Telecommunications companies have this really quite remarkable talent for making me feel like I'm getting screwed over when I'm not. Whether it's Bell's habit of making touchtone service a separate item on the bill even though it's mandatory, or Roger's pricing their home phone service entirely too high but it all evens out once I bundle my Rogers services, or Fido's obscenely high data fees, I always come away from any telecommunications billing change feeling like I've been cheated somehow.
It's really weird that they manage things that way. Most, if not all, other types of companies I do business with try to make me feel like I'm getting a good deal even when they are screwing me over. Reitman's tags their clothes as though they're on sale even though I don't think they were ever the "original" price. My shoemaker has a loyalty card - 10th heel lift free, as though I'm going to get 10 heel lifts within any reasonable amount of time. People on ebay constantly overcharge for shipping, but the products themselves are so ridiculously cheap (or commercially unavailable in Canada) that I still feel like I won. But with telecom, they aren't even trying to make me feel good, they know I'm dependent on them and their prices are close enough to the competition's to make switching pointless, and they're rubbing my face in it every day.
2 comments:
Bell's habit of making touchtone service a separate item on the bill even though it's mandatory,
Bell does this???
I don't use Bell, so I wouldn't have known this. Geez. That is crazy. And I thought Rogers was bad with the extra charges. (Which they are.)
Yeah, at one point touchtone was optional and they charged extra, and then it became mandatory for new accounts but pulse was grandfathered in for old accounts if they want it (I think two households in the world still have this and they're both related to me), but it's still a separate line item on the bill. I don't get why they think it's a good idea to charge way more than announced.
Post a Comment