Dear editor:

If you live near the border or visit any place near the border, check you Bell bill carefully.

I am a Bell Canada subscriber living in Niagara-on-the-Lake. After waiting for about 20 minutes to speak with a live person, I have just finished a conversation with Mark, a supervisor at Bell Roaming.

This conversation is about an amount of $13 charged to my account for “roaming” on Aug. 15 when, in fact, I was in Canada that full day.

This is not the first time that this has happened. In the past, when I complained, I was told that Bell apologizes for the inconvenience and that my account would be credited with the unwarranted charge.

This time however, the conversation with Bell was different.

In a first conversation with someone named May at Bell, I was told that the fact that I live near the border means that I accept that a U.S. communication tower may connect to my phone and therefore, I acknowledge that I will be billed for roaming even though I did not cross the border.

May’s answer was that I would not get a credit and that I should turn off the roaming feature when I am near the border, i.e., just about all the time.

I then asked to speak with the supervisor and was passed on to Mark.

Mark also told me that he was aware of the issue but that there is nothing that Bell can do to prevent this type of unwarranted billing from happening again in the future (including to any other Bell customer who happens to visit Niagara Falls or any other place near the U.S. border).

Mark did agree to cancel the charge but on one condition … he would turn off the feature of the automatic $13 roaming rate if I do enter the United States.

In other words, I must now always call Bell before entering the U.S. and cannot avail myself of the protection feature I enjoyed until now. 

I understand that Bell takes the position it cannot do anything to prevent incursions into Canada by U.S. communication towers, but I do not understand why Bell takes the position that it is the subscriber who must bear the risk and the cost.

I wonder how much Bell has already collected from unwary customers and how much more this new policy of Bell will take out of the pockets of unsuspecting clients.

Endre Mecs
Old Town