topic Re: Organising some resistance--fighting for ourselves and other Canadian consumers in Get Support

Organising some resistance--fighting for ourselves and other Canadian consumers

geologyking — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 07:27:37 GMT

I realize we've all been punched in the gut recently by PM's move to either drastically decrease service or to drastically raise prices--what can we do as a community to fight back?

I have made an online complaint to the CCTS(https://www.ccts-cprst.ca/) and although what PM has done here is outside of the CCTS's mandate, my complaint was accepted online and I encourage all of you to make do the same. Let them know in no uncertain terms that the Canadian consumer needs protection from predatory pricing behaviour.

Apart from CCTS, what else can we do? I'm happy to play my part.

Re: Organising some resistance--fighting for ourselves and other Canadian consumers

Luddite — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 00:05:36 GMT

The best "resistance" is to:

a) leave and do no business with Telus brands, and

b) convince others to leave or not join.

Expect tough sledding though since PM's pricing is still generally lower than the competition.

Good luck.

Re: Organising some resistance--fighting for ourselves and other Canadian consumers

xCameron94x — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 00:11:23 GMT

unless they slowly start to increase their prices on the grandfathered plans, or through some magic one of the smaller 3 have a hot promo. Hoping they dont raise the prices because my one year is coming up in November

Re: Organising some resistance--fighting for ourselves and other Canadian consumers

will13am — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 00:50:56 GMT

@Luddite wrote:
The best "resistance" is to:
a) leave and do no business with Telus brands, and
b) convince others to leave or not join.

Expect tough sledding though since PM's pricing is still generally lower than the competition.
Good luck.

I respectfully disagree, their current pricing is not competitive. You have compare apples to apples. This company still have no physical stores, no call centre, no hardware offerings, no retention system. As long as they don't touch my plan pricing, I will stay but any provocation will result in a show of disloyalty.

Re: Organising some resistance--fighting for ourselves and other Canadian consumers

geologyking — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 01:14:48 GMT

@Luddite The problem is that our consumer choices are very limited. We can go to the Big 3 and their B brands and end up paying even more, go to FM but deal with spotty reception or deal with one of the smaller 3rd party resellers and give up level of service/options. All of this while most of the rest of the world accesses much more than we can get considerably cheaper.

Re: Organising some resistance--fighting for ourselves and other Canadian consumers

geologyking — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 01:22:10 GMT

@will13am Exactly! It's worth keeping in mind too that we are not talking here about an increase of a few dollars a month for the same level of service--new customers will be seeing increases of 40+% for the same level of service and all of those increase happening, effectively, overnight.

Re: Organising some resistance--fighting for ourselves and other Canadian consumers

geologyking — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 01:19:02 GMT

@xCameron94x It's nice that our plans are grandfathered, but it would be naive to think given what's happened over the past few days that PM(or Telus really) doesn't have more structural changes coming and our time will come next.

Re: Organising some resistance--fighting for ourselves and other Canadian consumers

kav2001c — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 01:23:38 GMT

@geologyking beyond media attention there really is not much you can do here

Public Mobile is free to set prices to what they think the market will bear

Even on existing lines they can give notice and increase your monthly charges

Just curious as to reasoning behind the start a movement

It's not like any carrier anywhere has ever gotten cheaper

Re: Organising some resistance--fighting for ourselves and other Canadian consumers

geologyking — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 01:27:42 GMT

@kav2001c These increases aren't small or even medium sized--for the same level of service, prices went up overnight 40% or more. It's in the best interests of consumers that the CRTC protect us from predatory pricing. I have no idea whether the CRTC would/will intervene in this case, but this move by PM sets quite the precedent. Can anyone recall any carrier raising plan prices over 40% overnight at any time in the past?

Re: Organising some resistance--fighting for ourselves and other Canadian consumers

905289 — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 01:30:55 GMT

Filing a telecommunciation complaint is easy. The fact that someone took the 5 minutes to compelete the online form is not really resistance. The complaints are quietly reviewed by the commission and providers. The complaining party usually receives a phone call back offering some minor hush money in the form of account credits. I did this to Bell over what I considered scetchy advertising and they gave me two months free. It will be interesting to hear back as to how PM answered the complaint since ironically using a phone for customer service is part of their business model.

Resistance to me is people on the forum ranting and refusing to make referals. Since PM doesn't widely advertise, it's the horrible word of mouth which will either create change or make Telus decide to kill the brand.

Re: Organising some resistance--fighting for ourselves and other Canadian consumers

geologyking — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 01:40:44 GMT

@905289 Contacting the CCTS may ultimately be futile, but letting them know in numbers that consumers are unhappy is better than them sitting in their offices unaware that a problem exists.

