Complaints | Page 4 | Koodo Mobile | Forum

Well, here's one for you Koodo cheerleaders... I'm having a nightmare with this company and I'm not even a customer yet.

I tried to buy a phone on the 22nd, but the website was acting up, so no go. Tried again the following day, and had the same issue. The error message said "contact production support," but didn't tell me how (no e-mail, no phone number, etc. anywhere on the site). So I called the regular customer service line, and got no assistance whatsoever. Worse, the rep. said that while she COULD sign me up herself, Koodo WOULDN'T waive the service fee for doing so DESPITE the fact that self-serve was obviously not an option.

So I waited, and tried to sign up on both the 24th and 25th, and fruitlessly called in again to find out what was up. They confirmed technical problems with the website, but didn't seem to give a crap about me (or anyone else) who might be getting frustrated and turned off of the company altogether. Meanwhile, the limited time offer of a free Bluetooth headset for the phone I was trying to buy expired.

The website still isn't working, and when I called to ask about getting a credit for the headset - since I'd tried valiantly to purchase the phone for DAYS - they said ABSOLUTELY NOT.

That's three reps in four days, and no ACTUAL help anywhere in sight. What hope does that give for when (and if) I actually become a Koodo customer?!

Customer service? I think not.

Koodo sucks big time.

Can you imagine that I have to call Motorolla to fix a compatibility problem with Moto phone and 4G memory card I bought from a Koodo Store! Unbelieable! Tech supp? They are there guide us through how to guides. Their online selfseve webpage is even funnier. Guy said I do not require an e-mail id, but the form makes it mandatory and guess what the back, continue buttons vanish! Some mickey mouse op this is for sure

Just a few comments about previous posts.

First off, telecommunications companies cannot require you to give them your SIN, and it is illegal for them to deny you service for refusing to give them your SIN. The rules for who can and cannot require your SIN and under what circumstances they can require it are contained in the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). If any company demands your SIN to provide you service when they are not allowed, file a complaint with the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

When it comes to product, in Canada we get screwed. The prices we pay are the highest in the world, and the ‘official’ line from all the cell providers is that it is because we have lower customer saturation than most places in the world, like most of Europe, Asia and the USA. But this isn’t true. We have ALWAYS had higher prices, even when we had higher saturation. It’s actually the opposite, these other places have higher saturation because they have ALWAYS had lower prices.

As far as customer service goes, I’m switching to Koodo shortly because their rates are the most fair, reasonable and customizable of all the cell providers in Canada even if their service sucks. I was a Telus customer for years and I hate them, but I’m willing to use Koodo because I was also a Bell customer for years and hate them too. =d Fact of the matter is, the people who run these companies, the members of the board of directors who hire the CEOs and ultimately have the most influence over company policy are all the same — literally. There are only a few dozen people in Canada who are on the board of directors for all the telecommunications, banking, media and energy companies (some people are members of half a dozen different boards in different industries). So unless there is put in place legislation to prevent these people from running multiple companies the policies that cause the horrible customer service at all the large organizations aren’t going to change.

Here’s a tip though: if you have a problem and customer service can’t, or won’t fix it don’t as to speak to a manager. Look up the direct line numbers for people who work in the shareholder, media relations, or any other corporate department, but NOT customer service. Then call that ONE person 15 or 20 times during non-business hours and leave messages to explain that you are a customer who is fed up with the customer service department and you want to contact the head of the customer service department directly, and you will continue to call that ONE person daily until that happens. This will usually lead to your problem being fixed within 48 hours.

I used to always be really nice to customer service reps that work for bad companies, I’m not any more. If they refused to enforce bad policies, and refused to work for companies that tried to force them to, then these companies would go out of business. So they are just as to blame for customers getting screwed as the executive policy makers are. The only difference between a lunatic on a soap box and a dictator is one has an army.

