Telus Mobility stole $50 of my money and insinuated I'm a criminal

I use Telus Mobility pay and talk, I have a rather old samsung uproar phone (because most of the current phones don't offer the right mix of what I wan't in a modern phone.. notably wifi and a clam shell that protects the screen from damage and mp3 all in one but that's neither here nor there)

This morning on my way to work I wen't to the local 7-11 to purchase a pay and talk "card" or printout in this case. They offer them in $10, $20, and $50 denominations, and I, having no time left on my phone, decided to splurge and get the $50 and not have to worry about my minutes over the holiday season.

Well I take my receipt and immediately punch in the numbers, and what happens? Why, it comes up as an invalid PIN. How in the world is that possible. The receipt itself states I had just purchased it a few minutes ago, and I had never gotten any air time from it. Telus now has $50, but all I have is a useless piece of paper. Whose fault is this? Mine? No. So I get through to Telus's so called "Customer Service" and have to go through a number of questions about where I live and what my home phone number is and whatever, you know what, that doesn't matter, FIX MY FUCKING PHONE SO THAT IT WORKS! I PAID for $50 of air time, give me $50 of air time. I didn't say what I was feeling right then, because you know, I'm not THAT much of an asshole. I'll give Telus time to look things through, besides I oddly enough had to work today, and was running late. Suffice it to say I ended up faxing a copy of my receipts to Telus and the guy who handled it in the morning said they'd be calling me back and fixing things. Ok fine, I've got work anyways.

So, it's been 8 hours of work, and no updates or anything from Telus. So I call them back. I get some guy with an attitude who tells me that NOBODY there is authorized to do anything and that the problem probably won't be solved (if it will) until the weekend. I paid $50 for a fucking PIN number that doesn't work, I can't return it to 7-11 cause they do not do that, and Telus won't give me my fucking minutes and is unable to figure things out over the weekend because they have to look into why their computer shit fucked up and gave me a faulty pin. Well

#1 : Why should I care why it gave me a faulty pin. I faxed the receipt, I paid $50, give me $50 damnit! or at least give me enough air time to last a couple days, it's not like you guys LOSE ANY MONEY by helping out a customer who just paid $50 to your company.

#2: Why should I have to wait all weekend for it to be fixed? ITS NOT MY FAULT! ITS YOURS! I BOUGHT THE CARD ON THE WEEKEND! FIX IT ON THE WEEKEND! I DONT CARE TO FIND OUT WHY IT DIDN'T WORK! I WANT IT FIXED AND YOU CAN FIGURE IT OUT ON MONDAY ON YOUR OWN TIME NOT MINE!

#3: Why is it so hard to get anybody to PROVIDE ME WITH ACTUAL CUSTOMER SERVICE! I asked not to get the runaround, I made it clear I would have none of the runaround, yet they insulted me by giving me the runaround.

#4: Telus is essentially implying that I am a criminal by calling me a liar. I paid for this air time and fulfilled my end of the bargain, they have their computers on their end and they're telling me they can't figure out that I purchased air time for $50 and that the pin was never accepted and they can't credit me with some air time? Why should I go buy another card when I already bought one?

So I'm fed up with this douchebag french guy who I've been reasonably nice to, he has no power to do anything, so I ask to talk to the highest ranking person there, who one would reasonably think would be able to make me, the customer, happy. Alas, no. First, he tells me they will call back. Ok, fine, I hang up and wait ANOTHER HOUR for them to call back. Then I get bored and call them back and get the french guy again, who says something like "oh you expected to get called back today? oh no they'll call you on monday" what the hell! So this time I'm adamant that I want to talk to the highest ranking person RIGHT NOW. THIS HAS GONE ON LONG ENOUGH. So eventually after 5 minutes of being on hold, I finally make contact with the fabled "Supervisor".. This sarcastic woman constantly read from the same script as the french guy, accused ME of going in circles (THIS seems to be a common TELUS line, don't give the customer what they wan't, then accuse THEM of being in the wrong for wanting what they paid for by saying that you're only going in circles) .. This woman, who claimed to be the supervisor named Christine (Employee ID # 7339) was completely unhelpful, telling me such lines to calm me down such as "ITS UNFORTUNATE YOU FEEL THIS WAY" "UNFORTUNATELY ITS THE WEEKEND!" (as if people who work on the weekend are inferior and incompetant.. oh no the weekend!) and of course "WE'RE GOING IN CIRCLES IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE I CAN HELP YOU WITH?" Well, you didn't solve the first problem. Let's solve that first, ok? Tell me why you haven't said anything helpful at all, instead you have been condescending, reading like a trained monkey from a script, been rude, and implied I'm a criminal for wanting a resolution to my problem that suits ME, the CUSTOMER. "UNFORTUNATELY THIS CONVERSATION IS GOING IN CIRCLES" well, whose fault is that, huh? You people stole $50 from me and won't give me what I paid for, and you're telling me the service is going in circles? gee, telus, thanks for fucking insulting me and then this woman has the nerve to hang up on me. Total amount of minutes spent on the phone with Telus: 40 minutes. Gee, you could have just given me 40 minutes of air time or something so I could use my phone over the weekend like I originally intended to. You know what else, when I asked for who to talk to at a higher level then her, she said look at the website. I've been to company websites, they're obfuscated. I wanted something a little more informative than that. I've wasted enough time talking to you I don't need to waste half my life looking over the website for a non existant company presidents email address that he doesn't likely read. Why would he? Obviously Telus has been around long enough that he's happy with the way customer service is set up. He's the one in charge. The only thing these people care about is bad publicity. Fortunately I have a blog that is read by tens of people. Hey Canadian media, feel free to quote my blog if you wan't to. I hereby grant you access to republish in whole or in part my entire rant against Telus and their obviously poor customer service and incompetant problem solving.

I plan to submit a complaint to the BBB and the CRTC (whatever good it'l do, bunch of useless liberal beurocrats) no matter how this turns out, but the worst part of this was how Telus treated me. They LIED to me, saying things would be fixed and then later telling me I have to wait til fucking monday. THEY WERE RUDE TO ME. THEY TREATED ME LIKE I WAS A NUISANCE. This is how Telus customer service works. They already have my money. That's why they don't care to talk to me. Digusting.

So to sum up:

Don't buy Telus pay and talk. If their service doesn't work, it's your fault. You're a criminal in their eyes, not a customer, and they couldn't care less about how happy you are with their service, as its your fault the conversation about your money is going around in circles. GOING AROUND IN CIRCLES.

Telus, this should have been solved as soon as I faxed my receipts and it was painfully obvious I was ripped off by you. It's one thing to blame the computers, but at this point it has nothing to do with computers and everything to do with your belief that customers are criminals, and your greed in not giving your customer service people anything more than an annoying insulting script to parrot to your customers. FOR SHAME.

Is it somehow unreasonable to expect to get what you pay for? According to telus customer service - Yes it is.