Bell Mobility Being Tricky Again

My wife and have followed through on our plan to replace her old, pink, flip-style phone with a newer smartphone. We are also transitioning this phone to be primarily my phone and she will continue using her Blackberry as her main phone (which is what she uses 90% of the time anyway).

We got the phone on Monday, and I've been slowly setting things up and configuring it to work with our home network, etc. I noticed yesterday and asked my wife today about the fact that, although we had no data plan for the phone and I had turned off the wi-fi connection, I was still receiving data information. In particular, it was updating with new emails and notifying me of them, even though it shouldn't get that data.

This concerned me enough that I called Bell Mobility's customer support and spoke with a nice, well-spoken woman about the situation. She informed me that, unbeknownst to us, we were given a "free" week of data and that data connection was turned on in the phone so we could see what it was like. At the end of that week, the free trial would be over and... the connection on the phone that allows data would be left turned on and each piece of data sent or received would then be charged at the exorbitant rates for those without a data plan! I told her I wanted to turn all of that off.

"But why would you want to turn off that data connection now? You have a week for free! You could set up a reminder," she cajoled.

"Yes, but I'll tell you what will happen. I'll forget to set up the reminder, or I'll turn it off and forget to reset that data connection option, and every little thing will be charged to our next bill and we'll have an outrageously high cell phone bill. No thank you. You can show me where that is now, I'll turn it off, and I'll simply use the free wi-fi connection available through our house if I need data on the phone," I said.

To her credit, she understood my reasoning and did walk me through it, so it is now off.

Now, let's extrapolate what might have happened had I not noticed that: It is $.15 a Megabyte for data and, since I'm in the "learning to use and setting up phase" of the phone, I'm likely to be downloading many new applications and trying them out. I'm setting up and learning to use the Instant Messaging and Emailing capabilities on the phone, etc. That next bill after the first week of "free" use may have been astronomically high due to all of that fiddling. And me telling them "But I got a plan with no data! Why did you allow me to send and receive data when specifically got a plan without data?" would be no excuse and I would have to pay that bill.

Let's extrapolate further to the new grandmother who was convinced by her grandchildren to get a new smartphone for free so that they could more easily keep in touch with her. She lives on a fixed income and doesn't understand any of this, but goes along to stay in touch with the family. How big is her first bill, as she video conferences with her family at holidays, sends and receives pictures from them, and doesn't think about how fast that $.15 adds up, or doesn't think it will add up because she chose a plan without data, and she doesn't understand the technology, so assumes that all of this is not "data," or why would she be able to use those features? Do you think Bell is going to be any more sympathetic to her plight?

It is just these items and features that corporations need to tell people about, but are exactly the ones that they do not, because those extra fees that people incur by not knowing help keep the business going. I find it despicable.