[ad_1]
Virgin Mobile says it will substantially reduce the balance owed to an 80-year-old man from Amherstburg who is visually impaired and has to pay $ 13,000 for his cell phone bill.
“People were just giving me the runaround,” Willie Guerard said. “When they see an old man at 80, they think I lost my marbles and I wasn’t able to do anything.”
Guerard and his wife Yvonne said that when they got the phone from a Walmart earlier this year, the employee told them there would be a $ 200 limit on the account and if the usage charges were higher. at this, the phone would be cut off.
Virgin Mobile said Guerard “agreed to restore the data” every month. He said he also informed him when he reached both $ 300 and $ 500 in surplus via email and text.
After the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company said it removed spending limits on accounts until July 8 so people wouldn’t be left without service, but informed customers that they would still have to pay for it. surpluses. It was around this time that Guerard said his account was jumping, and not just a little.
“I paid a bill of $ 144 and the next week, I get a bill of $ 5,000 and $ 7,000 and I don’t know what it is for,” Guerard said, adding that he spoke to a Virgin Mobile agent who told him he would to pay the balance.
“I said well that I don’t have that kind of money and if I did then I probably wouldn’t pay it because I don’t think I owe it.”
Guerard said the phone was meant to call friends and family, both he and his partner Yvonne say they are not tech-savvy and can’t see how it’s possible they could have used all that data.
In emailed responses to CBC’s questions, Virgin Mobile claimed that Guerard was an active data user and asked to increase his data plan twice since receiving the phone in February, first from two gigabytes to four gigabytes. and then to a 10 gigabyte plan.
This assumption that everyone can surf the Internet in exactly the same way is really unfair. “– Laura Tribe
He also said Yvonne signed a two-year deal on Guerard’s behalf for the phone.
The couple said they don’t remember having conversations with agents about increasing a data plan and said they didn’t get any kind of contract when they got the phone.
Guerard said he now has a phone from Koodo and is concerned about how this incident will affect his credit rating.
‘Wildly unthinkable’
After being contacted by CBC, Virgin Mobile said that although Guerard is no longer a customer, she will be “in contact with him to significantly reduce the outstanding balance.”
He says Guerard used 104 gigabytes of data for the months of June, July and August.
The company said that for every 100 megabytes above the 10 gigabytes included in Guerard’s plan, it would cost $ 10 more, after which the price will jump to $ 150 per gigabyte.
“That is, hours and hours of video conferencing, using zoom calls, Netflix streaming, FaceTime video calls [and] really intensive AV content, “said Laura Tribe, Executive Director of OpenMedia.
“This is not e-mail.”
Tribe said his organization has seen many cases of people being surprised by surplus allegations, but the amount in this case is exceptional.
“Beyond a simple legal or technical obligation, it is wildly unthinkable that someone would collect a $ 6,000 cell phone bill and in no way trigger any kind of demand from the company, including using a $ plan. 60 or $ 70 a month and $ 6,000, to say something is wrong, “Tribe said.
Tribe said people, especially the elderly, need more education on the meaning of cell phone bills.
“If you don’t grow up understanding megabytes and gigabytes of data, this is a really useless metric to you and it means nothing.”
He said the moral responsibility lies with the company to communicate with customers, especially those who may not use text or email in the same way as others.
“If the methods of communication are ones that seniors are unfamiliar with or unable to navigate, then I don’t think that counts as enough communication,” Tribe said.
“If they have this phone to keep in touch with their family to have a phone to make phone calls with, because someone hasn’t called them and hasn’t actually communicated with them and I think this assumes that everyone is able to surf the Internet in the exactly the same way is really unfair. ”
Source link
