Of course, the only possible vindication for my rude and bizarrely customer-hostile experience with Primus Canada and their TalkBroadband product would be, oh, I dunno, maybe some sort of apologetic response from Primus' Customer Service department, if not the immediate acceptance of my service request.
Hah! As if. Though I did receive automated email responses from my multiple complaints — "we have received your message and it should [huh?] be addressed, in the order in which it was received" — I have yet to actually have anything addressed at all. No calls, no emails, nuthin'.
It turns out that the happy ending to this story is that Primus' main competitor in this market, Vonage, had me up and running with a VoIP telephone service three days after my order was placed. Actually, it would have been two days had I been home to receive the equipment. I'm very pleased with the product and the Customer Support person with whom I spoke — though I really didn't have to — was helpful and exceedingly cheery.
In other Fuck-You-Primus news, it looks like one of my neighbours has had a similarly-crappy experience with Primus Canada:
102 comments
I am a brand new customer to Primus Canada just one day and I have problem with talkbroadband, waiting on phone more than 1 hour for their technical help and nobody pick up the phone. Primus Canada suck!
I do not recall having ever dealt with a company with such poor quality of service. I have had bad experiences with their billing department nearly affecting my credit rating as well as technical problems/questions that took forever to get a fix/answer to.
Their customer support numbers are basically useless as you cannot get any help or get anyone online to help you out. Their support emails refer you to the phone numbers.
I am going to switch to another provider very soon. I hope they take customer feedback into consideration or they are out.
I must add that prior to switching from Magma to Primus, I was very happy.
I was former primus employee, so glad not with them anymore. the day I left is the one of the happiest day in my life, such a relief! so please keep in mind you are usually dealing with very unhappy employee there, when people are unhappy they are less effective…
This is a great place for Primus venters – I hope my vent is welcome too…
My Primus Fairy Tale:
I was moving on March 28, 2008, and heard of the service of DSL and phone that Primus offered at a reasonable price ($34.95 bundle). So, I decided to switch my phone company earlier first from Bell to Primus. This took effect in my old home on March 22, 2008. The reason I waited on the DSL is that I wasn’t sure if the new home would be able to run DSL, so I wanted to move to confirm this.
Phone service was fine, and the female sales people on the phone had nice french accents who enticed you with their sweet tone of voice that ‘everything would be okay’ when you switched and move.
So, we moved. The phone first of all was moved 2 days before we asked for it to be moved. This proved to be a major inconvenience as we were still needing the phone in our old house (while we were moving out).
On March 28th, I called Primus to order internet. An order was put through and I was told within a week the service will be active and a DSL modem would be shipped. Fine.
A week goes by and nothing in the mail, no service. I call tech support, and the order was rejected. Why? I’m not sure. The Indian technician is not so sure (I can barely understand what he’s saying because his phone is cutting in and out). Transfer to customer service…apparently my address is still the old address and I haven’t moved. BUT!! My phone is already moved!!
So, I wait another week…same thing…the order is rejected. Talk to customer service. They offer me dialup service in the interim – transfer to tech. support. Get dialup and use it. Call pretty much every other day to find out what is going on. Each time, I’m promised that service will be ready by “Next Monday” or “Next Wednesday” so I wait…still no service!!
Speak with more Indian tech people and ask to speak with a manager. They mostly have no clue. I ask them to come to my house to ensure the wiring is in place – they cannot say much about that.
In the middle of all this, billing calls me to confirm that my phone line is going to be invoiced today…(why would they ask that when I’ve already authorized that before??).
Weeks pass…I call tech support who says the line is rejected for provisioning again and they say customer service only deals with provisioning. Transfered to customer service. Customer service says they are not sure why my call was transfered to them, but they have little explanation as to why the provisioning is taking so long.
They transfer me to tech support as I need answers. I speak with another guy, and he says that there is unfortunately no service available to my home. I shake my head and talk to his manager and he says there is, but it will for sure be ready by May 7, 2008.
I wait…May 7 and no service. I call again, and their system says May 12th is the availability date where the switch will be connected. May 12th still no service!! I call and they say that within 2 days all should be fine. I call on May 13th for the fun of it now. I finally speak to a guy that is to the point and spells it out in black and white. He says that the Indian call centre screws up most of the orders and being bounced between customer service/tech support is terrible for customers. He is alarmed at how long the order has been open. He tells me that tech support tells you a ‘desired date’ of activation, but there is the ‘real date’ that is not supposed to be revealed to the customers. He pretty much said, if you don’t get it by May 15th, look elsewhere.
Today is May 14th. I will wait for one more day and then I am going to be asking for 6 months of phone service credit or I’m leaving Primus phone as well.
Bell was so good. Why did I make the wrong choice and leave?
I have been a loyal Primus customer since the took over my previous internet company back in the ’90s and added home phone service in 2006. I have been very pleased with their service and support (as compared to Bell and Rogers) – UNTIL NOW!!!!!
On April 11, 2008, I called to notify them of my move (June 1st). The customer service person said that they would request activation of the line at my new residence (same phone number) for May 29th and that it should be live by Monday June 2nd. Well, it wasn’t activated as promised and I called customer service that evening and was told that they could not do anything about and that I would have to wait another 24 hours. The next day, I called again and also left a message for Andy Day, their SVP of Residential Services – never got a response. Someone called me later in the afternoon to let me know the services were now active. I also got a voicemail saying it was active. I got home last night (Tuesday) and no dial tone! Rather than calling customer service again (they just keep lying anyway), I thought I’d wait until today (Wednesday). As of 10am this morning, still nothing!!!!! They are no better than Bell and Rogers – where is one to go? My next step will be to send an email to both the President and SVP of Residential Services to complain. I will never recommend Primus to any of my friends or family again!
ahhh primus! my grandmother tried to cancel her long distance with Primus, and was told she couldnt because it was in my grandpas name. So she had to send them the death certificate for them to cancel the phone, Which she has, and hey guess what? THEY STILL WONT CANCEL !!!! what the eff is wrong with primus?????? why are they still in business? seriously people!!! I am happy to say thou, that im not getting any more bills in the mail from primus. I did however, get a treatning letter stating they will be seeeking legal action to get their 36 bucks they think i owe them. Great let me invite them over, show them how i paid for YOUR SERVICE for 11 months and my phone worked for 2 weeks the whole time!! Im so glad i never have to deal with these wankers ever again. so anyone looking to switch, take a second look. My mom recently thought about switching from shaw..primus makes it look so cheap and easy, i told her my story and then she heard my grandmas story and promptly disregarded that thought.
