The IT Nerd

Telus has shot back over the circus that they created when they pulled a “bait and switch” with their unlimited data plans. According to Telus, they’re not canceling anyone who doesn’t switch from an unlimited data plan:

“Jim Johannsson, spokesman for Telus, said the company was not forcing customers onto other plans and would continue to honour the Connect 75 Unlimited option for those already signed up.

A small number of customers — or “0.1 per cent” — were being cancelled, he said, because their heavy usage was slowing the company’s wireless network and affecting speeds for the vast majority of users.

“These are not typical or normal users, their activities are placing extreme demands on the network that are simply way beyond reasonable,” he wrote in an e-mail to CBCNews.ca. “Unfortunately we have to take action — imagine an ‘all you can eat buffet’ where one customer comes in and loads all of the potatoes in a giant basket and takes it out to his car. As the restaurant owner, you have to deal with the issue to ensure your other customers are able to enjoy their dinner. We have to take action to protect the other 99.9 per cent of our customers.”

In other words, its the same old song and dance that all the telcos give when they get caught in situations like these. Blame a few mysterious people for the need to screw everybody else over. But what gets my attention is the fact that the Telus sock puppet spokesperson claims that they aren’t just dumping customers who don’t switch despite evidence to the contrary. Of course, that’s likely spin as evidenced by this statement:

“As we contacted those customers, we found that some were well aware that they were violating the terms of service and were not surprised to get a call from us. Just like the wired internet, we know that some abusers employ a strategy of moving from carrier to carrier and abusing the services until they get caught,” he said. “They also tend to be the most vocal on online blogs claiming that their rights have been violated.”

Here’s a news flash dude. I am a blogger and I am not one of your customers. But I am vocal because you are not treating your customers fairly. So that means that your comment is flawed.

There is good news though:

“Customers who cancel their service can do so without penalties and return their aircards for a full refund, Johannson added.”

Great. Let the mass defections from Telus begin! It’s exactly what they deserve.

I’m not sure why Canadian Telcos have decided to become so stupid (such as the iPhone price plans and charging for incoming text messages just to name two examples of their stupidity). But this qualifies as beyond dumb. It seems that Telus who sold a bunch of EVDO data cards for laptops with unlimited data plans have decided to cancel anyone who does NOT switch from a unlimited plan to a $65/month 1GB plan.

Clearly, when it comes to Telus EVDO users, the future is not friendly.

You can take a look at this thread at Howardforums, a discussion of the TELUS Terms Of Service (in red at the bottom), an EV-DO blogger who’s been a victim of this, as well as a post at Electronista to get an idea of the anger that has been generated over this.

The thing about this is that many people use these EVDO cards for high speed Internet access in rural Canada as people in rural Canada often have no other choice except dialup Internet. So this supremely screws them over.

Here’s how you fix this:

1. If you have an EVDO card from Telus, complain to Telus.
2. Force Telus to give you full refund for your EVDO card, cancel your service without penalty and then switch to Rogers or Bell. Granted, Rogers and Bell are pretty clueless too, but at least you’re not giving your money to bait and switch artists like Telus.
3. File a class action lawsuit against Telus so that it teaches them that they can’t screw over their customers like this. If you need a good law firm, I’d recommend Merchant Law as they specialize in doing this sort of thing. Or join the class action lawsuit that is sure be filed shortly.
4. Tell your friends about this and tell them not to do business with sleazebags like Telus.

Bottom line: Telus needs to back off of this stupid move or they will live to regret it.