Atlantic Canada — Bell has topped the list of major telecoms companies that Canadians griped about to the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services, and while customer satisfaction is at an all-time low, Bell claims they still will not rest until everyone has an unused landline on a shelf in their homes.
“Actually, we don’t even care if you have the literal phone, as long as you’re paying for the phone,” said Bell rep Sam Kline. “We’re not stupid…we know that nobody under the age of 60 uses a home phone these days, but since our customers are pretty well stuck with us, we figure this is an easy way to convince them they’re somehow saving money.”
Customers are annoyed by Bell’s insistence on the landline, but are unsure what to do about it. Some have called Bell in an attempt to negotiate lower prices, but the only way to have an even slightly more reasonable monthly bill is — you guessed it — adding an effing home phone for no reason.
“I swear, every frickin time I contact Bell to demand a better deal, they interrupt me and suggest a home phone,” said irate Fall River, N.S. man Frank Smith. “If I refuse it, they become hostile and rude. I’m calling them on my cell — which I’m paying out the arse for, by the way — about my internet costs, and they completely ignore me and just go on about the benefits of a home phone! It’s a conspiracy!”
“I pretty much only text or IM people,” said Sarah Breen, a Dalhousie University student. “I’ve never answered or made a phone call in my life…what am I, 80 years old?? Cellphones are for Snapchat and Instragram, not talking to people.”
“Yeah, it’s like they’re actively trying to drag us into the past,” agreed Breen’s friend Anna Drake. “Bigger, less mobile phones! Higher costs for cellphone plans! Maybe their slogan should be something like ‘Bell: regressing together,’ or like…‘Bell: Yes, a landline. No joke.’”
Bell even sends their reps to people’s homes where they can lie to customers’ faces about the benefits of the home phone.
“I only answered the door because I thought they were just Jehovah’s Witnesses trying to spread the word of the Lord,” said Moncton man Irvine LeBlanc. “Turns out they were Bell’s minions. They said if I add a home phone to my plan — even if I don’t want or need one — the overall cost would go down by 20 bucks a month. I agreed just to get them off my doorstep, but next month my bill was actually 10 bucks more!”
Bell maintains that their deals are the best and that people without a home phone don’t know what they’re missing.
“I don’t know why people are complaining about being misled and misinformed — or why they’re complaining at all, for that matter,” Kline told us. “If they don’t like us they can go cry to Rogers for all I care. They’ll come crawling back to us soon enough.
“It’s our personal mission to ensure every Bell customer has a landline they don’t use, extremely overpriced internet, and a cable package they’ll neglect in favour of Netflix.”