Hi all - I just need to (intelligently, I hope) rant a bit about Fido. I'm a Canadian living overseas and have had a Fido prepaid number for several years, to use whenever I am back in Canada. I thought it would be convenient, useful, and relatively easy to maintain (inlcluding from overseas). NOT SO! I have dealt with mobile phone companies in a number of countries (UK, UAE, etc) and I honestly think Fido is the ABSOLUTE WORST in terms of value for money and in terms of just simple things - the 611 "helpline" and the website are dysfunctional, and the customer service doesn't seem to even care.
Some specifics:
I have been unable to update my credit card details on the wesbite after repeatedly trying for MONTHS. I see from the Community threads that this issue has been around for years - since before 2017, and never fixed. Suggestions to call 611 don't help because I am overseas (and where I am right now, Fido doesn't even provide roaming service). Meanwhile, the chat function on the website usually doesn't work.
In any event, having used the so-called "helpline" 611 in the past, I find it just puts you into a black hole of going around in circles, in a long-winded automated system that rarely gives you what you need. I wanted to complain about an overcharge once, and the option just wasn't there. Neither was the option of turning off voicemail (a simple thing, you would think). Likewise, the option to talk to a human on 611 is hard to access - I had to randomly press buttons until the system finally got confused and had no option but to connect me to a human (who was unhelpful and gave me wrong info).
Why do they talk to you as if you were a 3 year-old? That happens both on 611 (which seems pitched to children) and on the website, which throws up useless error messages saying "oops" without any useful information at all. When you're trying to get something simple done, and the system doesn't work, it's actually quite infuriating to be treated like a child (at least for me).
On a prepaid account, you cannot change your plan on the website - I have no idea why. You have to call 611, and listen to a series of plan details in order to choose your plan, and by the time you get through them all you've forgotten the first one - whose brilliant idea was that?
I have found that in other countries, it's all so much more simple and efficient. You can always check your balance just by sending an SMS and the sytem replies with an SMS telling you your balance. Likewise to add money to your account - you just send and SMS with a voucher number (you can get the voucher from numerous merchants or online). They make it EASY to give them your money - whereas with Fido, almost everything seems far harder and more dysfunctional.
A last example - your account number is not the same as your phone number. When I first got my Fido number and went online, it showed me about seven other numbers associated with my account, which I didn't recognise. I tried to tell them about this but never got an answer until persisting for over 6-months, when I was finally told that my new number had been in use previously and hadn't been "cleaned up" properly of prior usage records. Insane.
And to think that their website keeps asking for FEEDBACK (which doesn't seem to have any effect whatosever, as nothing gets fixed, nothing improves).
Okay, that's my rant .... AS I LOOK FOR ANOTHER CARRIER - I want to switch as soon as possible, and everyone else in my family who used to be with Fido already has.
