Bell tried to charge me nearly $700 (including tax) for failure to return equipment I returned.

Here’s the story of how I got them to reverse the fee, and what remedies I’m still looking for. Perhaps my strategies will be of use to others.

TL/DR: (1) I took photos of the return shipment, (2) I sent a registered letter to Bell HQ to authorize communications in writing rather than by phone, (3) I cc’ed my emails to the oversight body.

The saga begins

For a few years, I lived in an apartment building that had Bell cable and internet services included in the rent. I’m a big fan of the internet, and I was happy to record movies and cooking shows and episodes of Columbo off the TV. Sometimes Bell’s DVR equipment even ate the recording halfway through, just like VHS used to! Whatever, it was included in the rent.

As I planned to move out of the building, I tried to figure out how to cancel the Bell services that I had never once personally paid for. Thus began the ordeal.

Bell’s website makes it looks like customers should be able to start the process easily online (tested 26 May 26), but the sequence of questions leads to telling you to contact Bell’s “technical experts [by chat or phone] to assist with cancelling your services.” I attempted to use the chat function but ultimately got funnelled to a call centre anyway. A phone call was a necessary step, the chat agent typed.

In fact, I ended up having to phone Bell repeatedly. I’d love to know how much time I spent waiting on hold / trying to extract clear answers that Bell would consider itself bound by. Per my notes, it took at least three separate phone calls to their “technical experts” before I understood their process and got Bell’s agreement (!) to cancel the services that were included with an apartment I was moving out of.

Inappropriate questions from this final agent included whether I was moving to a province where I could continue to be a Bell customer and whether I had a roommate or perhaps a relative who could take over my former apartment’s account from me. This at-least-third agent also told me that an earlier agent had made a mistake, with the implication that I therefore couldn’t cancel now.

No, I said. I’m phoning to advise you that I’m cancelling my services, and you as Bell’s customer service agent do whatever needs to be done on Bell’s end to make that happen. If one of Bell’s previous customer service agents made a mistake, you’re welcome to take that up with your relevant colleague, but that’s neither my fault nor my problem. Close the account.

(I did capitulate to the extent of letting them do their sales pitch at me, based on their pleading subtext they’d get penalized financially if they didn’t. Capitalism is gross. My ultimate answer remained no.)

A process is agreed to

Eventually Final Agent agreed that my account would simply cease to operate at the end of the current billing cycle, with no further phone calls required on my part. I made Final Agent repeat this after me, out loud onto their recording for quality assurance and customer service, because at this point I was getting super bad vibes about Bell’s potential for bullshit.

Bell’s established process was for me to ship the borrowed equipment (except controller batteries and internet cables) back to their warehouse using the shipping label they generated for use by their shipping agent, Purolator.

I took photographs of the entire process, wondering if I was being paranoid.

A short time later, I got an email from Purolator confirming delivery of the box. A short time after that, I got an email from Bell confirming receipt of the internet equipment.

I did not receive a separate email about the rest of the equipment in that same box, but I was busy moving and absolutely not about to spend any more of my life on the phone with Bell’s call centres, dealing with Bell’s bullshit.

A suspicious email arrives

Some number of months later, I got an email that purported to be from Bell, saying my closed account suddenly owed $688.70.

I ignored this email because it was clearly fraudulent. Not just because Bell provably received the equipment, but also because of other signs of fraud such as the fact the links that purported to be “Support” and “Privacy” both went to a URL that said “payment.”

I think I got at least two such emails, the second generously extending the deadline for me to pay this clearly fraudulent charge. I ignored that email too, refusing to allow Bell or this fraudster purporting to be Bell to waste more of my time.

And then I started getting emails from someone purporting to be a collections agency, at which point I realized Bell was succeeding at wasting more of my time.

I involve their legal / fraud department

My belief is that telecom call centres are designed to waste customers’ time and prevent accountability, and I’m not the only one whose experience supports this opinion.

So instead I wrote a letter to “Bell Legal / Fraud Department,” at Bell headquarters in (/near) Montreal. I summarized the above, advising of the existence of photos of the shipment process that could be introduced in court if necessary.

I asked them to confirm in writing, at my usual email address, that I did not owe Bell money for unreturned equipment. Further, if Bell had erroneously given my private information to a third-party collections agency, I expected their lawyers to fix that too, plus any effect on my credit score.

I sent this letter registered mail ($15.32). Canada Post confirmed delivery (recipient’s signature provided).

Nonetheless, Bell’s legal / fraud department did not immediately fix the situation.

I involve the oversight body

My next step was a complaint to the extremely overburdened oversight body, the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS). The process to submit a complaint (including supporting documents) is pretty straightforward, and the CCTS accepted my complaint about Bell trying to charge me $688.70 for equipment I could prove I returned to their warehouse.

Once oversight advised Bell of my accepted complaint, someone from Bell’s “Executive Office” emailed me to either phone them or let them phone me so they could “help make things right.” I insisted on being dealt with by email, cc’ing everything to the CCTS, whose intake form specifically anticipates a resolution in writing.

Bell said no, they had to validate me by phone before they could help with this unfortunate situation. I argued that legally they must have an accommodation process. They eventually admitted there was a process to communicate in writing, if I sent a letter by Canada Post to Bell’s headquarters, answering three of the following validation questions.

I pointed out that I had already sent a letter by Canada Post to Bell’s headquarters that contained answers to three of those questions. Bell did not immediately accept this argument either, but it was a registered letter Bell had signed for, and I continued to cc the CCTS.

The longer Bell failed to resolve the situation, the more I bombarded them with evidence and arguments by email, advising them I was tracking the hours of my life they were conscripting with their bullshit, noting the possibility of monetary compensation under s. 13 of the CCTS Procedural Code, at an hourly rate commensurate with adversarial corporate legal work.

Eventually Bell agreed in writing, cc’ed to the CCTS, that I did not in fact owe them any money.

Bell wanted me to confirm that the complaint was therefore resolved. I said no.

Outstanding issues

My file has now been escalated to a “Complaints Resolution Officer” at the CCTS. Or rather, my file is in the queue to be referred to a Complaints Resolution Officer. It’s been a month so far. There’s no indication of how long before a Complaints Resolution Officer will be available. Like I said, they’re overburdened, and Bell has fixed the most egregious problem (attempting to charge me $688.70 for returned equipment).

Here’s what I’ve told Bell and the CCTS I still want:

1. I want Bell to instruct the third-party collections agency, their authorized agent, to delete my private information, which they have no valid reason to keep. In fact, they never should have had it in the first place, and that is Bell’s mistake to fix. So far Bell’s entire response on this point has been that there’s no effect on my credit score. This I’m having to spend hours of my life trying to explain to giant corporation Bell (!) that the collections agency they contracted with and gave my private information to is different from a credit bureau (Equifax / TransUnion).
2. Monetary compensation seems reasonable under the circumstances. This should never have happened. Once I brought their obvious error to their attention, Bell should have promptly fixed the situation. Instead there’s been this massive run-around wasting my time, I assume because they’ve calculated it’s easier to try to wear people out. Well, let’s instead acknowledge the value of the hours of my life they’ve wasted.
3. I want answers to the following questions, because I want this to never happen to a former customer again:

(Bell’s “transparency” webpage.)

I’ve also contacted CBC’s Marketplace, because I assume I’m not the first former customer Bell tried this bullshit with, just a former customer who’s good at documenting things and writing to legal departments. Maybe my experience can help someone else.

I’ll update if I ever hear anything from CBC or the CCTS.