Bell Hit With $100 Million Suit Over Prepaid Cards Suit Claims Expiration Dates Violate Consumer Protection Act Tipped by graniterock 
Bell Canada has been slapped with a $100 million lawsuit over the expiration dates for prepaid wireless service cards. According to the suit, Bell is violating Ontario's Consumer Protection Act -- which banned expiration dates from gift cards -- and the company's contracts with its pre-paid wireless customers by seizing credit balances. Bell offers prepaid users a $15 card with a 30 day expiration date, a $25 card with a 60 day expiration date, or for $100 users can avoid losing their balances for a year. Accounts with a zero balance for 120 days are closed. Celia Sankar and DiversityCanada Foundation, who are behind the suit, claim the expiration dates are particularly unfair for "new immigrants, workers on minimum wage, the unemployed, people on disability and seniors on fixed incomes."
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 | | | Another reason consumers should avoid this pos company like the plague. Abuse of power, abuse of canadians. | |
| | | Is it the card balance or the account balance? I was under the impression that the card balance does not expire, but once you apply the card balance to a phone account, the clock starts ticking. This would seem reasonable, otherwise Bell would have to keep the telephone number active forever just because a small balance was left. The phone could be rotting in a landfill for a decade, but they'd have to keep it active.
I'd want clarification on this point (i.e. is it the CARD balance or the applied ACCOUNT balance) that is subject to expiry.
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MNSi Internet - »www.mnsi.net | |
|  | | | Re: Is it the card balance or the account balance? The 711 phones here in Canada, used to recycle the number after 3-6 months of inactivity, with a balance still intact and active, outgoing calls with no number showing, or you call and get a new number assigned.
Of course the 711 phones also used to have a telephone number on a piece of paper in the package, so I don't think 'holding' the cell number was an issue.
When you get the card, you apply it to your account, as a pre-paid account balance, the card becomes 0, the account expires after 30 days (from experience). This may have been why they think they can get around the expiry dates.
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Yes, I am not employed and looking for IT work. Have passport, will travel. | |
| | | | Either way it doesn't matter. If they charge $0.75 a month administration fee, your dumpster scenario can't happen.
I actually think they charge a monthly 911 fees too. So that would eat away at a balance as well.
The really issue here is that once Bell has your cash, they wanna keep it. So if they have it so that your balance expires, you need to keep topping up.
If they just let you use your balance until it runs out, they loose free money, and would also have to share more towards the 911 fees. | |
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