SO primus take your company and go back to where you came from! save us canadians the headaches!
I had a little trouble with Primus when I first signed up with them. The bills were not consistently the same price and should have been. But since then I have had no issues at all with the service. I find the features very neat unlike other internet phone companies that do not even offer portals to control your services. I have been trouble free with Primus. I would recommend them to friends:)
Just wondering if anyone has called the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission of Canada(CRTC), 1-877-249-2782, which is the federal government regulatory body for telephone service. If enough complaints are logged their license could be revoked. There is also an independent group called The Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunication Services (CCTS), 1-888-221-1687. If Primus is a member group you may be able to get satisfaction from them.
Thank you for your posts, I was considering Primus after nightmares with Rogers and Bell, but now I will continue the search.
Is there such thing as customer service anymore? Seems like everyone fraudulately and legally takes your money and you, the consumer, are left with no recourse.
My deepest sympathies to anyone who has ever had to deal with the sorry bunch of losers at Primus. I just ended a five week nightmare with them for a home phone/long distance/DSL setup. The DSL never worked (still doesn’t, after five weeks!!!!), and every time we’d call there would be another technical excuse/lie and another delay. We asked for managers to call us, and they never did. We’d call support and be on hold for half an hour before one of those losers felt like getting off his fat ass and answering the phone. And most of the time we’d get a bad connection to someone who could barely speak English anyway.
They should be called Primus Third World and not Primus Canada.
And thx Nicole for the complains phone numbers. I’ll be logging a big fat one with them asap.
I have had many problems with Primus too. The service never worked and they ignored my requests to fix it. They ignored my cancellation requests and continued charging me for months afterward. Like other people here I have been put on hold for hours, told different stories, had contradictory information, etc. I believe this is all fraud. I have now spent hundreds of dollars on a product that never worked.
Everyone who has problems with them should CALL THE RCMP and ask to talk to an officer in the commercial crime department. That is what I’ve done and if they get enough complaints they will investigate. It probably won’t help you with your bill, but eventually it will take the company down.
An addition to the note from Nicole –
I called the CRTC to complain about these losers, and they unfdortunately do not regulate Primus Canada so can do nothing about it (and I’m almost certain I heard the lady who answered the phone shudder when I mentioned Primus). They did, however, give me the phone number for Primus’ Office of the President, so I’m calling there next. The number is (800) 957 1177.
As for the CCTS, they have a web site where you can log your complaints (www.ccts-cprst.ca), but they do not list Primus as a member, so they probably won’t be able to do much either. I wonder if the Better Business Bureau will make a difference.
On a happy note, calling the Office of the President at Primus was the first (an donly) productive and well handled phone call I’ve had with these people. I explained my situation, the attendant saw my long file, and I’m getting a full credit for the miserable time I spent with them. These past six weeks have been a complete disaster from the start, but at least someone over there had the sense to see this, apologize, and offer a credit.
Worth trying out.
Again, the number for the Office of the President at Primus Canada is (800) 957 1177. Good luck to anyone who tries it out.
I wish I researched primus better before i signed up for this service. It is very spotty. The hook up and transfer from bell was quick. It took months before my speed was quick enough to be able to watch you tube videos. They tell me I was too far from switching station, so why did you not say that when you signed me up?? The speed then got better. My other problem is phone service. People would say they left me a message but I never got anything. Then few days later, the phone would be bepping to say I got a message and it would be messages from days earlier.
I called to report that and they said no problems with system. Other times I noticed my phone was making a goofy, interupted ring. I never paid attention to it till one time I answeredd and someone was there. Then I concluded when my internet would get disconnected, I called my house with my cell phone and it either did not ring or it made that goofy ring tone. This service is very unreliable and I never had these problems with bell. I guess that is why bell can charge a little more since they have a sound phone network. We try to cheap out and only screws us in long term. I never had billing issues like others said but phone service should never be like this.
Unfortunately I to am experiencing difficulties with Primus and ending service with them. You will wait 40 minutes to an hour on hold, and there is the likely hood that your call will be disconnected. It will take months for you to have your service ended and the bills to stop coming, and you will have to pay extra at the end of it.
I blame myself for not investigating Primus initially. If you are considering using them I strongly recommend you find another company with better customer service. My next phone service choice will be dependent on how long I have to wait on hold to speak to customer service.
Best of luck everyone.
Signed up with them. Immediately started billing me before I received anything in the mail.
By the time I did, modem didn’t work at all.
Called over the course of a week and waited for a MINIMUM of 25 minutes each time I tried to reach their so called “customer service”.
When I finally did, they agreed to refund the service charges but refused to refund the modem which was friggin broken!
Sent 5 customer service emails and NEVER heard a response.
Beware of this company… total garbage.
Having worked a little less than 10 yrs in the industry, I am all too aware of the crap there is out there. Having worked this amount of time, despite being aware of the fabulous rates other companies out there offer for local phone service, I will never switch my line to any other company and regardless of how useless Bell Canada customer service is, they truly are the only company out there who really knows, understands, and can service a land line for you. Here’s news flash…all these other companies… Primus, Rogers and any other company out there offering really cheap land lines, are resellers of Bell’s service. Nobody owns their own network with the exception of Allstream (which now belongs to MTS anyway) and maybe one other. So basically, you get what you pay for. What you save on the line, you end up paying for by wasting your energy time and resources dealing with nimrods who truly haven’t a clue about how this all works to begin with.
