Hello Rob!

** On Wednesday 03.03.21 - 00:25, you wrote to me:

The last several offers I got from Bell via Lucky did not
require purchasing a phone but the odd one offered a phone
you could take or leave. They would probably like to talk
you into a phone since this locks you into a 2 year
contract unless you want to pay an inflated 'balance' left
on the phone to get out of it.

I've never had to purchase a phone. The last one I got (a
Blackberry) was given to me. But are they *still* charging
inflated balances when closing a contract early? I thought
there was a classaction that forced phone companies to stop that
practice.

But the Bell plans, although faster data (in theory) don't
offer international texting or unlimited slower data if you
run out of high speed and don't want to purchase more at $5
per 1/2 gig if I recall correctly. The down side is Lucky
is no good outside of Canada.. no roaming option. -+-

Those are subtle destails, eh?

Lucky's international text surprised me. It sounds sweet if I
were ever to want to use it to text to foreigners outside my
country. But SMS being completely insecure, I probably wouldn't
use it to chat about anything important - or not at all since I
have Telegram now.

You almost recall correctly. The DataPass is $5/200MB at a time.

Regarding outside Canada.. not a problem. There is like 100%
chance that I wouldn't leave Canada any time soon.

BUT.. I got an interesting offer in the mail today. I received
a letter from Bell with a Multi SIM Card inside. The offer is to
transfer one of my landlines to cell, and for $65/mo I would get
[1] 15GB of data (throttled down after that), [2] no overage
charges [3] unlimited Canada-wide calling and texting. Roaming
(outside Canada) is extra.

All for an activation fee of +$45.

Now.. on the back of that piece of paper are "details" for the
exceptions. The way they do it pisses me off. They have a
whole 8"x11" sheet of paper for information and they do this:

https://photos.kolico.ca/tmp/bell-offer.jpg

(The thumbdrive is for a bit of scale.)

I'm paying 2x$35 for my landlines, and I don't really use them.
In the spring the lines almost always encounter excessive
buzzing and noise until things dry up. Meanwhile, I have a Lucky
account at $40/mo for 5GB.

I don't like the arbitrary $45 fee they call activation, ($45 to
type in some credentials that shouldn't take more than 5 minutes
to key in?)

Another little detail they miss in the mailing; apparently on
their website, they have the same offer, BUT they include this:

"Get a $100 bill credit when you bring your own phone and
activate an eligible plan online."

"(*) Current as of December 22, 2020. Offer valid with new
activations on an eligible plan when you bring your own phone.
Not eligible on tablets, Mobile Internet or IoT products. Bill
credit is comprised of waived one-time Connection Service Fee
($45) and $55 bill credit, applied in one payment of $100 on the
2nd or 3rd billing period."

So... there is a credit of $100 when applying online, but THAT
plan starts at $80/mo. Sheeesh.

What to do, what to do. :/
--
../|ug

--- OpenXP 5.0.49
* Origin: (} Pointy McPointface (618:250/1.9)

Hello Rob Mccart!

** On Wednesday 03.03.21 - 00:40, Rob Mccart wrote to AUGUST ABOLINS:

The discount services like Lucky, Chatr and Public are "self-

serve" systems. I really liked being able to get the $10S SIM
on my own and register on my own (for FREE).

Do you mean there was no $40 Network fee to sign up? If so,
I didn't know about that 2 years ago when I signed up.
<drat>

I noticed that many people didn't realize that too. Infact, a
shop down the street from my shop would sell the Luckymobile
cards (only $10), and offered to "register" people with the
service for $45!!! ..and that's BEFORE even paying for a plan!
The small print on the card package (as well as the Luckmobile
website) stated that activation could be done online - that's
what I did. Meanwhile, I think a lot of people were getting
ripped off (and probably still are) with the $45 registration
fee.

When I did it, due to some 'confusion' over the price of a
phone I was buying, I left The Source and went to Wal-Mart
and bought a better phone cheaper but I came back to The
Source to set up the Lucky plan. They did all the work at
no cost to me other than the $10 charge for the SIM card. I
could have done it all at Wal-Mart but the people at The
Source had spent a lot of time trying to sort the problem
out so I figured they must get something for setting up the
account and deserved at least that much for their efforts.

Yes.. It is cool to encounter people at the kiosks who know how
to actually sort out a problem.

--
../|ug

--- OpenXP 5.0.49
* Origin: (} Pointy McPointface (618:250/1.9)

What I am getting lately are offers from Bell at $40 Cdn with unlimited Canada wide talk and text plus 6 gig of data, usually with the option of
a medium decent phone ($450?) for an extra $10 a month over 2 years.

do not take Fibe phone will not work with modem diaLUP

Thanks for the information. For the moment I'm using Data through my Cell
Phone and it will be a long time probably before I can afford Fibe in any case.. B)

---
* SLMR Rob * Bomb Squad Tip: If you see us running, catch up!
* Origin: capitolcityonline.net * Telnet/SSH:2022/HTTP (618:250/1)