Making sense of Bell’s twitter charges

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Update April 8th 2009: There’s a Bell autodialer reporting that Twitter charges will be refunded.

I’ve been experimenting with Twitter‘s resumed SMS service in Canada. Right now it only works with Bell Mobility and, well, I’m a Bell subscriber. Twitter claims the service is free but I quickly heard reports of fifteen cent charges cropping up on the #belltwit hashtag. I decided to do my own experiment while waiting for Twitter’s correction.

Yesterday at about four o’clock I sent a message to 21212. I forgot to input my PIN, so I got back an error message. I sent another message with my PIN this time and it got posted. Next, I got someone to DM me so that I could receive a SMS, and then I got the same person to post a public message after I enabled “device updates” for his account. I received both the DM and the public message, then called *611 to see what the charge was.

Long story short, I was told to call back today. I logged in to my Bell account and saw six new charges. One was “text message from internet” and five were “txt message – short code programs.” So I called *611 again.

Total charge: $0.45. I asked them to look up the Twitter short code as a biller and apparently it’s not there as a subscription service, so you’re not being charged for incoming messages.

Bell has since confirmed that they won’t charge for incoming messages from Twitter. This is consistent with what I found out through billing. I sent two messages, so get charged $0.30, plus I got a message from Google Calendar, adding the other $0.15. I didn’t realize that Google Calendar messages costed so I’ll be cancelling those today.

Update: Original Bell press release says charge was intended to be incoming and outgoing.

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3 Comments to “Making sense of Bell’s twitter charges”

  1. Ron 21 March 2009 at 2:29 am #

    If you have a txt package with Bell all incoming sms messages are free. I use MSN / Google Cal / and twitter no charge on my incoming SMS messages!

  2. Benny 25 March 2009 at 11:07 pm #

    Ron, You are wrong. I just got ripped off by BELL. They charged 15 cent per tweet received and stuck me with a 151.00$ short code charges to pay. Thats really upsetting. I’m very annoyed and i cant believe this is happening. I havent spoken with any one in customer service yet, but when i do i will keep u posted.

  3. MoToJeWeL 3 April 2009 at 8:50 pm #

    On my recent bill, March 23, I was charged 143.00. I called Bell prior to setting up twitter SMS on my phone, I was assured SMS from twitter would not be charged.

    I wish I could yank all of my phones from Bell and go elsewhere. The contract cancellation fees are very high so I am trapped with terrible customer service unless I want to pay to leave.


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