As for VOIP, again, having worked in the industry long enough, as most of my peers, I won’t go near it unless it offered by a company that can boast a minimum of 5 years or more experience in it. A service that hasn’t been proven is bound to give you a headache and a number of companies out there have worked years perfecting their product.
Buyer beware is all I can say. As for those of you who don’t pay your bills on time, shit happens and we’re all entitled to our mistakes. Just know that these companies really don’t give a shit why you can’t pay on time. Even if it’s because you have to stop working to look after a bedridden partner, your house burned down, and you haven’t more than 2 bucks to your name until your next pay cheque. Compassion is lost on these folks, people. Listening, and actually hearing what a customer is trying to say is an acquired skill that unfortunately is lost on them too. Or at least most of them. Those that do care, and there are some, have their hands tied and really can’t help you even if they’d just as soon give you the shirts off their back. So be compassionate yourself, and say to yourself “the poor old bugger just doesn’t know any better poor thing”, and move on. Because there is so much more to life to see and experience than to waste this much energy on them.
I have just switched my long distance to Primus from Bell…better rates and have never had an issue with them in the past. Mind you, long distance is what they started with, what they know, and by the sounds of it the only thing they really know how to manage.
For those of you that really have an issue that needs resolving, my best suggestion – based not only on my work but also my personal experience because I have done this quite successfully myself – is go straight to the top. Look at their email address strings and try dropping a line directly to the president or CEO. You can find their name in the “About us” pages usually. Most companies use the string is firstname.lastname@company.ca(com, net, etc). You can be sure to get some response out of it. I once sent an email to the CEO of a major company with a 4 page complaint. Within a week, a customer service rep from the CEO’s dedicated service office called me, I had 6 mos free service and direct line to phone him directly. No hold time, no nothing. I doubt all companies work like this, but it’s certainly worth a try. Oh and don’t forget to copy the CRTC and at least 1 publication. You will be heard.
Myrna
I REALLY WISH I HAD CHECKED THIS SITE OUT IN ADVANCE!
Everything negative about Primus Canada here is completely accurate. I’ve never had such a bad experience as I have had dealing with this organization. By far the worse customer service I have ever experienced. I’ve literially spent hours waiting on hold, been lied to numerous times by numerous representatives. Promised call backs which never came, told I was a liar and that I was playing games. I’ve been waiting for weeks to obtain my service, to be shutdown one more with no notice for an extensive period of time and to be given the run around repeatedly. They don’t even know if I’m a customer.
Do yourself a favour, AVOID THIS ORGANIZATION. On my fourth day of service I’m paying $100 to cancel my contract before its barely begun. The company IS THAT BAD!
Primus is absolutley the most incompetent and abusive provider I have EVER had the misfortune to have to deal with in my 30 years on planet earth.
We had service for less than a week when I cancelled because they said they couldn’t transfer our service to the new house we moved to (in the same neighbourhood) for 25 business days!!!! No phone or internet for over a month..not even an apology and they still wanted to charge us for the basic service charges….incredible.
After trying to cancel our service I had to be on the phone 6 times for 30-45 minutes on hold each time to finally get the service cancelled, and still they sent us automated bills to be deducted from our credit card. Finally the credit card company had to cancel our card and issue us a new number.
If I ran my business like this I would be out of business in no time. It is a mystery at this point how they are still running.
Even the call center had terrible connection to some dudes in India that had less than a clue about what they were doing. No offices in canada outside of Ontario…..vigilanty justice is the only way forward with these folks I think.
My God! it is so nice to hear everyone is in the same page that we are, to be honest with you I thought it is only us having problem with them, we are a medium size company and have been using their Data and Voice service and it is been nothing but problems, their techs are rude, unskilled and possibly cheapest possible tech you can get in the market, their customer service really sucks, no one I repeat NO ONE cares about your problems and once we started complaining about poor service that was getting worst on daily bases they politely kicked us out, with a letter stating your contract is terminated because of violation of TOS!!! Go figure!
Any way I am looking for their CEO or CFO contact info so I can directly tell him about our experience, does any one know how to get a hold of him? I got 3 names so far googling Primus CEO but cannot find their direct phone or email, here they are:
Ted Chislett
David Hershberg
Peter H. Kines
I am pretty determined to get my message heard, will let you know the result.
Thanks all
Al
Hi y’all. I switched recently from Primus to Vonage. For a while the price at Primus was reasonable, somwhat. Then it went up and they gave me a 6 month offer at 19.95 per month. At the end of the offer it went back to 29.95, but with a couple of other features it arrived to nearly 56.00 (tax included).
So to that I said PHOOEY!, and ‘made the switch’.
Primus has invoiced me a 46.00 termination and 4.50 network termination charge.
I worked for Primus. As you can see the word is worked. Primus is only interested in money . They do not care about customer service. When you call customer service for one thing you get Indian. We had many many complaints about that from the customers and actually from the people who worked there that had to transfer these poor people there over the phone. They were told when they answer the phone to give out a Canadian name like George or David etc. When you know dam well they were not. I gathered they thought people were that stupid to believe them. Technical support fought long and hard about that and did try to help put the customers. Our hands were tied many times. Often clients were waiting weeks sometimes months for a connection. They put you on their platform where you waited at least 2 weeks to get connected only to have them realize after you called in that you were too far away for a connection. Then they would take another 2 weeks to transfer you on a Bell platform. This was done over and over again. They’re goal was money not customer service. One of the companies they bought out was all about customer service. I was one of these tech’s. I was devastated as were many other tech’s were when the company was bought out. We were promised many things. One of them being they would never lay us off. I watched as customer service went down the drain. They wanted the number stats not good service. Every time we brought something up to help the customers we were shot down. Primus was going to do it their way and no other way. Even though our way worked so well. They have recently shut down the residential tech support office in Ottawa to concentrate the support in another province where a grant was given to them to hire students. People who are not qualified or trained properly to handle technical difficulties. Why? because it’s cheaper over there. To hell with paying qualified technicians what they are worth for the sake of the company. They not only lie to the clients, they lie to their own employees.
