WIND Mobile

[Tripster]

I just made an interesting discovery. I recently switched to Fido for the iPhone and wondered at the time if I was rushing because of the new competition entering the market, such as Wind mobile.

Well looks like I was right in just doing it, I just read the latest PR from Wind about them offering 50% off for 6 months and noted who the parent corporation was .. Globalive ... haha! Not a chance I'd do business with these guys!

Here's why, a few years ago my brother in the UK called collect to me and I accepted the charges figuring that what could it cost, a $1 per minute maybe, not a big deal. So we talk for 15 minutes and that was that. Then came the Telus bill ... 15 minute phone call was over $80! At the time it calculated out to over $5/minute. What bothered me was the quality of the call it was obvious it was sent over IP lines, and knowing a bit about the cost of calls I knew that the wholesale rate for such a call is in the fraction of a cent per minute. 2 and 4 cent a minute rates where already common for UK bound calls.

So, I call Telus and dispute the charge, they say that it wasn't direct from them but from a third party company that handles the calls. Canopco is the company, a division of Globalive. Fast forward about 11 months and a collections letter arrives from this company. I call them, they will not budge, I argued with their manager for about 20 minutes letting him know that I knew their true cost for the call was pennies and they were screwing the customer who has no idea that these calls were being billed at such a high rate. Their standard response was "you can ask for the rate when you accept the call, we don't have to tell you it unless you ask".

Needless to say I swore I'd never touch this corporation again.

BTW, Telus even outsources to these guys for collect calls from their own payphones, I did a collect call from a payphone in the BC interior and that one was $2+/minute as well. Call Telus and they then tell me that is a charge from the third party they contract to handle collect calls .. pathetic. Now I won't even accept any collect calls, especially when phone cards offer such low per minute rates.

So, long story short, I wouldn't touch Wind Mobile with a 10 ft pole :D

[NB_TVLover]

I've been bitten by the Canopco name before as well. They're actually the LD provider for a lot of hotels (even the bigger name ones ) and as with your experience the rates they charge are ridiculous I paid over $25 for a call that lasted less than 10 minutes from Ont to NB

[Tripster]

Yup, the rates these crooks are charging are quite pathetic, especially since the consumer doesn't actually know the rate until the bill arrives and at that point you have no choice but to pay it. Quite the scam they've built up (these companies were formed by the ex-CEO's of some of the telcos BTW), they've created a way to fleece the customer.

I go out of my way to avoid LD charges now, I use Vonage for my business/home phone, I have a MagicJack device I can take on the road with me when at hotels, now that I have the iPhone I have Skype installed with skype-out credits available for 2cent/minute rates and I've fixed it so I can make those calls over 3G if I want. I don't really need a voice plan on the phone the way I have it setup, so I'm on the base Fido voice plan, well one step up since I get the unlimited evenings and weekends that way but I still only have 50 minutes during peak periods.

Now I've got all the family switching to Skype for calling as well, they like the video aspect and of course the cost for it is free skype-to-skype .. can't beat that :)