This has got to be one of the most perplexing money grabbing fees that I have seen for a cell phone. Coming August this year in Canada Bell and Telus Mobility will be introducing a 15 cent fee for simply receiving a text message on your device. Before, it was free to receive messages but it costs you money to send messages.

Apparently they can’t afford to allow people to receive free text messages or something along those lines. This makes me wonder how it is going to work for text messaging services such as our public transportation system Translink. Nowadays, you can simply send Translink a text message with a special number and it will automatically send you a text message all of the bus schedules. I guess that means someone will get charged for sending the message and then receiving one too.

I wonder how high of a bill heavy Blackberry or other data phone users are going to experience with this.

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I was fairly busy today and thought that I would try and write a blog post using my cell phone while I was out. I must say, it is a rather tedious process not only from trying to type out sentences in general, but just trying to login to the blog itself is challenging. For example, my phone tends to put the first letter you type in capitals which in hence would cause case sensitive data to not work properly.

It was a noble thought though of not having to buy a more expensive data phone to do this. Although, in the end the battery on the phone was weak and so I guess it was meant to be that I shouldn’t even attempt it. I wonder if there are any other alternatives to a data phone.

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Around this time of the month I would get my cell phone bill and as you all know I switched to a new plan not too long ago. This month was my first billing under this new plan. I was just looking at the bill compared to last month on how much money is going to be saved once I saw this:

Granted every month it is a little different, just looking at the $55.93 total from last month to $17.87 this month while getting more features than before is quite a substantial difference. If those numbers were consistent, that would roughly mean a $456.72 savings a year.

While many people say who cares to a little bit of savings on various things, a little bit of effort to get a better deal can sure look nice in the long run.

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So I finally got my new cell phone and decided to go with Telus as they offered me a great deal as my new plan essentially cuts my old bill in half with a lot more features. It was kind of funny as all of my experiences in dealing with the customer support people on the phone were great, but going to a store vendor was a different story.

When I went to purchase the phone from this store and to activate the plan the person was trying to upsell me different items. I personally don’t mind that as he was simply doing his job. However, he then tried to mislead me on how the plan that I was offered was only valid if I bought specific things from him. He even then implied he just confirmed it with a representative from Telus as well about this stipulation. My answer was that I would simply do business elsewhere if that was the case and he immediately proceeded to process what the person on the phone offered me.

The person didn’t seem to have processed the order correctly though as the contract that he wanted me to sign seemed to have had some features missing. He told me that I would see the changes when I login to my account and not to worry. As a test, I asked him if I could check it right there on the spot and he mentioned that he wasn’t capable of accessing my account information.

Of course I knew something was wrong as the guy was really nervous after. Since I was in a hurry I just took his word for it and it seemed like he was going to wet his pants or something which I didn’t want to stick around for. Sure enough, there was an error when I checked it the day after.

Today I phoned Telus directly though and it was pretty amazing of the night and day type of service. I simply told them about the issue and they did confirm that the plan that I was enrolled in was exactly what the person in the store punched in. Without any fuss though, they gave me what was missing and then more again at no extra cost.

This reminds me how it can be very important for businesses that have resellers or distribution partners to be consistent as like this situation one bad vendor could do a lot to affect the company’s image as a whole. Everything turned out great in the end though.

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I decided to shop around a little with different cell phone carriers due to my recent experience. At first a lot of the rates and plans seemed similar. I then got an e-mail from one of the phone carriers that offered a plan which is not normally displayed as a regular offer. It was definitely better than the one I was currently using with my existing carrier.

Since I’m not tied down to a contract, this made me curious if my existing provider would try to match it. Sure enough, they gave me new options which were a lot better than what I was currently getting.

Many times these extremely discounted plans are actually special corporate plans or ones reserved for say employees who work in the field. You can actually still get these plans as a regular consumer as well by simply phoning your carrier and asking about it as well. If your contract is expiring, that gives them even more reason to want to cater to you.

For those in Canada, here are examples of these plans from Telus and Bell that I was offered:

Bell:

-200 minutes anytime
-Unlimited Evenings and weekends from 6pm to 8am
-Incoming Member Calling
-Message Centre, Call Display, Call Waiting, Call Forwarding
-Long Distance rate plan
-System Fees Included

Under $26

Telus:

-200 daytime minutes
-Unlimited local night and weekends from 6pm to 8am
-Voicemail, Call Display, Call Waiting, Conference Calling
-System fees included

Under $25

You can actually negotiate for different features. To my knowledge, the Bell plan is normally a corporate plan and the Telus one is what employees could get. I’m currently going back and fourth to see which one is the best. I was also considering a data phone plan instead which would require something different. But, this is definitely a great way to save money on your cell phone bill.

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