One Toronto doctor has most likely had an incurable headache for the past six months, since Bell’s Virgin Mobile was incorrectly chasing her to repay a $2,400 wireless bill.
According to CBC News:
For the past six months, Wing Sum Tang has battled Virgin Mobile over $2,400 in wireless charges she never racked up. In fact, she has never even been a customer with Virgin, a wireless provider owned by Bell.
But someone opened an account in the name “Wing Tang,” and Virgin targeted Tang when the charges went unpaid.
From the outset, Tang, a Toronto-area family physician, has contended she’s a victim of identity theft. Although she filed a police report and provided Virgin with documents to prove her innocence, the Bell subsidiary continued to demand its money. Tang said Virgin even sent a collection agency after her.
When CBC News reached out to Bell, only then did the wireless company offer an apology to Tang, citing how this incident was a case of “mistaken identity.”
Tang says she’s upset over the false accusations of owing Virgin Mobile $2,400, saying, “Six months of my life and all the back and forth that I had to go through, all the accusations suggesting that I’m lying.”
“They’re trying to make the victim pay,” Tang added. “A typical case of a big corporation which doesn’t care.”
Back in October, Tang received paper correspondence from Virgin Mobile saying she had a charge due on her account. Despite providing Virgin Mobile’s fraud team with evidence—such as her Rogers wireless bill—and her personal information, which was incorrectly noted by the Bell flanker brand, the case was not cleared immediately.
Tang believes her identify theft is linked to an incident from last summer when someone used her name to create a Freedom Mobile account and racked up huge charges. Shaw-owned Freedom cleared Tang of any wrongdoing after three weeks.
With Virgin Mobile, three weeks after her initial contact with the company stating her innocence, the Bell flanker brand sent her a $2,400 bill, with an ultimatum indicating a collection agency would be used to chase her for the funds, if the total was not paid “immediately”.
“I was in disbelief and obviously very upset,” Tang said to CBC News. “I didn’t hear back [from Virgin] and then I just got a giant bill.”
Virgin’s fraud team concluded Tang’s charges were valid as no fraud was found in their investigation.
“That was their conclusion, and it didn’t matter what I had to tell them,” said Tang. “It seems they’re more interested in recovering their money.”
Tang sought the Toronto police for help, with an investigation still ongoing. She filed a complaint with the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-Television Services (CCTS) too, however the latter told Tang Virgin had considered the incident “resolved”, still holding heras responsible for the $2,400 in charges.
Even Tang’s husband, a family physician as well, got involved and contacted Virgin Mobile’s executive team, lambasting their false accusations and demanded the charges to be dropped, to no avail. He claims the couple has had “many sleepless nights” over the issue, citing they just “want to move on with our life, have this taken away.”
A Bell spokesperson said, “We’ve had the opportunity to continue our investigation into this very complicated case,” adding “Our fraud team has deepened its investigation into new scenarios of subscription fraud and what looks to be a case of mistaken identity involving two people with similar names.”
Someone created an account by name of “Wing Tang” in August 2017, then racked up huge charges for overseas calls last September, which went unpaid. It was at that point Virgin Mobile pursued the huge charges for six months, which were falsely linked it to Wing Sum Tang.