Primus hides behind privacy policy when the going gets tough.
Basically people, doesn’t matter who your with, and I was an avid supporter of Primus not so long ago. Their service was amazing, support as well – to the point in which i had family and friends convert. Then the going got pretty bad, calling into support was a joke – i unearthed network problems in their core (i work in the industry) It got so bad that I began working through their office of the president. If you don’t have the number here it is: (800) 957-1177. When calling them I will say they responded very quickly and got things moving, solved in 2 days. A few weeks went by and back to the shitter. So i call in again and get some guy quoting privacy laws to me, and that I’m not the primary account holder. (its under the wife’s name), I basically lose it, he hangs up on me 6 times.
Now, this is bad because I have nowhere to go now – so i did a little research. And well all i can say is use the privacy policy in this situation – basically, by them helping me on the earlier occasions they violated my wife’s privacy by allowing me to act on her behalf. So i have faxed into their legal division and will proceed with taking them to court to prove a point.
2 weeks gone by, no response – so on to the CRTC, they should get them to jump a little but I will take them to court unless I get some sort of retribution.
Its pretty sad because all the telco’s will get you to this point. What they don’t realize is that customer service is what people want and would gladly pay more for it. Soon more competition will move into Canada and give the big players a run for their money. We as customers have to keep the pressure on them. Use the CRTC to keep them honest.
Although the CRTC has created “houseleage hockey for telco’s” they are also there to support us customers.
Here is a quick link right to the complaints page:
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/RapidsCCM/Register.asp?lang=E
and don’t forget to call the Primus office of the president to get your own issues moving along – just make sure your the primary on the account.
(800) 957-1177
I agree with everyone here – Primus bites.
I was looking into upgrading my Primus Dial-Up to High Speed, so I hopped onto their webiste. I went through the entire registration process, but then my children started crying downstairs, so I hit CANCEL to re-register later. I then shut down the computer.
Later, when I went to dial back in, my dial-up account was inactive. I couldn’t log on. I called their customer service number (and stayed on hold to India for over half an hour) until they re-activated my dial-up account.
After that simple problem, I was too worried to sign up with Primus for high-speed, so I went with Bell. The Bell modem arrived at my home the SAME DAY AS THE PRIMUS MODEM! I received a modem from Primus that I NEVER ordered. After more telephone tag, I was told that Primus would send me an envelope to return the mode, which I did. In the meantime, my credit card was charged the full value of the modem.
That was TWO MONTHS AGO. They FINALLY acknowledged receipt of the returned modem, but then, when I called to ask about a refund to my credit card, they said that CREDITS take TWO MONTHS to process! What??? I didn’t even ORDER the modem, and now I have to wait TWO MONTHS to have my money returned to me? I’m sure Primus wouldn’t like to wait that long for payment of a bill owed to THEM. And when I finally AM compensated, will I get interest? Fat chance.
That company is just one big mess. It will have to self-implode eventually.
Hi There, I was trying to find places to share my bad Primus experience and found your blog through google. It seems that many people share some similar frustration. I was wondering if maybe you were interested in hearing my version of the bad bad service PRIMUS has provided!!!
Here is my story:
Hello everyone, I would like to share with you a true story, something happened today and I want to share with the world. You’re about to hear me bitch at what Horrible Service you can get from companies such as Vonage and Primus.
My spouse and I have had phone service with Primus Canada (Talk Broadband VOIP) for over 3 years and the service has always been crappy. But we stayed since it was an easy thing to do and the price is very good.
Lately we figured we would switch to Vonage for the same price… and thought we would get a be better service.
Well, after 3 weeks of trying to get a phone number transferred (so we could keep the same phone number) everything has gone wrong!!! Vonage says the address is a mismatch when Primus confirmed the address is fine.
Tonight, I have just spend over 3 hours on the phone with both ‘stoopid’ companies and guess what? My phone number, which used to be xxx-xxx-xxxx has been cancelled and apparently we can never get it back again… so much for this great option we have in Canada to keep the same number while switching phone companies… Never try this at home!
I am now waiting for a supervisor to call me back within 3 business days because those ‘so called managers’ working there don’t want to take escalated calls.
In the meantime, I am in the mist of starting some action against both companies and hope to get some kind of compensation for this bad service.
I have filed a complaint with the CCTS ( https://www.ccts-cprst.ca/ots/cf/ComplaintConfirmForm.do ); I need their help because Primus has violated privacy laws… (see below for explanation)
I am also going to try to get this story aired on TV (who knows, if I have the time and the chance to do so)
To make a long story short this is what’s happened:
David at Primus says he spoke to me on Nov 4th around 2pm and I authorized the cancellation of my existing number because I apparently told him the number transfer was completed and successful… that’s bull***t, I never spoke to anyone at Primus on November 4th. Actually, when speaking with Denise, I found out that they called XXX-XXX-XXXX and spoke to a ‘ret**d’ who posed as the consumer and confirmed that the line transfer was done and I was authorizing to cancel my phone number. The phone number they called used to belong to FXXX, it was his cell phone number 3 years ago. I called that number and listened to the personal voicemail message, the ‘l@ser’ who now owns this number gives out his phone pin which is 1234… Basically, anyone calling him can get into his personal options and do just about anything. (If I wanted, I could log in his options and change his personal message or something… maybe even call Telus which is his phone provider and cancel his phone… (but I won’t do that).
So now, Primus has obtained authorization from an unknown person, without proper verification, and has cancelled my phone number. (which doesn’t make sense because when you request a number transfer you don’t need to authorize the old service provider to cancel your phone, it’s done automatically) This is CRAZY!!!
This battle is not over… watch me get somewhere interesting with this saga. I will not stop until I get justice.
Now I am stuck with a new NEW PHONE NUMBER from Vonage which I don’t want… but it won’t be for very long since we are also going to cancel Vonage very shortly… once we figure out who can give us the best service… but in Canada you don’t really have much choice
If this doesn’t get resolved I will have to call over 20 service providers that I deal with to give them my new phone number, including the government, basically everyone and anyone who has my old number… why? Because of incompetent people working at Primus Canada.
