Bell Canada — The collapse of Sympatico email and how corporate irresponsibility left Canadians in the lurch

Thousands of Canadians have found themselves suddenly without email access, isolated from family and friends, and their small businesses or freelance careers in peril–thanks to an astounding level of irresponsibility by Bell Canada. I am one of many Canadians impacted by the apparent collapse of Bell Canada’s webmail program, the dearth of candid updates from the Canadian telecommunications giant and the absence of any resolution to a problem that has lit up social media with complaints, but has seemingly failed to move Bell Canada to action. Since the Hungarian Free Press is directly impacted by this situation (I rely on Sympatico email to communicate and share files with my colleagues and contributors: András Göllner in Montreal, György Lázár in California and Eszter Garai-Édler in Budapest), and since this site’s purpose is to serve as a platform of activist journalism, I think it appropriate to share with our readers how a company that has become far too comfortable in the Canadian telecommunications duopoly has stranded thousands. It seems either uninterested or unable to help seniors, students, small business owners and many others who now find themselves in a particularly precarious position.

The beginning of the end

Earlier this summer, I was sitting on the bed in a hotel room in Kyiv (Ukraine), huddled over my laptop, trying to decipher an email from Bell Canada instructing me to migrate my Sympatico account, long accessed through Outlook’s web interface, to one hosted in-house, directly at Bell.net. The Canadian corporate giant apparently wanted to offer its clients an “upgraded” experience and higher security, so it was gradually moving us all away from Outlook and over to their own webmail platform. They made the transition seem like a cakewalk. That’s why I was horrified at my ineptitude when I was not able to make the transition. Can clicking on a link and typing in your username and password be that difficult? I’m a 35 year old Millennial, I grew up with computers, spent years working as an online freelance writer and have established and run two blogs, one of which won a national award in Hungary. Yet I could not, for the life of me, log into my account on the new Bell.net interface. Maybe I was still reeling from my visit to the Chernobyl exclusion zone earlier in the day? Perhaps the wifi at Hotel Ukrayina, a towering Soviet structure overlooking the famous Maidan Nezalezhnosti central square, was to blame?

Whatever the reason, I could not spend countless hours with Bell telephone support while overseas. I also had to catch my flight back to Budapest at an ungodly hour the next morning. So I packed away my laptop and realized that Bell will certainly send me another email, before they shut me out of the Sympatico account that I have used for the past 12 years.

And then they pulled the plug…

In early August, I was at the World Social Forum in Montreal. I had a panel to chair and a discussion to moderate, and was surprised by how uncharacteristically empty my email inbox was, as I waited for the metro. That’s when I saw an email from Bell, which I almost missed, indicating that my account had been migrated. As the train rolled into the authentically seventies retro Villa Maria metro station, I realized that I was not able to log into the account on Bell.net, to where my email had been migrated. Surely, Bell Canada would not pull the plug on my Sympatico email, which had files that I needed for the upcoming symposium that day, and leave me stranded with no email access?

When I returned home, after being cut off from email on a busy and important day, I phoned Bell Canada, explained the problem and after some tinkering on their end, I was able to finally access the new interface and read a flurry of emails. I was so desperate for a quick resolution, that I barely raised an eyebrow when the overseas Bell Canada call centre agent asked me to divulge my password, as this was the only way to resolve this issue.

Káosz / Chaos. Source: Pieris.hu — Hungarian Interactive Portal of Contemporary Art / Artist: “sin of god”

Welcome to 1995

The horror began to set in when I started using the new and improved webmail system. None of my contacts and addresses had been migrated and the search function was completely dysfunctional. I had to continually sign into my old Outlook account–which no longer received new emails, but stored my old ones–to find the email addresses of contacts, each time I sent anyone a message.

Even more problematic was the fact that it took a minimum of forty-five seconds to a minute each time I wanted to load my inbox. Loading a single email, containing only text, took at least half a minute to appear on my screen. The circular animated icon began making me dizzy, as I stared at it for extended periods of time, enduring the painful wait for each email to load and for my inbox to refresh. I am a fan of almost everything retro, except for clunky web applications that remind me of the heady days of the birth of the Internet. But being a Canadian, I sucked it in, pledged to somehow make do and get accustomed to painful mediocrity. I’ll just adapt to the new reality–that’s what life is all about.

Until it all came crashing down…

My new, upgraded and secure Bell.net webmail came to an unceremonious halt this Monday evening. I suddenly found that an inbox which took over a minute to load and my vanished address book were no longer my most pressing problems. My inbox no longer loaded at all, but like a form of traditional torture, Bell Canada continued to cheerily divulged the number of new and unread messages–a number that kept rising–which I could not access, read or answer.  I felt increasingly helpless.

Since Bell Canada did not issue any statement on the state of its email or whether there were any service interruptions, I did not know if the problem resided only with my account or if there was a systemic problem. I phoned Bell customer service and was pleased to only wait on hold for around twenty minutes. The kind lady in the overseas call centre assured me that the problem would be solved in four to eight hours and my email would be restored to full functionality. She asked me to divulge my password–someone else already knew it from my previous experience with Bell Canada customer support, so what’s the difference if one more person now had it as well?

