Did you watch
Market Place last week?
Ostensibly it was a humorous search for Canada's worst cell phone bill.
More pathetic than humorous, I'm afraid.
The three finalists were all people caught in a conglomerate nightmare, either because they had not understood their contract with
Bell, Telus or Rogers or because fate had dealt them a bad hand.
The 'winner' had a $17,000.00 cell phone bill with Bell.
He had taken his cell phone to Moscow on his 'trip of a lifetime' and had not understood the consequences of using it while abroad.
Bell said it was his fault.
I agree 100% and his bill should have been, well, (I'm being generous to Bell here, just in case there are some hidden costs I don't know about), $74. 99.
The cost to Bell was $4.00.
Where does Bell get off charging $17,000.00 for something that cost them $4.00?
After
Market Place appeared on the scene they lowered the bill to $5,000.00
So kind.
Makes you want to run away and join a pirate ship or something.
Well now you can.
Yes, you can become a pirate!
You can get your own pirate t-shirt
and
fight the Ship of Corporate Greed
by joining the
(which I first read about in Doug Jamieson's '
Geezer online' blog.
(
http://geezeronline.blogspot.com/)
Here's a little blurb I lifted, (probably illegally), from the manifesto of The Pirate Party of Canada:
"Private monopolies lead to excessive prices and large hidden costs...
The monopolist’s goal is to avoid fair market price and healthy competition, where as the free marketers focus is on price and quality for the benefit of the consumer...
We aim to limit the abuses committed by such monopolies."
Shiver me timbers, matey!
It's worth a read, so just click on the link above or google 'Pirate Party of Canada'.
