, likely to create plausible deniability) is no longer working for them. But they need to do more. They need to explain how things got to this point and why Canadians should trust them ever again. Without that, their apology is pretty meaningless.

This entry was posted on March 2, 2018 at 8:38 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Bell. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.