As the complaint in this case falls outside of their mandate, there was a popup that my complaint would be shared with the CRTC--a group that does have the teeth(if they choose to bite). The more complaints made, hopefully the greater push to overcome inertia at the CRTC. Ultimately, letting something like this slide, is tacit approval for other carriers to make massive overnight increases in their plans.

As for the forum, I agree it is a great place to make discontent known. Before I moved over to PM, I spent a lot of time here and it was people's happiness, enthusiasm and helpful manner that, along with plan prices, made the switch a no brainer.

Re: Organising some resistance--fighting for ourselves and other Canadian consumers

mimmo — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 02:12:29 GMT

All i know is if anyone asks me for a reccomendation zoomer has my current vote. They have a good promo atm, 50$ referal credit, and a good renention plan i believe almost on par as the 40$ 4gb plan

Re: Organising some resistance--fighting for ourselves and other Canadian consumers

Luddite — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 02:19:21 GMT

Unfortunately I think we can expect to see Zoomer and PCMobile rising soon. After all, they "purchase" from Rogers and Bell/Telus! The wholesale prices eventually move once contract periods end.

Re: Organising some resistance--fighting for ourselves and other Canadian consumers

Mana — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 02:29:31 GMT

Agree with @will13am that if the price of grandfather plans were to increase, it would be the end of things for most people here.

Re: Organising some resistance--fighting for ourselves and other Canadian consumers

shawnie_boy — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 02:34:24 GMT

PM will change grandfathered plans when They are ready to shut down operations and get rid of PM. At that time they will probably entice people to switch to Koodo at a fairly low rate. The future of PM is now very uncertain and just joined. Geez

Re: Organising some resistance--fighting for ourselves and other Canadian consumers

mimmo — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 02:41:52 GMT

I dont see PM as being on a life line, but simply telus is atempting to "compete" with rogers on a brand to brand basis. Telus vs rogers, koodo vs fido, pm vs chatr. As long as chater exists i think so will PM.

Will they encourage lte users to switch to koodo probably, when who knows.

Lets enjoy our plans while we can and hope voip services get better when we decide to switch.

Re: Organising some resistance--fighting for ourselves and other Canadian consumers

kav2001c — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 06:08:11 GMT

@geologyking seriously?

Like all of them...

I will throw Chatr & Freedom out as obvious examples since they are the ones that Public competes mainly against. But even look at Koodo & Fido and the huge increases they have had recently.

Your math seems off though; 40% increases on Public?

Old plan (just last month) was $120 for 90 days, Province Wide calling + 6 GB of data (LTE)

Today same plan is $150

(To have a 40% increase the cost would need to be $120 x 1.4 = $168 per cycle)

*edit corrected plan total

Re: Organising some resistance--fighting for ourselves and other Canadian consumers

kav2001c — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 05:34:08 GMT

@Luddite the Zoomer plan is a promo and it is over end of month

PC Mobile has been awful for as long as I can remember ($46 per month for talk & text???)

@Luddite wrote:
Unfortunately I think we can expect to see Zoomer and PCMobile rising soon. After all, they "purchase" from Rogers and Bell/Telus! The wholesale prices eventually move once contract periods end.

Re: Organising some resistance--fighting for ourselves and other Canadian consumers

SD08 — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 05:49:14 GMT

@kav2001c wrote:

Your math seems off though; 40% increases on Public?
Old plan (just last month) was $126 for 90 days, Province Wide calling + 6 GB of data (LTE)
Today same plan is $150
(To have a 40% increase the cost would need to be $126 x 1.4 = $177 per month)

Actually, the go-to regular price plan we were usually recommending people go on while they wait for promos was the 90-day province-wide talk, global texting, and 6 GB LTE data for $120 before the changes. I remember this quite clearly because it was exactly half the data of the Fall 2016 promo for the same price, and it was also the base plan that the recent Freedom-targeted promo added the bonus 6GB on top of. Now, that same plan, according to the PM plans page, is $180 for 90 days, which actually equals a 50% increase.

Re: Organising some resistance--fighting for ourselves and other Canadian consumers

kav2001c — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 06:06:25 GMT

@SD08 Even at $120 x 1.4 = $168 either way it is NOT a "40%" increase

Although I think you are correct on plan total

The promo point is moot because we all know that Public (like every other carrier) will introduce new promos on new plans in the future

Most of the current subs came onboard to get the 12GB promo (regular price at the time was $186 before extra discount)