Man, do we ever feel this guy’s pain.
The case pertains to Gilles Tessier, a man who attempted to cancel his satellite TV plan way back in May 2019. At the time, Tessier was told in a phone call that service would be cancelled the next day, but noticed the following month that he had been charged up until mid-July.
Upon calling Bell back on July 2nd, Tessier spent around 75 minutes speaking to six different employees. In addition to being transferred multiple times and having to often repeat the same customer information and reason for his call, he was also hung up on at one point.
This all culminated in a 37-minute conversation in which there was “clearly a complete lack of understanding between the two callers.” As a result, Tessier was then transferred to Bell’s department responsible for new connections — clearly the exact opposite of what he’d been wanting to do — before being redirected one final time to the appropriate division.
Ultimately, Tessier was told the original May cancellation request was indeed in the company’s records, but it hadn’t, for whatever reason, been carried out.
Tessier wound up getting back the extra money he was billed, but still took Bell to court in search of compensation for the way he was treated during the process. He asked for $8000, an amount that, as someone who has had several of my own go rounds with Bell, I would describe as awfully nice of him.
The Judge found in his favour, but where I would have looked at $8000, said “that’s ridiculous” and then promptly doubled it at a minimum, Luc Huppé decided that a payment of only $1000 was appropriate.
Upon reviewing the case, Huppé determined that although Bell employees were likely acting in good faith based on their employer’s policies, this nonetheless made the process of cancellation service needlessly complicated and frustrating for Tessier.
“The fact the employees were continuously bouncing the call back and forth without resolving Mr. Tessier’s problem […] points to a dysfunction in the services offered,” said Huppé.
Citing the Civil Code of Quebec, Huppé concluded that service providers like Bell must ensure an easy contract cancellation process without imposing “an undue burden on them.”
I would argue that Bell’s employees doing what the boss tells them to isn’t the issue here. This isn’t a matter of whether or not the workers as individuals were acting in good faith, but whether or not Bell as a company is acting in bad faith by operating as it does. And it is, no question. It’s been that way for years. And if you’re going to tell them in a ruling that they really ought to finally fix their shit, the punishment needs to reflect that. Bell loves to cry poor, but they aren’t so poor that $1000 here or there when the very occasional person bothers to pursue the matter is going to change a thing about the way they do business. It’s better for the bottom line to string people along until they give up, and that’s all Bell cares about.
