Outraged Bell Mobility customers in Iqaluit see double

A number of Bell Mobility customers in Iqaluit have noticed new charges on their mobile phone bills in recent months. Customers say they are being charged long-distance fees for local calls on their bills, which show the calls have been routed through the Yukon Territory or the United States. (PHOTO BY DEAN MORRISON)

(Updated Jan. 10)

When Omar Zahabi looked at the November bill for his mobile phone account, “it almost gave me a heart attack,” he said.

The Iqaluit-based Government of Nunavut employee said the monthly bill for his Bell Mobility phone account was $188 — more than twice what he normally pays.

Zahabi said he never checks his phone bill, because he makes automatic credit card payments every month – that is, until another Iqaluit Bell Mobility customer warned him he might be paying long-distance fees for local calls.

“Both of us made calls in Iqaluit – to other Iqaluit phone numbers – but we were being charged long-distance fees,” Zahabi told Nunatsiaq News. “The calls were somehow being re-routed through the United States.”

Zahabi’s November phone bill clearly shows a local call placed to another local number, although it registers as an American phone number — with a long-distance charge attached.

And Zahabi’s not alone: at least a dozen other Bell Mobility customers in Iqaluit have told similar stories to Nunatsiaq News.

Janet Brewster got a nasty surprise only weeks before Christmas, when she received her mobile phone bill, which includes combined bills for her two teenage children. Bell Mobility charged her $600 for one month.

“That’s more than double what it normally is,” Brewster said. “I was shocked.”

Brewster did a quick scan of the bill and noticed her daughter’s bill carried the weight of the charge.

So the 17-year-old apologized and handed almost $300 to her mother just before Christmas to help cover the bill.

It wasn’t until Brewster took a closer look at the complete bill that she noticed her daughter’s long-distance phone charges were for calls made to local numbers, or numbers that should have been covered under her daughter’s mobile plan.

Many of those calls were routed through the Yukon Territory and the United States and charged at $0.45 per minute, when they should have been free, Brewster said.

Brewster has made a few phone calls to Bell Mobility to have the charges reversed, but the problem has yet to be resolved.

In the meantime, Brewster’s daughter is out almost $300.

But Bell Mobility is aware of the problem.

Bell Canada spokesperson Albert Lee told Nunatsiaq News that the company is looking into an issue with the call coding through billing.

“Some calls are randomly miscoded as being long-distance,” Lee said. “Our teams are working actively on a solution. While we believe only a small number of customers have been affected, we invite customers in the area to review their bills and contact us if they believe there are any errors.”

The company says it will adjust bills for customers affected.

Zahabi has been reimbursed for his November bill and says that some other Iqaluit mobile users he knows are going through the same process with Bell right now.

But he worries that many customers have yet to notice the extra charges on their bill.

Like Zahabi, many customers pay their mobile phone bills automatically through their credit card account. In other cases, the mobile phone is owned by the user’s employer, who receives the bill directly.

“My fear is that other people are paying these fees without even knowing,” Zahabi said. “Although I’ve been reimbursed (for recent charges), I don’t know how far back this goes.”