Stay tuned for how it ends…
I am having a similar problem with Primus. I signed up for Primus Broadband talk a few months ago thinking I had found the best deal in Town. My modem arrives in the mail two weeks later and I find out that they had given me a Toronto number (I live in Fort McMurray Alberta). I called primus to cancel the services since I had not even started using the service and it was their fault. I was assured that the first Month’s advance bill will be returned to me and all I had to do was return the modem and everything was cancelled. I returned the modem a week later after they sent me a slip for the return and I thought all was well. I was wrong. 2 months later, I am on vacation and I received a couple of calls on my work cell phone asking me to contact them. I found out to my horror that I was being billed all along, even after I sent the modem and to date I am owing them over a 100 dollars. I have tried to no avail to have someone fix this, they don’t seem to have records of my communications even after getting assurances that notes were being taken. The call center reps have a tendency to hang up or transferr the call at the least urge. I am frustrated and angry right now that my time is being wasted over such a stupid service I never used. Primus Canada looks like a big scam to me right now.
My mother in law is 90 years old hearing impaired
primus duped her and then had audacity to play back the call to me as she said yyyyyeeeessss ooooooooookkkkk to her signup
I cancelled the invoice and spent over 3 hours arguing with employees
finally asked to speak to head supervisor whose name was bill 5531
asked for his supervisor and her name was mary 2247
estimated i spoke to 9 persons up the ladder with numeric surnames at a cost of 20 times what the initial $7 invoice was worth
they all agreed with the problem but still ascertain that the bill is more important than the customer
i paid the bill to Primus Canada(sucks)
now will they cash it ??????????
Michael
Wow… I feel like I just dodged a bullet.
With times getting as tough as they are, I started looking at our household expenses and trying to figure out where to cutting corners.
I looked at my phone bill (with Rogers… ~$50/month) and said that it was time to try out one of those VOIP companies considering my wife and I both have cell phones and spend 75% of our days at work. $20/month vs $50/month sounds pretty good.
That same day, I get an ad in the mail from Primus and decide that I’ll go with them. So I give them a call, just to get a bit of info before I cancel with Rogers and I spend about 35 minutes on hold before I get anyone. By the time someone answered, his English was so bad that I basically had to hang up on him.
I had seen some warnings on the internet about Primus in the past, but I decided to do some more searching and now I’ve found myself here.
I had also considered Vonage, but I’ve seen similar complaints. Not really sure what to do now.
If we want to really affect this companies unethical business practices we need to all complain to the local RCMP office and they can and will do something.
First you need to fill out the formal complaint here…
http://www.recol.ca and save your file number, then call the local RCMP and give them the details. If enough of us stand up to these pricks at Primus something will get done.
Good luck people, we MUST stand our ground against these criminals.
BTW the president of the company has changed his number, you can no longer reach the prez of primus on this number 1-800-937-1177
Well im usually up for a good read but this page is away too long … My eperiance os much the same as others. I moved and primus completly screwed up.
I was actually given a 905 number a one point ( i moved from toronto to hamilton ) They now tell me that i the change request was never started. This after a month of waiting for service at my new address. They’ve sent a tech twice to fix the problem.. Only problem is that they sent the tech to toronto .. not hamilton.. They now say they are cancelling my service and will be billing me for the month i was without service , a termination fee, plus (no doubt ) a contract breakage fee ( im 10 days away from the first year anniversary.
The difference between me and most of the others … I dealt with them over email. I have all their lies, mistruths and plain stupidity in WRITING. i reccomend do this with this company.
They don’t even read the incoming emails for example (paraphrased slightly)
ME:
Just out of intrest can you tell me what address you have sent the tech to ?
THEM:
Mr. thomson i have looked at your file and can guarentee a tech will be there this afternoon.
The tech never showed up ….
NEXT MORNING:
We Never changed the address of service …
So
1/ you don’t read your emails the response above is like asking
Whats the weather.
and someone responding
The leafs won last night ( i know unlikly )
Anyways i guess i’ve complaned a little to loudly as they have now cancelled my account. Just waiting for the final invoice to com in so i can pay and take it small claims court.
but i do have 30 emails from them showing for all intensive purposes that they could care less. Win or lose in court I know some lawyer will make 10 times the amount in queston by billing primus, and quite frankly i have enough correspondance between the two of us to be assured at least a fighting chance in court.
DO NOT USE PRIMUS
and if you do
NEVER MOVE
reading the above list seems to show they incapable of transfering services …
I am so sorry to hear all this negative comments. I hope that eventually it is going to work out for all of you guys. I have been thinking of getting Primus internet +phone but after reading all this horror stories I do not think that I am going to do that. I wanted to switch to them because they are cheap.Now I am left with a dillema who should I go with? Currently my phone is with Bell and internet with Rogers. I am not happy with them 100% but it is nothing compared with what you had to go through. Bell and Rogers are kind of expensive too. Maybe we should start blogging about which service providers are good and cheap? Let’s share some positive stories!
DON’T USE PRIMUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We used them for awhile and were informed we could have a second number on our phone using the same hand set for 4$ this was great for our family situation. We had had some service interuption but it was gettiing worse.
Strangly we were told by more and more people when they phoned they received a message that we were unavailable when we were home missing more calls. Also they had call long distance to phone us even from across the street.
-The phone was not hooked up in our area as they lied saying they had local service in our area but they didn’t
-They changed our plan when the second number was added it was not just 4$ as they took our unlimted long distance away without telling us
Our bill went from $35/mnth to appox $70/mnth
-They started charging rent on our phone modem which we had purchaed from them.
-Try to cancel? GOOD LUCK. It took 11 phone calls just to get to one of there nasty uncooperative reps. The phone kept dropping the call over and over. what a surprise from there crappy service. They would only credit me two months of errors and there calculations were worng and told me they had to charge one more bill for the 30 day notice. Its been 30 days . * No credit back, * another over charge, * Still charging for equipment rental on what i own.
