I consider myself a rational person. By that, I mean that I make important decisions in my life based on weighing pros and cons, similar to a chess game.
So what to make of my decision to confront Koodoo over their exorbitant charges for my spouse's mobile phone use? This one.
It would be reasonable to look at the legalities, and the likelihood of them caring what I think, and decide that the work of trying to hold them to account is a pointless waste of time. Certainly, the replies I've had in the forum here: https://community.koodomobile.com/billing-66726/will-anyone-at-koodo-take-responsibility-for-their-services-7804585 have mostly been of the "sucks to be you" variety.
So let me describe in detail what it's like to try and get someone at Koodoo to reverse the charges of a blatantly egregious overuse charge.
To talk to someone at Koodoo, you have to talk to a bot for a while to convince them that you need to talk to a person. It's pretty entertaining once you realise it's a machine. I played with mine for a while just to see how it worked. I got it to say some really embarrassing things! Then if you answer all the questions the right way, it'll take your name and number and promise that someone will call you.
The person who I spoke to spent great lengths getting the facts from me and confirming that the charges were as per their rules/pricing. When they finally understood what I was objecting to, they expressed great sympathy and eventually offered a small rebate. They said that was the maximum they could offer. I reiterated that I didn't consider any of the overcharge to be valid, even though I had already paid some of it, and wanted to talk to someone who could provide a better answer.
After some back and forth, they connected me with another agent who was a much more active and sympathetic listener, but who also walked through all the same details and eventually expressed the same sympathy, and agreed that the charges were too high, but that he couldn't remove them because they exceeded his limit.
By that point, the whole phone call was about 2 hrs, so I let him know that I would like to speak to someone who could reverse the charges, and he said someone would contact me within 5 days.
That's the point where I wrote the blog post linked above, in hopes that I wouldn't have to keep repeating the story.
Eventually, two days after the promised day, I was called by someone from Koodoo that identified themselves as being there to help resolve my issue. They had no information about the issue, so I tried to provide him a link to my blog post so that I wouldn't have to repeat myself. They were unable to access the url (they didn't seem to understand the concept of a url, actually), and there was no way for me to send them a link (they had no email address I could send it to). After about 20 minutes of that, I'd had enough, so I let them know I would be looking forward to a reversal of the charges but had no interest in spending any more time on the phone with them.
In an interesting coincidence, my spouse dropped and broke her phone that day (just before the call from Koodoo), so after the call, we found a little shop that repairs Androids and I took the phone in. The repair was going to cost $200, but the owner advised me that Telus had an offer that if we switched to their service, they would rebate the cost of the repair by $100. That seemed rather stupid, since Koodoo is owned by Telus, but he assured me it was genuine. In fact, by switching my service as well, we got the repair for "free", and the service offered by Telus was $10 cheaper than the equivalent plan we had from Koodoo. And finally, when my spouse went to pick up the repaired phone, she switched over our son's phone as well and got a bunch of accessories (Otter Box) for free as well.
At that point, I was curious to see what would happen at Koodoo. Would a real person look at what had happened and realise that it was a chasing a bad charge from an angry ex-customer and quietly write it off?
A few weeks ago, we got the answer: no. Of course, the charges were transferred over to a collections agency that is now running it's well oiled machinery to see how much money they can extract. Even though we have no relationship with them, they can of course threaten to lower our credit rating and perhaps even take us to court.
So, why do I bother? Some days, I'm not sure, but I think it's important. Our corporations are not accountable in any real way to us any more, even though they supposedly were created for our benefit. Many people believe that when corporations do bad things, it's just the price of the modern world. But it's not: that belief is part of a dangerous ideology that seems to be getting more and more mainstream.
My own example is puny and unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but trying to hold corporations to account by asking their owners and participants to act ethically, and trying to hold them to public account when they don't, is something I have a small power to do.
For your entertainment, here's one of my chat logs, I've put my inputs in bold to help navigate the blather ...
Hi I’m your Koodo digital rep!
I’ll save this convo in our records to help me get better at what I do for you.
Before we get started, pick the option that best describes our relationship.
29/04/2021, 13:23:56
I'm a Koodo customer
29/04/2021, 13:24:04
Great.
What's your Koodo phone number?
29/04/2021, 13:24:04
***-***-****
29/04/2021, 13:24:17
To access your account and provide you with info specific to your services, sign in using the button below. Hit "No, thanks" for more general info.
29/04/2021, 13:24:18
Am I chatting with ALAN?
29/04/2021, 13:24:33
Yes
29/04/2021, 13:24:37
Hey ALAN! Hope you're doing well today.
29/04/2021, 13:24:37
The total amount on your latest invoice is $***, and is due by May 11, 2021. The amount left owing on this invoice is $***.
There's quite a few things I can help you with, select one below. 👇
29/04/2021, 13:24:42
Review my bill further
I can help review your bill in detail.
Is ********** the phone number you want to review the bill for?
29/04/2021, 13:25:01
No
29/04/2021, 13:25:07
Please enter your phone number
29/04/2021, 13:25:07
***-***-****
29/04/2021, 13:25:21
Your total invoice amount is $***, due May 11, 2021. You currently owe $***.
The balance carried forward from your last bill was $***.
You had $*** in Other Charges and Credits.
29/04/2021, 13:25:25
The last payment we received was $*** on April 18, 2021.
29/04/2021, 13:25:25
If you recently made a payment, it may take 3-5 business days before it will reflect on your account.
Want to review the invoice for *** in more detail?
29/04/2021, 13:25:26
No, thanks
29/04/2021, 13:25:33
Ok. If you have any other questions about your bill, you can ask me or pick one of the options below.
29/04/2021, 13:25:33
Please call me as you said you would to resolve an overage charge.
29/04/2021, 13:25:54
Select the exact service you are inquiring about by choosing one of the buttons below
29/04/2021, 13:25:54
Airtime overages
29/04/2021, 13:26:00
When you run out of the calling minutes included in your plan, you can continue calling at the pay-per-use rate. Those rates may vary depending on your plan.
If you find yourself constantly going over, you may want to consider changing your plan or adding a calling feature. Click the Unlimited Anytime Minutes option below for more info.
29/04/2021, 13:26:00
I'm not asking for information, I'm asking you to call me as promised.
29/04/2021, 13:26:18
I can help you with just about anything regarding your Koodo account. You can ask me things like:
"How do I report a stolen phone?" "How do I find my account number?" or, "I'm having trouble logging in."
Give it a shot, ask me something!
29/04/2021, 13:26:19
No thanks.
29/04/2021, 13:26:29
Glad I could help!
29/04/2021, 13:26:29