My Email To Bell CEO George Cope

So, I've been having a hell of a time dealing with Bell Canada. When I was getting my service hooked up, it took a month (and several hours on the phone with them) for them to get my address right. Then for some reason they sent my bills to the address that doesn't exist, instead of the one I spent a month giving them.
When I finally managed to get a bill from them, I tried to pay online but my online account showed no bills, and wouldn't let me make a payment. An hour on customer support was absolutely no help, and one rep told me that they weren't trained to deal with online payments.

Here is my email to George Cope, CEO of Bell Canada Enterprises. If I get any response, I will add that in too.

Dear Mr. Cope,

I am writing to inform you that the service I have received from Bell Internet has been among the worst service I have ever had the displeasure of paying for.
I signed up for Bell High-Speed Internet in mid-September, 2008. I was told that my modem would arrive within 3-5 days business days. When it had not arrived nearly 2 weeks later, I phoned again and discovered that my address had been improperly recorded (the sales representative had failed to mark down my apartment number) and that the package containing the modem had been returned to Bell. I gave the CSR my address again, and was told that my modem would be sent express post, arriving within 1-3 business days. A week later, no modem had arrived. I called again, to discover that once again the CSR had not put my apartment number on my account, even after I had them repeat my full address to me. Once again, I was assured that the problem was solved, and that my modem would arrive within 1-3 days. This aggravating process repeated itself, all in all 4 modems were sent improperly addressed over the course of a month. Several CSRs flat out lied to me, telling me they had fixed my address, and that they would flag the order so that I would be called if delivery failed. I was never informed once, it always came to me to call your company to find out that they had made the same mistake again.

Finally, in mid-October, I decided that I was done waiting. I called the cancellation department. They inquired as to why I was canceling before my service had been connected. I told them how I had been waiting for my modem for a month. The person in the cancellation department was helpful, and did fixed the address in about 30 seconds, and sent me my modem, and gave me 2 months free service for all the aggravation that this had caused me. (Not to mention personal financial loss, as I went over my allotted minutes on my cell phone to deal with this issue, and was spending upwards of 20$/week in internet cafes during this time. For the record, from the time I signed up for your service until the time I received my modem, calls to Bell Customer Support accounted for roughly 90% of my cellphone usage.) I figured that the problem had been solved.

Unfortunately, I was mistaken. After my 2 months of free service ran out, I noticed that I was not receiving bills in the mail. When I signed up, I had asked specifically for paper bills. However, I figured that I would be contacted if I missed a payment, or if a bill was not delivered. I then forgot about it, as I was entering an extremely busy part of the semester. Last week, I started receiving calls from a blocked number. I would pick up, and a few seconds later, I would be disconnected. Finally one of those calls went through, and it turned out to be Bell Internet Accounts Receivable asking me why I had not payed my bill. I told them that I had not been sent any bills. Thinking back to the fall, I asked them what the address on my account was. Can you guess the problem, Mr. Cope? Correct, once again my apartment number had disappeared from my account. Your company had been sending my bills in such a way that they were not deliverable. And NOT ONCE was I informed that my bill had been returned to Bell Canada, until the point when I was sent to Accounts Receivable.

Mr. Cope, I was offended. I was being accused of being delinquent on my account. I have never missed a credit card payment. I have never missed a tuition payment. Whenever I borrow money, I pay it back promptly. I have missed one cell phone payment in 4 years of having a cell phone, and that was because my cell company (not Bell, don't worry) changed my billing date without informing me. I take pride in paying on time Mr. Cope, so you can imagine my surprise when Accounts Receivable called me.

Now, perhaps it says something about a company's priorities when it takes an entire month to get my modem shipped to me, but Accounts Receivable can fix my address immediately. I received my bill yesterday, and had the late charges removed (Heather in the business office was very helpful).

Today, I attempted to pay my bill online. Now, with every other online payment I have ever made to other companies it is a very simple process. You log in to your account, click the payment option, enter your credit card information, and you're finished. For some reason when I logged in to http://www.bell.ca/myinternet my bill was not available online, and there was no obvious way to make a payment on a paper bill. I called 514-310-SURF and spoke to someone in technical support, I was on the line with them for roughly 25 minutes. They decided that it was a "billing" issue, and transferred me to the billing department. After a 5 minute hold, I was on the line with a person in the billing department for 30 minutes. She was also unable to help me. She also mentioned that they "weren't trained to deal with online billing". When I was told that she was going to transfer me back to technical support (who had transferred me to her, and had told me that they could not help me) I told her that I was just going to hang up.

Afterwards, I spent another half hour scouring the myinternet website to figure out how to pay the bill myself.

I'm not asking for anything, Mr. Cope, except that your company begin to act like it wants to retain customers. Dealing with Bell Canada has been nothing but raise my blood pressure, and cement a feeling that customers are not valued by your corporation. And while I'm too young to have to worry much about the blood pressure, your company should be concerned that they are alienating young customers, customers who have many years of internet and phone service ahead of them. Many years that will likely be spent with one of your competitors.

So, Mr. Cope, I have a few pieces of advice for your company:
-Paying a bill online should be quick and simple. This should NOT include spending an hour on the phone with tech support.
-It should not take a month, and a call to the cancellation department, to get a modem shipped to an address anywhere. Much less one in the middle of Montreal.
-CSRs should not lie and tell a customer that they will do something that they have no intention of doing.
-Finally, you are a phone company. The robocalls from the Accounts Receivable department should not disconnect themselves randomly. This reflects poorly on your company.

If you have made it this far into the letter, thank you for your time Mr. Cope. I do not expect a reply (as I have no reason to believe that you will read this), but a reply would be very much appreciated.

Sincerely,

Patrick