CBC Marketplace -Bell telco door sales people and CTV W5 - Auto body shops

[ssfc72]

2 very good consumer show episodes.

The Marketplace show deals with the contractors that Bell has hired to sell their Fibre service, using door salespeople.
The contractor's salespeople are trained to give a sales pitch but the contracts they have people sign, have terms that the salespeople do not mention, which causes an increase in the cost of the service.
They promote the fibre optic Bell service, only to discover the fibre only goes to the street curb and the cable is still only coax, going into the home.
Promising 50 MB/s speed for a cell phone wifi, only to discover the internet speed has remained the same, at around 5 MB/s
Etc, etc.

The CTV W5 show deals with auto body shops, charging for parts/repairs, that they did not provide.
One auto body shop even did deliberate damage to a car to increase the repair bill.
This episode airs tonight, Sat. Mar 10

These episodes can be found on the web sites for Marketplace and W5.


Bill

[fox]

I know that a lot of the accusations against Bell are true. I was formerly given a promotional price, which went up after a few months. We've had several door to door salespeople for Bell offering to give us a better deal than we can get from Bell, itself (right!). Trying to move them back on a price increase is almost impossible. When I switched to Cogeco under a special promo, their price went up as well, but I called them and they rescinded the price increase immediately. My experience so far has been much better with them.

[Jason]

Just saw the Marketplace report about these Bell contractors. They mentioned that Bell severed their relationship with the contractor they were using, at least in that area. However, I have little respect for companies that farm out sales.  There's been enough history in the marketplace with other services that they have to know damn well what the contractors are doing in order to generate all these sales. They just got caught. Door-to-door sales might have once been at least a somewhat  honest profession (if high pressure) but it the last 20 years it's been nothing but crooks. Any company that uses door-to-door sales whether themselves or through contractors needs to be avoided with extreme prejudice.

We used to have guys trying to switch us over to other hydro companies regularly in our building until I basically told a couple of the sellers that I knew they were crooked because there was no reason they needed to see my bill (they did that so they could use your customer number to switch you without you knowing) and there was no way without me having said how much I pay that they'd automatically have a cheaper rate.

[Jason]

Incidentally, I received mail from Bell offering this amazing Fibe package with high speeds of 10 Mbps!!! Only $41.95 to start and then $79.95 after the introductory period. Bell is nothing but hucksters if they can honestly make out like that's a deal. Shame on them. Slimeballs.

[fox]

Unfortunately, I missed the show. I'm guessing that the part dealing with auto body shops was even more damning.

[Jason]

Unfortunately, I missed the show. I'm guessing that the part dealing with auto body shops was even more damning.

Two different shows, Mike. The CBC segment is online at their website. I didn't try looking for the W5 segment online.