This story to continue i am sure.
DON’T USE PRIMUS STAY AWAY YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!!!!!!!!
OH !!! So they double charged my account with no regard whatsoever… I called to speak to the manager and he agrees with me there must have been a SIMPLE mistake……. RIGHT so I asked him to please reimburse my Credit Card the $150.00. He says “We WILL NOT DO THAT”
Excuse me??? I have made formal disputes and Complaints with the banking institution and with PRIMUS LOSERS…..
Can you BELIEVE IT?
I am speechless
I too wish I had never heard of this two-bit out fit. I called, and emailed them January 27th to cancel my account. I was verbally told “no problem” that it would take 30 days before my account would be closed. It is now May 4th and I am in reciept of yet another monthly bill from them! Their latest excuse is that it is “their policy” not to cancel longdistance phone accts unless there is another designated service provider. Note that it is THEIR POLICY, not a legal requirement – it is none of their darn business who I care to designate.
Me TOO wish I’d never heard of them – two-bit is the word. Glad to have found a rant. They are a hideous tinpot telecommunications ridiculous nightmare. Won’t go into what the ‘deal’ was with getting a home phone and then to get an astronomical bill less than a week of activation and 3 customer service calls since. And, from what I can gather on the phone bill, they are actually charging us for the ‘service’ to sort out all the incompetence and misleading information. I’m beside myself with fury only to discover it will take 40 minutes on hold to speak with anyone today.
I had worked for Primus for several months. I complained loudly that Primus was ripping off their customers by over billing, instructing us to lie about a multitude of issues and not providing any reasonable answers to the thousands of weekly callers whose complaints were not heard. I saw that they did not care one bit about their customers and had slimy ways for us to try to counter all these legitimate complaints. I finally quit.
I would rather live in the street than be a part of what they are doing to hurt people.
I wished I had read these comments before I signed up with Primus. I had my account activated (their term not mine) a week ago and everyday I call tech support to inform them I can’t connect to the internet after an hour or two I’m able to connect but not at high speed. Tech support says I’m not signed up for high speed and transfer me to customer service who say I am signed up for high speed and want to transfer me to tech support again. I refused and asked to speak to their supervisor. Guess what? He’s on the phone and will get back to me in the next 24 HOURS!!! My next call was to Visa. They informed me that if I send Primus a registered letter informing them they were no longer authorized to debit my credit card. I would then have to send a copy of the letter and confirmation from Canada Post that the letter was delivered and Visa would stop any more charges from Primus.
I’m going to try this and as soon as I get confirmation from Canada Post that the letter has been delivered I will cancel my service with Primus and hopefully avoid the cancellation fee. Of course if this works they will probably send it to a collection agency. I’ll post a new comment with the results.
Here’s my Primus horror story. I cancelled my service with them back on Jan. 09. I sent them an email on Jan 20 09 asking them to end service on Jan 31 09. They sent me an email stating that I had to give them 30 days notice and that the service would be cancelled Feb 20. Fine, whatever. Come Feb they sent me a bill for an entire months service even though the service was terminated before the end of the month. Fine, whatever. The equipment was returned, the final bill was paid, end of bad experience…or so I thought. Four months later I get a bill from them for $6.75 for late termination fee! Even though they got their 30 days notice the fact that I didn’t GIVE them the notice is why they are charging me this fee! The balls of these people! I shut down my bank account and opened a new one just to avoid paying these bastards. I believed that if they are capable of doing this God only knows what they would try next. Now they are still sending me bills and I just ignore them. I left them because of abysmal customer service, unreliable phone service and shoddy billing practices. Facts which I brought their attention in my email response to their bill and which were summarily ignored. Primus is the worst phone experience I’ve ever had. I am now with Cogeco and I couldn’t be happier.
I had ordered Primus high speed and they told me that i would have 30 days to cancel. Since i didn’t have a line i got them to bundle it with the service. After Weeks of fighting with them that service was not working. (I paid for 5 megs and got 1 megs instead) I told i had enough and cancelling the service. I spoke to them for over 3 hours trying to cancel my account completly. They wouldn’t cancel my phone because the line was installed before the internet and it’s start date was a whole week difference. Note… they screwed during the installation of the DSL and i had to wait 2 weeks before they even installed it. I told them to make note of this error and they CSR said she would (obvisouly she didn’t).
Any how finnally was able to talk to a manager and they cancelled my service with out termination fee. 2 month after this happen i get a bill saying that they took the cancellation fee out of my account. I called them again and they said there was no mention of this manager notes.
To WHOM is planning at looking at Primus for any type of Service. I suggest you look else where unless you like screwing around for hours talking to these idiots at primus.
I used to have Primus/Wintel internet and then I cancelled in February. I returned the modem, cable, and power supply. Heck, I even mentioned it to them that I still had these three items because I did not want them. This was in March. My last credit card statement showed a May 28 charge of $8.15. I called Primus and asked them what this is all about. They told me that it is a handling charge. HANDLING CHARGE!? You pay a handling charge when something is mailed to you, not the other way around!
I had home phone service for about 9 years and I recently cancelled and switched to Rogers after giving Primus an opportunity to be competitive in their pricing (which they declined — how’s that for customer loyalty). I paid my last service bill but, to my surprise, the following month I received a $40 cancellation fee invoice. I had been under no contract and a review of the home phone service agreement that was posted online makes no mention of cancellation fees when cancelling their service (they do reference the possibility for cancellation fees when switching from another service *to* Primus).
A quick call to the office of the president (number is referenced already in someone elses post) and they credited it back without argument. They did, however, want to know where I got the number from. I just told them I’ve had it for a while (which I have) and that I know that the front-line CSRs aren’t empowered to deal with such issues.
And then there’s the $0.50 paper invoicing charge for 2 pieces of paper. I can print photos for less!