I was quite satisfied with my Koodo plan considering I got the LG Keybo which I wanted and I also only had to pay 15$ a month for a plan that suited my needs. Everything was great except for the network itself. Some times I would send messages which my contacts never recieved and they would send me messages which I would never recieve. Not only that but at some times I would send messages and my contacts wouldn't get the message from my number but from some random people in Quebec, on Prince Edward Island, Ontario and elsewhere and I live in Vancouver !!! I really don't want to go and complain to them but I want to cancel my contract. Does anybody know how much it would cost me if I've been on the contract for 4 months?

Recently I change to Koodo. Yeah I agree that their customer service is not professional enough and weak. I ask a simple question that do I get charge to other site for a unlimited web browsing plan. I have to wait around 10-15 min to get the answer. The customer rep has to come back and fore to ask my question. It seems like they haven't been trained and informed about their service.

But, I agree someone said that you pay what you get I was a telus for 7 years customer, fido for 3 years customer and rogers customer 2 years. The best customer service is telus but their plan and phone are expensive. I don't know about bell.

I rate Rogers second because their customer service is good and helpful but their billing are bad too. Fido overcharge me for 3 months before and they have a lower customer service level too. I wait an hour to get my pre-authorize billing setup on the phone because one of the customer service rep's computer crash 3 times.

Fido and Koodo are cheap version of Telus and Rogers. I am sure you compare them already over the web. So what does it mean, if you go for cheaper, remember that customer service level will be lower and their back office (bill processing staff) are also have a lower service level. I never shout or scold them because it is not their fault and they can change nothing. They also paid pretty low salary too if you don't know it. Some are 26K to 30K around $12 to $14 hour. The back office people is even cheaper.

Remind you guy too, Koodo and Fido's phone are cheaper phone too. They are easier to break (especially their keyboard) and gone wrong. So, remember, what you pay is what you get. So be prepared, there is no free lunch. If we can bear the service or product, I think we have paid more.

I have been with Koodo for almost 2 years now and working at a Dollar Store i totally understand that it is true you get what you pay for so I'm willing to take a few cut backs in quality.

I'm relatively satisfied but i do have a few complaints.

1) the web browser sucks pretty bad. It's always giving me a hard time with its "Errors" and saying that things are forbidden whenever it feels like it even if that "forbidden" page was totally fine 5 minutes before.
I was going to remove the unlimited web browsing from my plan all together since i was getting such horrible service when i actually DID get service but they told me they raised the prices for it! so my options were keep the shit net at a lower price or lose it and pay extra for shit net if i ever wanted it again. awesome.

2) the "general service problem" messeges i get sometimes when i'm trying to send my texts and can't and when i can't send or revieve texts for hours at a time.

3) I also love that my cell number is being whored out all across canada and beyond. I am constantly receiving random text messages from people in the middle of a conversation on the other side of the country.

this is how that works.

Person A is texting Person B.
Person B responds to Person A but the number the text is sent from is MY NUMBER!
Person A texts me back asking if Person B is using a different phone or else doesn't notice it at all and starts telling ME personal information!
this has happened with me and my friends as well. the text they get from me comes from a different phone number.

it's a little hard to keep your number private when your own mobile company is giving it to everyone in the freakin country =/

The Koodo ads annoy me enough that I don't want to deal with that company.
Obviously I am not part of the demographic that the commercial is aimed at.

But, their claims did make me check their website and rates.

The only area where they do work out to be cheaper is the most basic "no frills" plan... IF that is your calling pattern.
(you would still be better off with a pay as you go from rogers or telus if your calling pattern is that low.)

I have to wonder at many of the previous posts about "no system access fee"... if you compare the math on a typical average plan with a rogers/telus/bell and make a matching plan on Koodo, it is pretty obvious that the system access fee is just "buried"... the Koodo plans work out to be about the SAME or a $2.00 savings.

For example...
Telus plan is $30.00 + system fee and 911 fee.
closest matching plan from Koodo is $35.00

And then there is the "No contract" claim...
You sign a piece of paper at Koodo booth or "digitally sign" if activating online...
That sounds like a "contract" to me
It is more of a "no fixed term contract" instead of "no contract".

"yeah, but you don't have to pay a penalty to cancel a contract with Koodo" you say....

