That's just not right...

A lovely lady from a *611 line, named Amber, has just confirmed what the in-store representative has told me. As an existing customer whose (second) 3 year contract just ran out, I am aligible to apply a $200 "loyalty credit" towards a new phone if I renew a 3 year contract with Bell. New customers get $300 off.

My only option as she has described is to - cancel my current account ("with no charge" - duh, there is no contract left) and re-sign up as a new customer. Rewarding customer loyalty? What's that?

I still don't believe that this is right, so I am sending a following email to the billing department to try and get this sorted out:

Hello. I have been a Bell customer for 6 years now and recently my phone started having problems, so I am trying to see what options are available for me to upgrade it. My contract has ran out and I am looking to renew it for another 3 years. So far I am being told that I am entitled to a $200 discount of a non-contract price of the device I'm interested in (HTC Touch Pro) which means that I would have to pay $299.95 to get it, which is $100 more than what a new customer would have to pay if one was to sign up under the same conditions! This has been corroborated for me both by in-store and phone representatives over the past two days (and differs significantly from what my understanding of the $200 credit was, where it would apply to the 3-year contract price, if I was to sign up for another 3 years). I would like to know if this is indeed the case, and if so - how exactly is customer loyalty being rewarded at Bell and why would I chose to continue being a Bell customer, instead of going to a different provider where I would get a better deal as a new customer than I get from Bell after being with you for 6 years?

We will see what they say, because frankly Roger's 3G network is looking more appealing than Bell's EvDO (even with their highly publicised but poorely available HSPA network - all their new phones except for iPhone are not even on it).

P.S. Bell's "At Bell my voice is my password" phone support line authentication is useless - you sound like a dork saying it in public and then they still ask you for your personal information to confirm your identity (by the way, hitting # a couple time bypasses it just fine and you get a person).