About 3 weeks ago my 20 year old daughter who has completed her 2nd year at University tells me "someone called to say I'm paying too much for long distance and they are transferring me to another plan and all I have to do is call to confirm". She says they told her I already approved it and they had all my information. So I don't call because I'm happy with my plan with Bell and I don't make long distance calls anyway.

Then yesterday I get a letter in the mail from PRIMUS CANADA Long Distance. The letter says "Thank you for your order however you have been denied. You failed to pass the credit check. We can provide you with this service if you send us a deposit of $250 certified cheque or money order."!!!!! I was fuming!...I ask my daughter again what was the conversation she had with them and she says they said they already had my information.

I call up the telephone # on the letter. First call they conveniently disconnect me after I tell them I never authorized an order or a credit check. Second call I say "get me someone to speak with and don't hang up". They get me a rep who tells me someone must have ordered the plan and "pretended they were me". I say they called my daughter few weeks ago. The rep asks me to hold while they play me the recorded conversation of talking to my daughter. The recording is a two sided recording that barely matches.

Their voice: "What is your name?"

My daughter's voice: giving my name as her name

Their voice: "What is your address and DOB"

My daughter's voice: gives the address and MY DOB

Their voice: "Have you agreed to and given us all your credit information?"

My daughter's voice: "Yes"


The rep comes back on and says to me "do you recognize that voice"? I say "yes it's my daughter and you have pieced together a conversation". The rep says "your daughter pretended she was you and ordered the long distance plan". I tell the rep my daughter is in 3rd year University. Why would she do that for a long distance plan? I ask the rep where she got my credit information from and she stated that my daughter gave it to her. I told her my daughter doesn't know my information. I asked her 3 times how she did a credit check on me and she finally said they were not able to do a credit check because I didn't call to confirm. She said they tried to do a credit check using my name and DOB and that's why I got the letter requesting a deposit of $250. I tell her I'm reporting them and she replies that my daughter will be in a lot of trouble for fraud pretending she was me if I do!!!!

I was soooooo mad. Basically it looks like they make the call and whoever answers they trick into agreeing to make the order. When I told my daughter that there was a recording of her stating my name and DOB. She said after the conversation they asked her to "give my information for the recording"!!!!! I called Bell to report them.

Tell your kids and babysitter not to have any conversation with anyone asking questions on your behalf or offering anything. My daughter is not a stupid girl but she was naive when they tricked her into giving my name on the recording and I don't blame her.

There are other scams out there like this as well. Energy Companies...coming to the door doing the same thing to babysitter or kids...getting them to sign for a plan. There are sites and forums on these scams to inform the public.

Not a nice way for Primus to act, I had them once and had no problems. I had difficulty dealing with Bell years ago and remember telling service person on the phone "one day you will have competion and you'll be sorry for pissing me off". Very true, I use Nexicom and Rogers.

Cheers, Bob

Not sure if you're daughter is in 2nd or 3rd year University, but I think it's time she took a course in "street smarts"..., at least as of now there is no real harm, and you stopped it before it got out of hand, hopefully you're daughter learned a lesson on this one.

I agree. Nexicom has been totally great for me for my phone service. No more dealing with Bell. And when I have any issues, I can walk into the office in Millbrook.

As for Primus - sounds like they pulled a fast one on SnogirlFX - but Spiderman makes a good point. Hopefully it is lesson learned.

FYI - if anyone ever has issues with a company like that - call and be SUPER polite until you get some one in charge as front line are trained (threatened) to keep complainers from the managers - then be professional, direct and firm with the (hopefully) supervisor / manager you get. Explain your position and go from there. It can be very effective.

Alternatively - you can go the abrupt route - had a friend who had issues with a Sattelite receiver going wonky - second time in less than two months - was getting frustrated on the phone with tech support, so after about 30 minutes of non-sense, he said, just send me another one, to which he got about 10 minutes of BS, to which he responded, if you don't get me a new one, you can just take this one and shove it up your A$$.
And wouldn't you know it, the next day, a new one arrived with a technician to install it (no charge).
The technician agreed the old one was defective and no amount of button pushing was going to fix it, but he said it just the way the phone support are trained.

we use Primus at work ....never a problem.

Boy I'd love to speak to someone at Primus and give them a piece of my mind. Since I moved into my new house (new phone number) I receive at least 1 call a day (at all hours of the day). Most of the time the call is a fax machine (on my voice line), the rest of the time someone just hangs up on me. Everytime I check the number (reverse lookup) it can't give me any information othen then that fact the number is owned by Primus. If I call the number it usually comes back saying its for outgoing calls only, is no longer an active number or just rings until the cows come home. 3am, 4am, 5am on a regular basis! Someone should force Primus to make their customers accountable for their actions. I have no respect for the company and wouldn't use them if they were the only provider out there. I can't begin to tell you how much I hate Bell, but Primus takes the cake!

Sorry Slider - thats not directed at you, lol.

you wouldn't believe the calls and messages I get from Bell , MSNBA ( or what ever they are called) at the cottage....

Sounds liek you are talking about marketing calls from Bell? I'm talking about idot Primus customers (not the company) that call for no reason or try to send a fax 5000 times to a number that obviously doesn't have a fax machine connected. I can't trace the number or even call then back to say smarten the f-up. Just once I'd like to be able to return the a-holes call and tell him what I think about getting worken up at 3am. Better yet, I wish Primus would post their address (like everyone else on Canada411.ca) so I can mail them a thank you letter. lol, yah, yah that's it - mail them a thank you letter.

I got a call from Primus just now...... LOL I asked them if they were doing the scam I read about.
The lady got all flustered.
I called her on it...... I think I caught her off guard.

Unfortunately when she asked if I was Mr. A-----, I said yes... FUCK!

same shit for me....



the called i said no.. and they i asked why and i said it "screamed scam" and the guy hung up

Just told my wife about this, so she told her Mom. Apparently they tried to get her last week. Everytime she said no thank you, they'd keep prying. Eventually she just hung up.

PS - SnogirlFX - thanks for the PM

Lol Canadians.

Cant do that here

Would be Cramming

It is called "slamming" not cramming, LOL Americans. The FCC placed 3rd party verification rules to curb porting of phone #s without the consumers consent, a practice that was running rampant in the States, it is very uncommon here.