Eight hours passed and my email had not been restored. I started visiting Bell Canada’s Facebook page, where the telecommunications giant posted happily about Canada’s Olympic athletes, but not a peep about any possible technical problems. Yet when I began reading the frantic, despondent and irate posts from scores of other Bell Sympatico clients, I had my “Houston, we have a problem” moment.

“What the hell’s going on at Bell”–yelled Steve in all caps. “No more email on two iPads, no more email on my phone and email on my computer which sometimes works, sometimes will not let me log in and sometimes kicks me out. Even Canada Post could do a better job!”--he added.

“‘Upgrade’ must be one of the most deceptive words in our time,” remarked Rick, and added the following about his attempt to have the email fiasco solved: “After half an hour with one of their representatives, he blamed my phone.”

“The introduction of the ‘new Bell email’ is becoming a disaster. Loss of emails, rejection at log in, freezing on strange pages and inability to set up changes on my iPhone email settings,” observed Douglas. “All of my worldly contacts are through my Sympatico account, so this problem has effectively cut me off from everyone! Another wonderful Bell fiasco,” he exclaimed.

“I called today and asked the Bell technician why I still don’t have spell check. He asked me: ‘what is spell check?'”--recounted Ken.

“I should not have to wait for over 20 minutes for my inbox to fill, or to compose a message. Perhaps, switching back to Outlook is a good idea until you get all the kinks worked out? You have e-mails and private messages from me,” added Janice. 

In most cases, pleasant, but helpless Bell agents assigned to Facebook–known as Kelsey, Crystal and Chris–tried to calm the growing storm. They were undoubtedly in an awkward position, promising to connect us with tech support agents who would resolve all of our problems. But no help came. Not 24 hours later. Not 36 hours later. Not 48 hours later.

Waiting for Godot

I became increasingly humourless, especially as my unanswered emails piled up in my dysfunctional, inaccessible inbox. I also know how damaging this is for thousands of small business owners who work from home and rely on their email to make an income, pay their bills and keep a roof over their head. When I supported myself as a graduate student through online freelance writing work–producing large amounts of online content, with quick turn-around and for modest remuneration–not having access to my email for over three days would have eliminated the income I needed to survive and would have burnt my bridges with the British and American companies that bought my articles. I also think of the elderly Canadians who are isolated at home, but keep in touch with the outside world first and foremost through email–children and grandchildren who live on the other end of this vast country or across the globe.

On Wednesday night my blood pressure climbed as I seethed quietly, waiting for forty minutes on hold, as a soft voice recording thanked me for my patience, repeatedly, every two minutes. I finally got through and the young man explained that there was a problem with the Bell mail migration and with the server. I should not expect any resolution tonight, so I might as well go to bed and try again tomorrow.

This is a good time to catch up on my reading, I thought. Although rather than reaching for a book, I became strangely addicted to the growing chorus of furious Bell Sympatico customers expressing their understandable frustration online. When I tried to log-in next morning, I was pleased to finally access my painfully slow, but partially functioning Bell mail. Was the agony over?

No such luck. I was once again locked out of my account twenty minutes later and have not had access ever since.

So what can Bell Canada customers do?

Clearly, Bell Canada is unable to resolve this mess. And even if it does at some point, many Canadians will have gone for a full work week cut off from their email. Filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau is a good way to get a corporation that has acted so irresponsibly and with seeming disinterest when faced with the plight of thousands of consumers to take notice. It is a surprisingly effective strategy. (Here is the form to complete online when filing a complaint against Bell Canada.) The BBB allows you to explain your complaint and also propose a solution that is acceptable to you. The BBB then contacts Bell Canada on your behalf with your complaint and desired resolution. The telecommunications giant has up to thirty days to propose an acceptable solution. 

You can also report your Bell outages and email problems to sites like Canadian Outages. At the time of publication, 33% of all people who reported problems with Bell services indicated that their outages related to Bell email.

In the twenty-first century, social media offers consumers leverage that we never had before. Share your experiences with Bell Canada on Facebook, post public complaints on Bell Canada’s Facebook page, turn to Twitter and write a blog post on how corporate irresponsibility impacts you.

Equally important: let policymakers and your local representatives know how the duopoly in Canada’s telecommunications industry is to the detriment of Canadian citizens and how Bell Canada’s dominance–including in the world of mass media–poses a problem on so many levels.

At some point, Bell Canada might finally resolve its shambolic webmail service. Although the fact that many Canadians are reporting that Bell Canada customer service representatives are encouraging clients to just switch to Gmail is hardly reassuring. Bell Canada dismantled a functioning email service, cut the cord without having any contingency plan and is now essentially treating Canadians as guinea pigs in their weird, frustrating and experimental in-house system.

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I contacted BCE and Bell Canada’s Media Relations department. One of their media officers, Caroline Audet, has committed to responding to my questions and my media query. If or when she does, I will publish those on this site as well.