junk and crap, amen

Just an ugly little story within a story, concerning the system. Contained within a kind of sketchy report in the Financial Post concerning a Bell Mobility executive suddenly resigning, is this:

A source familiar with the departing executive, however, said he was working on a discount cellphone brand call Smartco, which was to be aimed at seniors.

BCE had spent millions and had a staff of 60 working on the brand, which even had television commercials filmed, before George Cope came on board as BCE’s chief operating officer in 2006. Mr. Cope scuttled the brand in favour of maintaining Bell’s “disciplined pricing” approach, the source said.

What you're saying, George Cope, is that your current pricing structure is just too damn profitable to change. So fucking profitable that you can throw away "millions" and fire 60 employees. Such a cash cow that you can disregard the obvious humanity of giving seniors cheaper ways of communicating.

I mean, they get discounts on a goddam bus pass..

Are you also the same twerpy little shit who came up with the pay as you go unlimited nights & weekends ripoff? Normally, the per minute rate is 30 cents a minute for the first two minutes and 5 cents a minute thereafter, for each call. Once you activate the night & weekends thievery, your regular per minute rate is suddenly raised to 35 cents. For every minute.

Was that your brilliance manifesting itself?

Of course, maybe I've got this all wrong. Maybe you're looking out for the best interests of the consumer. You know, the people upon which your entire existence is dependent. But hey, if the rest of us stop using Bell (which thousands will do as soon as Canada implements legislation allowing people to switch carriers and keep their numbers), at least that would give you lots of time to dream up clever new ways of saying "price gouging".

Labels: Bell, corporations, seniors

This entry was posted on February 10, 2007 at 2:53 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.