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Me: Tell you what, how about you send me that startup kit, and I'd like every service you've got, internet, digital cable, send me one of those PVR boxes and hell, I could use a new cell phone with the best plan you've got. Is that ok? And you can bill it all to my \"Bell\" phone number, right?
Eek. I'd be real careful about saying something like that to a telemarketer. No matter how obvious it is that you don't mean it, they could take it out of context and use it as authorization.
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This is assuming that the rep was in fact a legitimate Bell Canada employee.
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I remember getting a phone call 10 years ago offering me a discount based on the travel that My wife and I do. I said really? So, how much travel does Mrs. Magister do? I went on for about 5 minutes, then started sobbing. I then accused the rep of making fun of me because I am a hopeless dork that can't a date. They know I am not married but just wanted to pick on me. I spent 30 minutes of that persons time. I had her freaked out. Ahh, sometimes I regret signing up for the do not call list.
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The write-up says free year, the email says free month.
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I have gotten several calls similar to this, but all from the good old Seattle Times. I started out with daily service, but upon realizing that most of the daily papers went into a pile then into the recycling bin, unopened. So I switched to weekends only delivery. Then I finally switched to Sundays only, which is my newspaper sweet spot. Since switching away, I have gotten no less than five phone calls wanting to offer me a \"free upgrade\" to daily service for the rest of the year, all I have to do is say yes, yadda yadda yadda. I HATE this sort of call. I am ALREADY a customer. Let's try not to inspire a cancelation call with your stupid upselling attempts, mmmkay?
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Popken: I had the same thought. Especially since I get calls which are strikingly similar only from Sprint and Rogers.
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Popkin and amazon are right. I used to work in the telecommunications industry and most of these offers are done by outsourced sales centers. The exception being Aliant which is Atlantic Canada's Bell subsiduary. They still do most of their stuff in house AFAIK. Still, a complaint to Bell's consumer relations dept. should be your first step. Depending on how much they actually care, they may raise high hell with the sales center that has this account.
Instead of the CRTC David should contact the Canadian Anti-fraud call centre at www.phonebusters.com, or the RCMP (Reporting Economic Crime Online) at www.recol.ca.
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videotron does the same thing with a outsourced center that will not take no
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If someone calls me like that, I just say give me your name and number and I'll call you back before I GIVE any info. In most cases I just hang up anyway. If I want something I'll call them.
I haven't been with Bell for about 10 years and I bet there are some people still paying for the telephone set itself, how sad and what a rip-off.
Daniel......Toronto
This is an old post, but I just wanted to add what I know.
First of all, be wary of Bell CANADA -- not Bell MOBILITY -- calling your cell phone. They're separately run, from what I know.
Second and most important: cell phone numbers are distributed in \"chunks\".. groups of sequential numbers assigned to Bell Mobility, Sprint, Rogers, Telus, Wind, etc. So a fraudulent company like this one will dial numbers in that series and know that you are (or were) a customer of those companies when you got your number. They'll use this knowledge and an official tone to trick people into their scam. Of course if they were part of the company who knows you're a client, they should know your customer number.
In these cases, don't blame the company, since these guys are already unjustly giving them a bad name. Definitely hope this case was reported.
I'm thinking that this is just a run-of-the-mill scammer trying to get peoples' personal information, not something being run by Bell.