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Unlimited minutes not so unlimited.

  • 21 February 2021
  • 34 replies
  • 426 views
M

 

I’ve been a very loyal client since Oct. 2014. My 20 y.o. son has had this plan since 2017. He recently had his identity stolen and had to deal with CRA (still not done!)...was put on hold for hours (up to 6 hrs. on one occasion!!). Yes, you read that right.

Long story short, his bill came up to just under $500. I called Koodo (he’s under my account), dealt with them on and off for about 4½ hrs...ended up having to deal with manager (Micheal). I asked why he was being charged, since his plan clearly says “Unlimited Canada-wide minutes”? After an awkward pause, his answer was, “Canada-wide” only refers to long distance charges - not airtime?????? Why in God’s name would it not simply say that in plain English?! He ended up giving me a 50% credit after I put up quit a fuss. I have to say though that I’m seeing some holes in the validity of his answer.

1- If in fact, “Canada-wide minutes” does not refer to airtime, then why on earth was he the very 1st person to inform me of this? Should this not be common knowledge amongst every single rep? No one told me this before him.

2- When checking out different (Koodo) plan offers online, the ones that didn’t say “Canada-wide”; so only “Unlimited minutes” meaning (according to manager) unlimited airtime; when you would click arrow for more details, the description would say: “Unlimited Canada-wide minutes”???? In other words, the terms are obviously interchangeable.

3- The employee at the Koodo kiosk (at the mall) couldn’t understand why my son was charged...according to him, “Unlimited Canada-wide minutes” meant exactly what it looked like - Unlimited AIRTIME!! Seriously though, how would anyone NOT come up with the same conclusion?? Minutes = airtime, NO??? It obviously isn’t referring to data. He even confirmed that any of the new plans that state this (Unlimited Canada-wide minutes), means exactly that also. Try searching for “Unlimited Canada-wide minutes vs. Unlimited minutes”, you will find NOTHING.

What I still find confusing is that, if in fact, “Canada-wide minutes” only refers to long distance calls, then how are we to know what the actual “airtime limit” is whenever shopping for a new plan???? That info is nowhere to be found. Also, does that mean that plans that do not have “Canada-wide” in the description do not cover any long distance calls? What a fricken’ mess this is!

I will end by saying, if/whenever my son would be roaming, I would immediately get a notification email informing me of the potential charges. Then I would contact him (of course) and let him know. But for some asinine reason, Koodo doesn’t see the need to do the same with regards to airtime. $500 phone bill people!!! And 90% of that time (if not more) he was on hold...and this was a 1 800 CRA # to boot!

Absolute insanity.

34 replies

Sophia
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

Whoa, consider breaking that down in paragraphs, I couldn’t read through that wall of text and only skimmed it.

If your current plan mentions “unlimited Canada wide minutes”, then you have unlimited Canada wide minutes. You shouldn’t be billed for overage.

So I’m not sure what the problem is here and as I said, I tried to read your message three times but couldn’t get through…. did you check page 3 and further of your invoice to see where the $500 charge came from?

Edit: thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So much easier to read now (unless there was some bug that prevented showing the paragraphs before, in that case I’m sorry).

So yeah, not sure what the employee was smoking because Canada wide minutes definitely refers to airtime and not long distance :grinning: You can still check your invoice, can you see what exactly was billed to get such a huge increase? Did your son call a number abroad perhaps?

M

Sorry Sophia, there you go, all paragraphed up! Yes, I can see that all airtime overage was because of him having to deal with CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) as I stated. He has never before even come close to using that much airtime in the past. I will check page 3 now.

Mayumi
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

According to this screenshot, you have a plan with "Canada wide unlimited minutes" included. And it seemed that one of old/ grandfather plan since your data is 100MB and overage charge is lower than current one.

Is $500 is for actually talk minutes? Did you check the PDF EBill for details? 

Sophia
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

Thanks again for breaking that up in paragraphs :)

I’m just thinking out loud… did you check your SON’S plan in self serve and not your own? Since you are both on the same account you may need to check his own line. Perhaps he is on an older plan with limited minutes and he just never went over before.

