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woman rented dial phone for decades after service ended

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发表于 2012-9-5 07:25:34 | 显示全部楼层 |阅读模式
Telus offers woman refund after she rented dial phone for decades after service ended

Telus offers elderly widow $600 refund

By Gillian Shaw, Vancouver SunSeptember 5, 2012 5:14 AM

Darren Franco came to the aid of his neighbour Matilda Tomassoli, who has been paying Telus for the rental of this ancient dial telephone at $4.99 a month even though the company stopped the rentals in the 1980s.Photograph by: Ian Lindsay, PNG

It took a sharp-eyed neighbour to notice east Vancouver pensioner and widow Matilda Tomassoli was still paying a monthly rental fee for her old dial phone, the phone that was in the house when she and her husband moved in more than 50 years ago.
Tomassoli, who speaks very limited English, didn’t even realize what she was paying for. By the time her neighbour Darren Franco discovered the $4.95 monthly rental charge, no doubt that old green phone that hangs in the hall had been paid for many times over.
Tomassoli and her husband paid $17,500 for the house in the 1960s. She says she isn’t sure what they paid for the phone over the years because her husband used to pay the bills but, at $4.95 a month, the past 10 years would be $600 — which is the amount Telus has offered to refund.
It’s a cautionary tale if you haven’t checked your phone bill lately.
“I’m 43 and she (Tomassoli) has lived next door to my mum and dad for more than 43 years. I treat her as my grandmother,” said Franco, who discovered the rental charge when Tomassoli asked him to come over and help because her phone was broken. “She’s a widower, a pensioner and half-blind and she doesn’t speak a word of English.”
Franco said he called Telus on Tomassoli’s behalf to get her phone fixed and it was then she handed him a bill showing the phone rental.
“I contacted Telus and the woman I talked to said ‘we haven’t had telephone rentals for years, at least the ’80s.’”
Franco said the first Telus person he talked to offered to refund Tomassoli $15 and the second person upped that to $30. Asked about the case by The Vancouver Sun, Telus called Tomassoli and offered a $600 refund.
Telus spokesman Shawn Hall said the company stopped renting phones around 2006, as dropping phone prices left customers preferring to buy their own phones. Despite that, Hall said some people preferred to keep renting their phones.
“We don’t rent them anymore,” he said. “It’s a challenging situation, absolutely. Some people are used to renting phones and want to continue renting a phone.
“We have tried to notify customers a number of times suggesting there are other options that might be better.”
Hall said Telus is in the process of discontinuing the rental payments, offering to let customers who have rented phones keep them.
He suggested customers check their phone bills regularly. And if you are still paying a rental fee, contact Telus.
Tomassoli said she will accept the offer.
“I just don’t want any trouble,” she said, speaking in Italian.
The first thing she’ll do with the money?
Buy a new phone.


http://www.vancouversun.com/news/metro/Telus+offers+woman+refund+after+rented+dial+phone+decades/7189726/story.html



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