What do you think "paying off your TAB" is?
It is the same reason that others charge the cancellation fees:
Recoup cost of phone.

So, my impression of Koodo: same bull, worded differently, but more annoying.

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Some general comments:
A couple of people mentioned "saturation"... and misunderstood it.
Saturation from a cell phone companies point of view is what percent of population has a cell phone. Canada is still pretty low compared to other countries.

One of the reasons WHY canada is more expensive compared to other countries is "concentration" or "density"
In other words, how many customers PER CELL TOWER.
On average, (my numbers may be off, but good enough for example) in Canada it works out to 8000 people per tower.
The other extreme would be a country like Netherlands in Europe where they have something like 80,000 people per tower.(this is not cell phone customers, this total population)

Another way of looking at this:
Population of Canada is 34 million spread over more land compared to the USA with a population of 305 million.

So in very simplified terms, 10 times more customers in the same area that a cell tower covers.

A lot of things in Canada cost more because we need so much infrastructure compared to population density.
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A few years ago, many people were hailing the "de-regulation" of Cell phone providers as a breakthrough that would give us cheap rates, blah, blah, blah.
All that happened is we have more companies, more "nickel and diming" and LESS quality of service.

Currently, I use Telus, mainly because they have the best coverage.
In the past, I have used Rogers, Bell, Telus(old), Cantel, BCTel .
By today's standards of service, BCTel was fantastic.
After BCTel and Telus merged, they were still really good for a few years.
Then they went downhill big time when they bought Clearnet.
Telus was non-union, clearnet was union... so I'm guessing they were forced to keep the crappy employees of clearnet.
Telus have been slowly improving since then (probably as the crappy employees leave) At least for the last year or so, I get people who can speak english properly when I call customer service to change a feature.

What happened here is that your TAB was negative 120.

koodo cleared your TAB so you would be able to utilize the full 150 again yes going back into a -TAB. This is so you could get another phone and continue on with svc.

So basically what you wanted koodo to do was clear your 120 and give you a + 150 TAB totaling an amount of $270.00 given to you.

Now lets consider the fact that you, based on your TAB balance after one year of -120. from -150. have spent in that 1 year $240.00 based on your tab balance.

Now if koodo were to do this, basic math shows us that koodo just spent $30. to have you as a customer for 1 year.

Now explain to me why koodo would do that?

are they out there to make $? YES. does that make them evil? NO

Would bell/rogers/telus give you $120.00? NO

One hour on hold and counting!:cry:

here's my last complaint to those IDIOTS!

You could have hit my charge card when I hit my limit - instead (stupidly just because it was not "billing date") you just opted to cancel my account. COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY!
THEN YOU IGNORANTLY PROVIDE ME NO ITEMIZED BILL I CAN TURN INTO MY EMPLOYER BECAUSE YOU KILL WEB ACCOUNT ACCESS. THEN EMAIL OR MAIL ME ONE!
YOU INJURE MY ABILITY TO GET PAID AND PAY YOU BECAUSE THE ACCOUNT AGES AND MY EMPLOYER WILL NOT PAY >45 DAY OLD INVOICED.
Remove the interest charges and fees YOU have created by your inability to SIMPLY provide me an itemized bill.
WHAT BUSINESS DOES NOT PROVIDE ITEMIZED BILL TO IT'S CUSTOMERS?

YOU CONTRIBUTED GREATLY TO THIS - YOUR WEBSITE EVEN LIES ABOUT YOUR "Hours of Operation" as I have tried to call before - website says till 9 during the week; but it is 8. How stupid and amateur a business that you can not even properly state your hours of operation on your website!

FOR THE LAST TIME - IF YOU WANT TO BE PAID PROVIDE ME AN ITEMIZED BILL FOR THE MONTHS BEING CHARGED I CAN TURN IN TO MY EMPLOYER. THE LONGER YOU WAIT THE LESS YOUR CHANCES - AND THAT IS YOUR FAULT.(Like most NORMAL businesses they will not take just any number without seeing what the charges are comprised of. And frankly, you are the eptimomee of incomptence so who would trust an unitemized Kudoo bill in their right mind?)