I have to say I have had talk broadband for about 6 years and I love the product and their support has been great – Shaw can’t even touch my $29.95 plus tax with unlimited local and longdistance calls…. I must admit I cancelled my cell service after the first year……… best of luck all…..
Well, I went to Primus. I told them over the phone that I wanted their service and I wanted to be billed at the end of the month. I wanted the Telephone internet bundle. We agreed to everything – I can’t really understand contracts so I have to take peoples word for what I’m agreeing too. I also can’t aford a lawyer to read over every document. The set-up was long and a bit complex but that was ok because in the long run I’ll save. It took months for people to be able to call 100% of the time. At first only about half of the calls got through. But eventually things worked out. Here is what I have a problem with. They told me that they would bill me at the end of the month and they billed me on the 20th. For me the end of the month is the 29, 30 or the 31. For me the 20th is the middle of the month. The first billing caught me by suprize and bounced. They bank charges a 40 dollar fee and primus charges a fee as well. Well, one bounced transaction leads to another, as a consequence of the 40 dollar bank fee. So a cascade of bounced transactions ensues which I have to pay for … including primus. OUCH. So I pay everyone off and straighten matters out. I call primus and they tell me that the 20th is their normal billing date, so I end up paying them the penality. I feel that I have been defrauded, that I have been lied to, but can’t quit primus because then I would have to pay another 100 dollar penality. From that point forward I placed money into my account on the 19th. This is out of step with my other billing practices but ok. A year goes by. They decide to bill me on the 18th. I put the money in on the 19th none the wiser. Their billing bounces but I don’t notice. The next month they bill me on the 17th. I put the money into my account on the 19th. Amazingly, in both these instances a bounceing cascade of transactions gone wrong did not occur. By pure dumb luck I just had enough money in at the right time to prevent that from happening. Then on Sept 24, 2009 the phone didn’t work. The phone said to press the * button to talk to primus. So I did that and asked what was wrong. They said that my account hadn’t been paid for the last two months. I said, “that’s strange, I put the money into the acount, I’ll look into it and get back to you.” I looked into it with the above results. I phoned primus and asked why they had changed the billing dates. A woman who identified herself as Jo-Anna (with an indian accent) stated that it was the normal billing practice because the the last month had 31 days. (I knew this to be a lie as my April billing was on the 20th and March has 31 days.) I asked where she was located and she said Ontario. I asked her if primus had any offices in Ottawa and she said I don’t know. (The only office that I know that they have is in Ottawa). I plan on going out to that office soon but I’m presently unhappy with their service. The bank fees on the 3 bounced Primus transactions alone cost $120 dollars. Plus Primus want to charge a fee. Plus the nightmare from the first cascade of bounced transactions. The Primus Management Philosophy states that they have a savings to service level that is second to none. Presently, I’m paying far more for less service and they are messing with my bank account without my permission. I consider it fraud.
I needed a phone line for a short while and signed up to Primus local phone. When I did so, I made sure to read ALL the fine print which stated a cancellation fee would be applied if I cancelled prior to 6 months. To my surprise, when I called to cancel my service 7 months later, I was told that I had signed up for a term of ONE YEAR and that they’d charge me a cancellation fee of $60. I looked at the Terms of Use on their website, but they had changed. Still, there was nothing about a “one year” contract anywhere or a $60 fee. The people I spoke to at Primus told me they simply wouldn’t cancel the service unless I paid the fee, even though there was no contract between us stating a specific term or any specific fees. In the end, I decided to pay and be done with it. NEVER again Primus!!! I can’t believe they have an A+ rating with the BBB!!!
K primus is shit..
heres the story..
2008. My modem fucked up randomly, took them 1 month to fix it wdf 1 month? idiots much.
Now 2009,
My modem works all lights are on, BUT INTERNET DOESNT WORK, i call them up im like, why aint my interent working? all lights are on the damn modem. and some indian fucker says TO LOGIN WITH MY PASS AND USER ON 192.168.*.***
I do that still doesnt work, Then he shuts the phone on me,
Well then, im moving to shaw, and im not paying there bills no matter what, They wont let me cancle it since its under my dead wife, So They can suck on it, im not paying for shit. Gg primus, your company sucks, a bunch of kids can overwhlem it.
Hello;
here is a great one for you that may be or have a handicap, oh I am supposed to call this special needs now, sorry…
PRIMUS- REQUIRES A LETTER FROM YOUR DOCTOR FOR YOUR HUMAN RIGHTS DISCOUNTS???
THIS IS I AM AFRAID A HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION!!! SIMPLE AND PLAIN.
i FOR ONE AM IN NO WAY ALLOWING MY PERSONAL MEDICAL INFORMATION TO GO SIT IN SOME COMPANIES FILING CABINETS FOR ANYONE TO LOOK AT WHO DESIRES TOO???
QUESTION IS ARE YOU GOING TO STAND UP AND TAKE ACTION!!!
ARE YOU GOING TO SAY NO, THAT ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!
I FOR ONE AM SICK AND TIRED OF HEARING THE SAME OLD EXCUSE OF COMPANY POLICY AND WILL NOT STAND FOR THAT WORN OUT RAG OF AN EXCUSE ANY MORE!!!
STAND UP FOR YOUR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS!!!
STAND UP FOR YOUR PRIDE!!!
STAND UP FOR YOUR SELF!!!
