How we discovered that we had paid Bell $2000 to rent a phone

When we discovered that we’d been charged over $2000 to rent a basic telephone we never thought that we’d go public with our story.   We thought that it must be a mistake.  We thought that Bell Aliant would make things right for us and their other customers.  We were wrong.  Here is our story. 

What phone rental?

 It all started when we called our phone company, Bell Aliant, about something completely unrelated.  During the call, the customer service representative looked at our bill, and asked us if we still had that rental phone. We said “What rental phone?”  We didn’t know anything about a rental phone. 

He said that if we wanted to reduce our bill, we could return the phone and they’d stop charging us.  He was talking about a phone that we got many, many years ago. We didn’t even know if we still had that old phone.

He said that for $10, he’d take the phone rental off our bill to “pay off” the cost of the phone, without us needing to find the phone.  A phone we later calculated we had already paid more than $2000 for.

The phone that cost $2000

Why were we renting a phone anyway?  Back in 1978, when we first moved here to New Brunswick, Canada, we bought an old farmhouse in the country.  One of the first things we did was to get a phone installed.  At that time, the phone company required that all customers rent a phone from them.

There was only one phone company around – at that time called NBTel, later rebranded Bell Aliant. At the time, all customers were required to rent a phone. We think that first phone was a rotary dial phone, but a few yeas later it was exchanged for a blue push-button phone. 

Compared to today’s phones, this phone was nothing fancy.  It wasn’t cordless.  It didn’t have caller ID.  It didn’t have speed dial.  It didn’t even have redial.  It was just a basic phone with twelve buttons that plugged into the wall. 

And all these years, we had been unknowingly paying every single month to rent this very phone.  This was the phone that had cost us more than $2000. 

Why go public? 

When we found out about our $2000 phone, we were angry that we had been charged for so many years without knowing it.  But we also began to think about all the other customers who had been “renting” their phones.  All the customers who were still “renting” their phones. 

Sure, we wanted our money back, but more importantly, we wanted Bell Aliant to acknowledge this issue and make it right.  We wanted them to make sure that all of their customers understood exactly what they were paying for.

The first thing we did was to call customer service.  But they said that they couldn't help us.  So we sent a letter.  But we didn’t hear anything back.  This was the beginning of months of letters, e-mails, and phone calls.  You can read our entire correspondence.  Over and over, they ignored us, misled us, and provided us with false information. 

One customer service representative claimed that some seniors would rather pay every month to rent a phone because they don’t like to go to the store to buy a phone.  We don’t know any seniors who would rather pay $2000 than to just buy their own phone for $10 and plug it in.

What we want

In the end, Bell Aliant refuses to change their practices.  They refuse to notify customers who are renting a telephone.   They refuse to make the phone rental charge clear on their phone bills. 

And Bell-Aliant is still renting phones.  But these phones will never get paid off.  No matter how much they’ve already paid, these customers will be charged $5.95/month for their telephones.

Bell Aliant offered to refund us one year’s fees to settle this issue.  But we won’t accept this offer. We’re not asking for our $2000 back. We’re just asking the company to come clean with its customers.  Customers who pay every single month to rent their phones should know what they’re paying for.