Basic incompetence by Freedom Mobile

[TorontoBuilder]

i've come to accept incompetence from corporate entities, especially the smaller ones who battle giants.

But this is one case that is just so wrong on so many levels, and Freedom mobiles advice to other customers who may have the same issue is both tone deaf and potentially traumatizing.

Do I need to change carriers just to express my displeasure to them?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/freedom-mobile-hotline-charges-1.6843016

 

[whydontu]

Best understood using the term Corporate Intelligence. C/I is a teeter-totter. As one goes up, the other goes down.

 

[trevj]

i've come to accept incompetence from corporate entities, especially the smaller ones who battle giants.

But this is one case that is just so wrong on so many levels, and Freedom mobiles advice to other customers who may have the same issue is both tone deaf and potentially traumatizing.

Do I need to change carriers just to express my displeasure to them?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/freedom-mobile-hotline-charges-1.6843016

And go where? It's sorta like changing banks. They all run out of the same playbook, and all you really get is a different flavoring in your serving of use and abuse.

 

[VicHobbyGuy]

Perhaps the real problem is the non-standard (7-digit) phone number chosen by the 'Help Line' ?

 

[Mcgyver]

And go where? It's sorta like changing banks.

The two most regulated and non-competitive industries in the country.

Canada has what 20 or 30 federal deposit insured banks? I did a study on this 20 years ago and recall at round 2002 the US had 8,000. The market has tightened up there a bit, down to 4000 lol. And you should see what its like in corporate finance. Have you ever noticed every big bank is on every decent sized prospectus? Better not ask any tough Q's at the info meeting, else you might not be invited to the next soiree. American investment bankers can't believe how cozy it is.

Did you know that to be a bank in Canada its not like if you meet the following criteria you're good to go, its more a royal decree. The ultimate franchise. An oligopoly. And nobody knows about it or complains

Now that I'm all rile up..... ..... next time a politician knocks on your door tell them we want open and competitive banking and communications!

 

[gerritv]

Competition and regulation has nothing to do with lacking or incorrect requirements for the billing system, or testing boundary cases. Or, like mentioned, the unusaul phone number chosen. Or the expectation that a billing system will have zero errors and that you can get your issue resovled without telling the vendor any details. I understand that in this case it is upsetting, but the expectations of perfection is unrealistic.

<A mobile phone company's> billing system under went 3 years of development and testing in early 2000's (I was the Defect Manager), these are (for whatever reason) complex. A year prior was spent on requirements. A further 2 years were spent ironing out the remaining issues. They interface to a myroid of other systems, many from other phone etc. companies. This particular prblem could have come from any one of dozens of systems or interfaces.

 

[TorontoBuilder]

Competition and regulation has nothing to do with lacking or incorrect requirements for the billing system, or testing boundary cases. Or, like mentioned, the unusaul phone number chosen. Or the expectation that a billing system will have zero errors and that you can get your issue resovled without telling the vendor any details. I understand that in this case it is upsetting, but the expectations of perfection is unrealistic.

<A mobile phone company's> billing system under went 3 years of development and testing in early 2000's (I was the Defect Manager), these are (for whatever reason) complex. A year prior was spent on requirements. A further 2 years were spent ironing out the remaining issues. They interface to a myroid of other systems, many from other phone etc. companies. This particular prblem could have come from any one of dozens of systems or interfaces.

The issue as it pertains to mental health and hotlines in particular. By their very nature they deserve more care and attention than given elsewhere.. there are actually not that many such numbers out there that the task is too onerous for an entity that is given a license to print money

Oh and much of my point in posting this was to illustrate that in their response to this individual case the company basically said, "we know it will happen to others before we get a permanent fix, and when it does happen you must out yourself and face all the traumas that incurs to resolve your issue and as a corporate entity we dont give a damn about that trauma. ps dont forget to pay your bill at the start of each month so we earn mucho interest on all those aggregated payments made before we actually provide people with a service."

