Be careful on what you do on your phone. There're many hidden cost from the telecom company.
Dad takes stand against Rogers over texting charges
A B.C. father is
refusing to pay a $1,400 bill received from Rogers after his teenaged son was
charged for sending hundreds of texts to his girlfriend, despite a contract
that includes unlimited texting in Canada.
"I thought he
could text a thousand times a day, because that’s perfectly fine. He’s covered
for all of Canada," said Alex Dunsmore of Kamloops, B.C. "His
girlfriend lives four blocks away."
It started when
Dunsmore's son's girlfriend downloaded a "free" texting app — from a
U.S. company called HeyWire — to send free texts anywhere. When Dunsmore’s son
Ryan texted her back, he had no idea it would incur a charge for long distance
texts, routed through the U.S. then to his girlfriend in Canada.
“He was responding to
a text.… He thought he was just texting down the street,” Dunsmore said.
“Obviously it took a long, different path [via] Arlington, Illinois."
Over 1,000 texts sent
Dunsmore said Rogers
allowed 1,300 of those texts to go through in one month — all to the same
number — without informing him his son's $35 "unlimited" texting plan
was going way over the basic charge.
“Why was I not notified, as the legally
responsible person in this contract, that there was suddenly this atypical
spending?” Dunsmore asked.
He said this type of
long distance texting should trigger a notice to the customer, similar to the
one sent when cellphone customers leave Canada and face roaming charges.
“I think that somebody
somewhere has decided not to [notify customers] about this because they don’t
have to.”
When Dunsmore got the
bill — $400 for one month, including the texts — he complained to Rogers and
refused to pay for that portion.
Ryan
Dunsmore was replying to texts sent by his girlfriend, who was using a
U.S.-based app. (CBC)
|
“I think it’s a
deliberate process on Rogers's part to try to get more money out of their
clients,” he said.
Dunsmore continued to
pay for the services he signed up for. He appealed to Rogers to forgive the
texting charges, he said, but got nowhere. He said the company told him his son
should have recognized the U.S. area code on the number his girlfriend was
given by the app provider.
Dunsmore pointed out
that his 16-year-old doesn’t know all the area codes inside or outside Canada,
and that Ryan's girlfriend told him it was a special number for free texting.
“She feels pretty bad.
Not that it’s her fault or anything,” Ryan Dunsmore said.
'No charge' to app user
Ryan’s girlfriend had
downloaded the app on her iPod through the iTunes App Store. HeyWire’s
advertising on its App Store page says there is "no charge to you even if
your friends don’t have the app."
"Both parties are
thinking it’s free," Alex Dunsmore said. "There is no notification on
her end, either. As far as she’s concerned, she’s texting for free."
Because the texting
charges went into arrears, Rogers eventually cut off both Dunsmore's son's and
daughter's phones — and charged him $800 for "cancelling" the
contracts. (Dunsmore doesn't have his own cellphone).
"They charged me
$400 [each] because the contract was terminated early. But they were the ones
that terminated it because I simply didn’t pay the money in dispute," he
said.
Rogers told CBC News
in an email that it’s up to parents to monitor their teen’s usage.
"I recognize that
the customer may find this frustrating," spokesperson Leigh-Ann Popek
wrote. "But the account holder is ultimately responsible for the account.
We do not monitor how many texts or calls customers make. But we offer the
tools to allow our customers to keep a close eye on their usage.
"Customers are
able to see their current usage through our free Rogers MyAccount app on their
device or online at www.rogers.com.
This is especially helpful for parents."
'A lot of money in it'
Vancouver app
developer and industry commentator Ian Bell said he believes it’s in Rogers's
financial interest not to inform parents when these kinds of charges are
mounting.
"Carriers need to
do a better job of helping people understand when they are incurring these
charges as they are happening. But they are not, because there’s a lot of money
in it."
Rogers
said it's up to parents to monitor their teens' usage carefully. (CBC)
|
Rogers said it has no
business relationship with HeyWire and does not share in any revenue generated
from people downloading the app. "Rogers would not be compensated by
HeyWire, nor would we compensate HeyWire for any downloads, users, usage of
their application," Popek said.
However, telecom
companies do get a cut of the long-distance texting charges billed to their
customers.
"Part of the long
distance charge goes to Rogers, part goes to the U.S. carrier," said Marc
Choma of the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association. He said Canadian
telecoms don't reveal how much their cut is, even to him.
Choma also said the
popularity of texting has exploded, especially among teens. Last year, he said,
78 billion texts were sent from within Canada, compared to 56.4 billion in
2010. He said he doesn't know how many of those texts were sent via apps.
Companies 'always looking for another sucker'
Commentator Bell said
telecoms and app marketers count on customers blaming themselves for excessive
charges and simply paying the bills.
"People get
caught in it, then they stop using the app forever and then they move on,"
Bell said. "These [app] companies are always looking for another
sucker."
Dunsmore’s bill from
Rogers — for the texts, contract cancellations and other fees — is now almost
$1,400. It’s been sent to a collection agency, but he said he won’t pay it out
of principle.
"Cellphone
companies are getting a reputation, and I believe rightly so, of actually
bullying people around," he said. "This is about what is reasonable
and what is right."
Source: CBC news
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