Rantings of a Queer Pagan

The limits of "unlimited"

Columnist gets to the bottom of all you can use contracts


Many would assume that services being offered in "Unlimited" plans would have no limits, but in reality this is simply not true. Companies such as The Bank of Montreal and Rogers Wireless offer "Unlimited" service plans, with a not-so-obvious warning that the limits of the their "unlimited" plans fall within their sole (often undocumented) discretion.

Bank of Montreal Unlimited Plan with Airmiles Reward Miles, $25/mo:

Claim: "Unlimited number of transactions per month (including account history inquiries),"Earn one reward mile for almost every day-to-day banking activity, including debit card purchases, direct deposits and pre-authorized payments."
Reality: I talked with an assistant branch manager who eventually admitted that there are limits and they are defined somewhere, "probably on the website or something, I don’t know where, you’ll have to go look it up." So I did, and found nothing. However, a review of the cardholder agreement revealed that the Bank of Montreal reserves the right to set or changes limits at it’s discretion if accounts exceed a reasonable amount of transactions and to revoke or refuse to award more than three Airmiles per vendor per month. When I asked the assistant branch manager what would be considered a reasonable limit of the unlimited plan she told me 60-100 transactions/month.

Roger’s Wireless:

Claim: "Unlimited Received Text Messages"
Reality: 2500 Message Limit, about 84 a day.

Claim: "Unlimited Wireless Data Transfer," $100/month
Reality: "Soft Limit" of 100mb/month, imposed at Rogers discretion.

Claim: "Unlimited Evening and Weekend Minutes"
Reality: 2500-minute limit/month, about 84 minutes a day.

Out of these vendors Roger’s Wireless was the most forthcoming amongst its customer service reps and documentation as to what limits actually exist, which deserves minimal praise at best. The issue at stake here -- and I found hundreds of similar vendors just as guilty -- is one of false advertising and misrepresentation. While the limits are high enough to accommodate most users, there are those extreme users who subscribe to these plans to get what they think is an awesome deal, but who can find themselves banned from the network and facing seriously high usage charges if they're not careful.

My recommendation: if you’re planning on taking advantage of any unlimited plan, find out what the limits are. If the service representative insists there are no limits, get it in writing, signed and dated then go look it up yourself.

Have a consumer concern, complaint or issue you would like investigated? Contact consumerissues@thereflectoronline.com.

Link to the Reflector Article

posted by Kasper @ 01:02