If he is, I believe there is still an add-on for unlimited minutes for $2, might be worth it to prevent this in the future.

M

His total bill was just under $500 ($489.29). $393 of that was airtime overage, again, ALL due to calling CRA (at a 1 800 # btw) and being put on hold for the large majority of the time.

M

Sophia, I can’t find p.3 btw...sorry, I’m new to this “community thing”.

Sophia
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

No worries, @Mayumi or others can talk you through downloading the PDF - I'm actually on prepaid so I'm not familiar on where to find it 😄

M

Sophia, yes, of course I checked my son’s plan on Self Serve...he’s on MY account...this is how I’m getting all this info. My question is why does his plan description (above pic) say “Unlimited Canada-wide minutes”. 

M

Sophia, when you say p. 3, are you referring to billing? If so, I already have access to that.

Mayumi
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

Sophia, I can’t find p.3 btw...sorry, I’m new to this “community thing”.

She meant to find Page 3 on your PDF E-bill. You need to download it to see all the details of your bill. 

You can check which number was charged,  time of the day and duration of calls etc.

M

So yeah, not sure what the employee was smoking because Canada wide minutes definitely refers to airtime and not long distance :grinning:

This was the MANAGER.

Mayumi
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

No worries, @Mayumi or others can talk you through downloading the PDF - I'm actually on prepaid so I'm not familiar on where to find it 😄

Ya. PDF bill looks like this. This is page 4 ad up. I have 4 lines under one account. 
see, you can check which number you called/received, and charges if there are overages

 


And I think there might be some kind of glitch in the system.  If the screenshot was your son’s plan, he has an unlimited minutes.

If he has a plan with limited minutes, 1-800 use your minutes. It will cover for long distance. But eat up your minutes and cause overage charges.

M

On his BILL it says he only has 100 min (which is what the reps and manager kept insisting), BUT, WHY WOULD IT SAY “UNLIMITED CANADA-WIDE MINUTES” when you check out his plan on Self Serve???? No one has been able to answer this for me. 

He hasn’t even come close to using that much airtime in the past, so it was never an issue to have to check his bill. He’s 20 y.o. for crying out loud not 12. His bills have been very consistent since the start (as far as airtime is concerned), so again, it was never an issue.

Mayumi
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

On his BILL it says he only has 100 min (which is what the reps and manager kept insisting), BUT, WHY WOULD IT SAY “UNLIMITED CANADA-WIDE MINUTES” when you check out his plan on Self Serve???? No one has been able to answer this for me. 

He hasn’t even come close to using that much airtime in the past, so it was never an issue to have to check his bill. He’s 20 y.o. for crying out loud not 12. His bills have been very consistent since the start (as far as airtime is concerned), so again, it was never an issue.


Can you show the plan part on his Ebill?  

Does it say $30 100mb, 100min?

Also, can you post a screenshot of his plan ?

 

M

No worries, @Mayumi or others can talk you through downloading the PDF - I'm actually on prepaid so I'm not familiar on where to find it 😄

And I think there might be some kind of glitch in the system.  If the screenshot was your son’s plan, he has an unlimited minutes.

 

The screenshot is 100% my son’s line. Yes, an EXTREMELY bad glitch. But if that’s the case, then the manager lied to me. He literally said: “Unlimited Canada-wide minutes refers to long distance calls, and Unlimited Minutes refers to airtime”.

M

 

Does it say $30 100mb, 100min?

 

Yes, $30 100MB  100 min Plan SFD

That is not the issue though, the issue is his plan’s description on Self Serve (picture above), which totally contradicts this 100 min.

Mayumi
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

 

Does it say $30 100mb, 100min?

 

Yes, $30 100MB  100 min Plan SFD

That is not the issue though, the issue is his plan’s description on Self Serve (picture above), which totally contradicts this 100 min.

This is so confusing and bad glitch. If the screenshot is under his plan, then he has a plan with unlimited. 
 