There is a word for this attitude but I get into trouble when I state it here.

 

[DavidR8]

I agree with @gerritv. I worked in both the telecom and electrical utility billing field and the complexities involved are enormous. The potential points of failure are innumerable.

I should also note that the response given does not preclude any work underway to actually fix the underlying issue.

 

[TorontoBuilder]

I agree with @gerritv. I worked in both the telecom and electrical utility billing field and the complexities involved are enormous. The potential points of failure are innumerable.

so let's just excuse them and say it is too hard to fix the issues.

got it

 

[TorontoBuilder]

somehow these overly worked telecoms make this work for every 911 call center...

it all comes down to what society finds acceptable and permits. If we all found such lax operations unacceptable they would not happen.

 

[DavidR8]

so let's just excuse them and say it is too hard to fix the issues.

got it

I didn't say that did I?
What I did say is that the systems involved are extremely complex and that while every effort to not have it happen in the first place was in all likelihood in place and that there are very likely efforts underway to fix the problem.
The root issue is that it's a mental health toll free number.

Would there have been a news worthy story if someone got charged for a call to the call before you dig 310 number? No.
Should someone have been charged for the call? No
Should it be fixed? Yes
Is it being worked on? I can just about guarantee it
Should someone who called that number have to relive why they called in the first place? No
Is there a better option?

 

[gerritv]

I'm not sure what word I can use Torontobuilder but when you ship your next gadget, i'm sure your customers will get a perfect product that will operate as they need. And on that occasion when there is a fail/defect, you will of course drop everything and fix it in an hour. All while the caller keeps their identity anonymous.

I get it, the individual has issues and this incident didn't help. But the expectation of perfection and instant fixes is unreasonable for any industry. It took 2 downed flights for Boeing to pay attention.

 

[DPittman]

Would there have been a news worthy story if someone got charged for a call to the call before you dig 310 number? No.

Nowadays everyone seems to want to claim to be a victim or be traumatized by someone else's actions. While of course there are real victims out there, many of the ones that make the headlines are not so much victims of society but opportunists. It appears to me that that individual in the above story truly seemed to want the issue from reoccurring to others as he thought it was unacceptable and should have never occurred in the first place.

 

[DavidR8]

Nowadays everyone seems to want to claim to be a victim or be traumatized by someone else's actions. While of course there are real victims out there, many of the ones that make the headlines are not so much victims of society but opportunists. It appears to me that that individual in the above story truly seemed to want the issue from reoccurring to others as he thought it was unacceptable and should have never occurred in the first place.

I completely agree that they wanted to ensure it didn't happen to anyone else. In fact the CBC articles states as much.

 

[trevj]

Nowadays everyone seems to want to claim to be a victim or be traumatized by someone else's actions. While of course there are real victims out there, many of the ones that make the headlines are not so much victims of society but opportunists. It appears to me that that individual in the above story truly seemed to want the issue from reoccurring to others as he thought it was unacceptable and should have never occurred in the first place.

It's a lot of hay to make over a one time failure of an otherwise good system (the hot-line, and related access charges, not the cell service provider!). I kinda doubt it is NOT being looked at hard, as far as a hot-fix and longer term fixes are concerned.

Personally, I'd be pretty happy to have things in the wireless Telecoms side of the house to be a lot more cutthroat than they are.

I do understand that there are a lot of wide open, mostly empty places in Canada, I just think we are still getting screwed by the Telecoms who chant about said spaces, when they want to divert away attention from their usurious 'plan' rates. I finally got sick of getting done over on Data overages on my old $20/Mo cell plan, and the best I could get was $80 and change a month... Just because I gave in, and paid, does not mean that I would not laugh if I saw their Headquarters building burn down! (I have an alibi!)

 

[JustaDB]

...next time a politician knocks on your door...

...just punch 'em in the head. You'll get the same lack of results, but at least you got a swing in.