BEST WISHES
SINCERELY HARRY
wow…i guess im not the only one who has problems… although i was lucky to get customer support that sorta understood me, it still took forever…
i moved last year it took not one but 2 weeks to get internet transfered to another house. ok watever, we got internet after 4 hrs of calling. turns out, im only getting 1.2 mbps of the 5 im suppossed to get. internet is INCREDIBLY laggy (ping of 300+) i call them up, and they go like “yeah, the control centre/switching centre ur gconnected to is a little more than 5km away, and we are actually giving more voltage to u, according to caluclation, ur suppossed to be getting 800kbps at that range… (pause) well, heres what we can do, we can transfer u over to another control centre with only 1km of cabling, but its bell’s control centre” i said ok thank u very much. he said that it would take 1 week to get internet running again. so i was technically suppssed to get internet august 26 2009. (i think) i wait a week, i get internet back…ITS EVEN CRAPIER THAN BEFORE!!! im getting 56kbps and i can only go on VERY few websites. like google, a few isp websites and thats about it. so i call them up, they go like it will take another week….believe september 2, i call them, they said another week, september 9 same deal…ecvept they say wait 2 weeks…i dont get my intenret until september 21!!!!! and the worst part about it all is that they charged me full for both months! furiated, they didnt do anything about it when i called…so i was like watever. (keep in mind, before i moved i have been using primus since 2002 i think) now i get 4.3 mbps of the 5 mbps (which was reduced from 6mbps at some unknown time) alright. now, i have fast internet and all, but its very choppy. i have no idea wats wrong. sometimes they decide to throttle my bandwidth down to 1mbps (happens too often) sometimes they disconnect us, we call them and they say we weren’t connecting it right, when it was already connected properly…they basically blamed us for what they did. now, me being a gamer, i would like to play to have fun. but how can i have fun when my internet is so choppy it disconnects me from the server every now and then!
reading the problems u guys have about canceling ur service and how they make u pay anyway, im a little frustrated. if they try making me pay, im not paying a dime!
btw, whats a good isp that provides a solid connection. i need to switch from this hidious internet. (phone service isnt as bad. that had no problems so far.)
We have both phone and internet service with Primus Canada. They are both down since last Friday morning. When we initially called, we were told that technician would come next day between 8am to 12noon. We waited, nobody showed up. Called Primus, the rep said she would follow up and call me back. There were no callback in 3 hours. I called them again, now they said technician would come before 4PM. Again, nobody came. Call again, the rep promised that the technician would come before the end of the day (9PM). No one showed up. After more than dozens calls and 4 days waiting, our phone line and internet service are still down. Primus Canada Sucks! F this company !
Primus is crappy.
Whatever you do please do not use Primus. I’ve been stuck with it for a few years and its horrible. The people are rude like who are we?! We are your true bosses considering that we pay for your service so you can get a job.
For the lazy ones (why not to get primus)
-It stops working a lot atleast once a day you will be randomly disconnected and it breaks down a lot for some odd reason
-Its VERY SLOW there is not difference between high speed and lite high speed internet except the cost
-It takes one week to change from lite to high speed internet?!! You already have the modem etc but why…?
-They need to cancel your lite high speed for a week or until you get a mail telling you to mail back your modem and then you still need to wait
There WAS NO MENTION of this when i called to change
-Suddenly there is an activation fee… 8D…
Right tell me why was there no mention of this on the phone. It was just like yup you pay blah blah amount as seen on the website. (I should have expected it but i didn’t think switching would need that…Maby I’m just baka)
-Are these people trained?!
It takes like three people to solve one issue on how to get my internet up and kicking. I keep getting sent back and forth. You’re suppose to be in tech oh you’re supposed to be in customer service. Why are you here you should be back in tech.
Me: -dead-
-I usually get fees randomly. Just don’t ask i don’t really remember but it was a long distant call or something? At 2am in the morning like come on I’m not even awake at that time more over i shouldn’t be able to make one unless i have that on my plan. So why am i being charged…?
In the End:
I AM FED UP D:<
I am going to warn anyone i can.
After 5 years with Primus on my cell phone and VOIP land line telephone, I called them to cancel my service November 2010. Shaw cable is now charging similar rates for a superior service with practically 100% uptime compared to Primus’ lousy phone quality and constant busy line tone (or no tone at all sometimes) Unfortunately I just found out, like many other Ex-Primus customers that in my last invoice I’ve been hit with “lost equipment” charges even though I returned the PrimusVOIP modem (and with a Canada Post tracking number provided by Primus). This seems to be standard practice for Primus, after you cancel your account and return their equipment – they charge you anyway pretending they never received it! Google “Primus unreturned modem” and see what I’m talking about
Just to get the facts out, I cancelled the service in November, got charged a full month and a half extra, return shipping+ $168 (‘lost’ modem + HST). They did not send return postage until February 2011. That’s 4 months after I cancelled, after which I immediately shipped the modem back with all their cables and in the original box. I placed the box inside a waterproof padded plastic shipping bag to ensure nothing got damaged along the way.
I have opened a complaint with the better business bureau and will post the story on as many websites as I can. If they do not reverse charges on my invoice, I will have to pursue legal action not just for the money, but because this will create a negative impact on my credit score. I think some media coverage might be in order, CTV, CBC that sort of thing.
It seems like Primus is losing the VOIP wars (the shaw modem not only sounds better but has so far 100% uptime) and as a result, their corporate policy dictates they make their money by ripping off their customers. I should note I had been using their VOIP service for almost 5 years= before cancelling.
Thinking about using Primus for your VOIP phone ? DON’T DO IT !
I was a Rogers business customer for 3 years. Recently, Rogers decided to nix their services and switch everyone to Primus automatically. I was just moving my business at this time and I decided to give Shaw a call; we are now with Shaw. Primus billed me about 50 dollars for not even a month of service while we transitioned to the new address. I received another bill for additional charges of about 40 dollars for just a few more days service from the last bill! I called them and I was quite angry. I told them I had read so much bad stuff about Primus on the Internet that it wasn’t even funny, and that I would not pay them the additional charges (at this point I decided to be “fair” and pay them the original over-inflated amount). The guy on the other line was difficult to understand and the sound was very low/muffled. He told me that I had to give them 60 days notice for cancellation! I told him that I DID let them know last month, and that OH HELL NO it wasn’t 60 days…. there were conflicting reports on the Internet saying that sales reps had told people 0-30 days, but I did not see anywhere on there (or their website) about cancellation being 60 days! I was firm and said I am NOT paying Primus for services I am not using through them. He put me on hold to talk to a “Superior” and then afterwards told me that I wouldn’t have to pay anything else. To be continued… we’ll see what happens.