New $5 home security service maintenance fee

[TuesdayL]

I was surprised to see the recent addition of $5 per month being added to my bill for the purpose of "security system maintenance".   I would have thought that system maintenance would be already factored into the base fee.  This leaves me to wonder what justifies this $5 per month increase in cost to the consumer.  

[Darajani · Accepted solution]

The same here. Increasing bill by 5$ as maintenance fee plus last month partial fee for the same reason. An additional 10% under new term. Not even sending heads up on that. This is an extorsion

[Marguerette]

I was charge $5 too and would like an explanation.  There has been zero maintenance done on my system since I signed a contract 13 years ago.  This is not ok.

[TELUS_Support]

Hi TuesdayL, we sent you a PM so that we can take a look.

[namnahc]

Why is Telus only responding to this via PM? It just makes it look sneaky and wrong. If they have nothing to hide, why not just answer for public to see instead of answering individual messages by PM?

[TELUS_Support]

When needing to look in to a specific customer's account or billing, we always move to private messaging for security purposes as we'll be discussing private information like account numbers, etc. Thanks!

[sevimo]

I am in the same boat as @Marguerette - many years with a predecessor company on honored fixed contract, and now with Telus, in half a year or so this bogus fee is already in. No one from Telus did any maintenance either. So if you want to deal with this via PMs, please reach out, I am still not sure what this "maintenance" is all about.

[TELUS_Support]

TELUS SmartHome Security constantly strives to improve the quality of its services, and this rate change will help to continue to maintain the level of services our team provides. If you have any further questions about this, you can always send us a private message to discuss further!

[NP]

I type this as I am on hold (no call-back option) to dispute this charge for the 3rd month in a row.  I started home alarm monitoring with local company, sold to Brinks, sold to ADT, sold to TELUS.  

Last year I replaced my windows 3 of which had wired contacts.  Paid for a service call but none of the 3 technicians who came could work on wired systems.  Only one of them offered to fix the system, but only if I replaced the "outdated" main system panel at my cost of $400+.  My simple solution - call a local alarm company who sent one of their techs out who rewired the windows in 30 minutes for just over $100.

So now TELUS want to charge me a maintenance fee?  I have a 5 year contract which states my price is $35 plus taxes.  Maintenance is part of the cost of the service, not an additional charge.

I have called TELUS every month to dispute the charge and clearly told them that I have a signed contract for the fixed rate of $35 per month.  Each month they reassure me that this maintenance charge will be removed from future bills, but it never is.  And so I sit on hold (again), 35 minutes and counting.  TELUS "Let's make the future friendly"???  In my experience, not so much.

[JAMJR]

Lucky your cost went up only 5 dollars, my security went up 10  or 20% this month with no notification are apparent reason. I type this also while on wait for agent. Their system says the approximate time will be 60 minutes before they can answer.

[TELUS_Support]

Hi @NP - we hear you and understand that unexpected fees are frustrating. Were you able to speak with a representative and have the issue fixed?

[SSIUser]

Same here, noticed the $5 charge and have tried contacting telus but, sitting on hold again. Our problem is that we can't upgrade to wireless as they only supply us with 15mbps, and we've been asking for 8 years for better speed. Which is why we went Prices security wired, back then. Now they want nothing to do with the equipment we own all I want is monitoring.