Can you check your PDF Ebill on previous month or even few month back?  Are those bills say $30 100MB  100 min Plan SFD?   If so, he has a plan with 100min. 
 

I can flag this.  Hopefully one of rep can take a look on your account.

M

Don’t worry about it. Will be looking at other provider options in the near future.

Dinh
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

Just to confirm,  as you mentioned you were roaming some time in the past... did you/or someone make a call while you weren’t residing in Canada?

If you did call while you were roaming, there were extra charges depending on roaming package you had.

 

 

A Koodo customer, opinions are my own.
Sophia
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

Don’t worry about it. Will be looking at other provider options in the near future.

 

Perhaps, but I’d fight a little harder for a bill of $500 especially if I didn’t deserve it :smile:  Let’s try to get to the bottom of this and THEN you can look for another provider.. if you still want to haha!

Emilia Koodo
Userlevel 6
Badge +4

Hi, thanks for the flag.

Indeed, the plan visible on our end is $30 100 MB and 100 daytime minutes. We can see unlimited minutes but this refers to evenings and weekends and it shows as “5pm Evenings & Weekends”. Then, under the features there is also “Unlimited Canadian LD” (which allows long-distance within Canada based on the plan, so 100 daytime and unlimited evenings and weekends) and “Unltd Local Family Calling” which allows unlimited calling between the numbers from the same account so these calls will not be deducted from the 100 daytime. The plan has been like this since 2017 with no change. 

However, starting today our colleagues have added an unlimited anytime calling add-on. (this one does not affect the plan and it can be removed anytime) 

M

Just to confirm,  as you mentioned you were roaming some time in the past... did you/or someone make a call while you weren’t residing in Canada?

If you did call while you were roaming, there were extra charges depending on roaming package you had.

 

 

? This has nothing to do with roaming. The only reason I mentioned roaming, was because if/when he MY SON on HIS LINE was roaming in the past, I (since it’s my account) would immediately get an alert/notification by email - which I check constantly throughout the day, as opposed to going on Self Serve. Now, had I received this same notification as soon as he went over his airtime, then obviously, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Why on earth would Koodo alert you for potential roaming charges but not when your approaching or busting your airtime limit??? Makes no sense to me.

Sophia
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

@Emilia Koodo I’m confused though, how come in the first screenshot it mentions clearly “Unlimited Canada-wide minutes”. There is no mention of 5PM or LD or anything of the sort. If @Markarita is indeed correct that this is a screenshot of her son’s account, then something is definitely wrong…. and it wouldn’t be fair to have her pay hundreds of dollars overage in that case.

M

Just to confirm,  as you mentioned you were roaming some time in the past... did you/or someone make a call while you weren’t residing in Canada?

If you did call while you were roaming, there were extra charges depending on roaming package you had.

 

 

? This has nothing to do with roaming. The only reason I mentioned roaming, was because if/when he MY SON on HIS LINE was roaming in the past, I (since it’s my account) would immediately get an alert/notification by email - which I check constantly throughout the day, as opposed to going on Self Serve. Now, had I received this same notification as soon as he went over his airtime, then obviously, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Why on earth would Koodo alert you for potential roaming charges but not when your approaching or busting your airtime limit??? Makes no sense to me.

HE didn’t even get any sort of alert on his OWN PHONE! How is it they can offer “Shock-free Data”, and alert you whenever you are roaming, but not a SINGLE thing if/when your approaching or surpassing your airtime? Just blows my mind.

M

@Emilia Koodo I’m confused though, how come in the first screenshot it mentions clearly “Unlimited Canada-wide minutes”. There is no mention of 5PM or LD or anything of the sort. If @Markarita is indeed correct that this is a screenshot of her son’s account, then something is definitely wrong…. and it wouldn’t be fair to have her pay hundreds of dollars overage in that case.

Bingo. Btw, my name is Mark (a man lol)...I couldn’t use that...they forced me to make up a username. So I just combined my name and fav. drink ;-).

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