I hate Telus - phone is fubar'd

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by wooohooo

I'm not entirely sure on this but I believe it has better coverage something to do with the frequency? So out in the boonies Telus and Bell are usually the company of choice.

Basically. Across NA, the companies that use CDMA (called EVDO now) generally have better reception. Every other continent is generally GSM because it's the cheaper technology.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by TanguayFan

I was merely speaking to Firefly's hypothetical situation in which a phone is breaking every 1.5 years

It's not as hypothetical as you think. I used to work in the retention department at Telus and you'd get lots of guys (especially in the cosntruction) industry who were prone to breaking their phones and then would want a new one for the same price as they originally paid when signing up for a contract.

[Flames0910]

Originally Posted by rubecube

It's not as hypothetical as you think. I used to work in the retention department at Telus and you'd get lots of guys (especially in the cosntruction) industry who were prone to breaking their phones and then would want a new one for the same price as they originally paid when signing up for a contract.

well i understand where you are coming from having had people try to work the system on you. My complaint is just that $150 is way too expensive as the cheapest option given to me by telus. I just want a cheap, ty phone to hold me over for a year and half. The phone this rep was saying was my cheapest option was probably better than the phone I already own. Why does telus not have a cheap, no frills phone as an option?

[Sainters7]

My phone started messing up two weeks ago, which is exactly ONE WEEK after my warranty expired. It was pretty sweet timing.

Now the screen messes up all the time, so texting is pretty hit and miss. I took it in there and they basically said I need to buy a new phone(or pay $250 to get it fixed, which is more than I paid for it in the first place), but I can't afford it right now after an expensive month last month, so I'm stuck using a dud. I realize my warranty has just expired so obviously I need to shell out for it, but does that really 100% land on my shoulders, even though the thing just went defective, and really had nothing to do with anything I did to it? I'm only 1.5 years into this 3 year contract and already this will be the third phone I'll have to get under it(my Chocolate was wonky as hell too, it would just randomly dial people when I wasnt even using it)

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by TanguayFan

well i understand where you are coming from having had people try to work the system on you. My complaint is just that $150 is way too expensive as the cheapest option given to me by telus. I just want a cheap, ty phone to hold me over for a year and half. The phone this rep was saying was my cheapest option was probably better than the phone I already own. Why does telus not have a cheap, no frills phone as an option?

Well then that's more an individual rep than Telus itself. Some of the Telus retailers can be pretty useless, IMO. There are actually forms I used to fill out when I worked there that were specifically to deal with bad dealerships. Like I said, give retention a call and ask about refurbished phones.

[FireFly]

Originally Posted by TanguayFan

well i understand where you are coming from having had people try to work the system on you. My complaint is just that $150 is way too expensive as the cheapest option given to me by telus. I just want a cheap, ty phone to hold me over for a year and half. The phone this rep was saying was my cheapest option was probably better than the phone I already own. Why does telus not have a cheap, no frills phone as an option?

They do. It's called Pay and Talk. Get yourself a Pay and Talk phone and activate it on your account.


http://telusmobility.com/ab/payandtalk/kit_home.shtml

Look at that. $70.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by TanguayFan

Thanks blankall, I actually noticed that phone a little earlier and you say I would be able to transfer it over? How would I go about doing that, buy the phone at futureshop and then take it into a telus store? I imagine there will be some kind of service fee as well

I know as early as a year ago you could definitely transfer it over. I might give Telus a quick call to confirm this. You don't need to go into a store (which will cost $25-35 depending on what the store charges), like the other poster said you can do it online for $10. If you make a stink with loyalty retention they will be able to waive it for you or credit what you have paid to your account.

Originally Posted by TanguayFan

Also blankall I was wondering if you could explain something for me. I don't understand why when I asked the guy about extending my contract he said the phone would still be 150 dollars even if I added a couple years to my contract with it. He mentioned that the discount would be from 350 but I don't really understand that. If I can buy the phone for 150 without extending my contract why the hell would I buy it at the same price with an extended contract?

You don't necessarily get entry level deals on contract extension. So what you got was a set discount on a phone. It might not have applied to all models. The deals are entirely set by telus head office and the dealers have no control. They also do not apply to pay and talk phones. It probably read something like this:

200 of a phone on a 3 year contract. There would be no mention of entry level pricing.


I'm not sure what descepencies in price you are referring to, but you may be talking about a situation where you have a phone available on both regular price and as a much cheaper pay and talk kit. Normally the pay and talk kits are substantially cheaper. They do that as a price incentive to get people hoooked on them. Most people don't even realize you can use them on regular contracts so they buy the more expensive "plan versions".

The pay and talk and plan phones are identical in everyway except for packaging. Pay and talk phones even come with an extra pay and talk kit with a certain amount of prepaid minutes you can use. You can't use these as credit towards a plan, just if you wanted to start up a brand new pay and talk account with a different number.

Honestly the LG phones are not fantastic but not terrible either. They have really loud speakerphones and clear speakers, adequate reception, and tend ot be slightly below average on durability. At that price though, you really can't go wrong. They do come with a one year warranty, which will get you through until your next contract when you will have the option to upgrade to a much nicer phone if need be.

Edit: another option is London Drugs. They have the Samsung phone refurbished

http://www.londondrugs.com/Cultures/...&Sort=0&Page=1

Its a much nicer phone, but more of a gamble since the refurbs normally only come with a 3 month warranty.

Edit X2: The rep may not have been showing you the best options because of commission, inventory, contests he was involved in, or other quotas he had to fulfill. He may have also been incompetent. There are many many incompetent sales reps in cell phones, because it takes so long to properly learn the product.