Found this in our local daily and got the full story from the Montreal Gazette site...............something like WS's giving discounts to the consumer to get the order.........
Mother ship trying to sink us: Bell dealers
Retail franchisees say wireless unit is acting unfairly
JAN RAVENSBERGEN
The Gazette
Friday, November 29, 2002
ADVERTISEMENT
Some cracks are starting to show in Bell Canada's wireless operation, a retail arm of Montreal-based BCE Inc.
Scott Phelan, twice named West Island Retailer of the Year and with 15 years of selling Bell-branded cell phones behind him, isn't the kind of guy you'd expect to see in the streets any time soon dodging tear-gas canisters to protest, for instance, a G8 Summit.
But there he was yesterday, allied with two other Bell Mobility cell-phone retailers to publicize a dealer-and-franchisee
insurrection against Bell Canada that's been bubbling behind the scenes for more than two years.
"Enough is enough," the 49-year-old Phelan declared. "We can't take it any more."
The three launched a frontal attack on Bell Canada, saying that they were speaking for more than 60 businesspeople who own 230 independently operated Bell Mobility and Bell World stores in Quebec and Ontario.
These account for 70 per cent of Bell's retail outlets across the two provinces.
Bell is allegedly undercutting these dealers and franchisees - tied by exclusivity agreements - using what Phelan and the others say are illegal and abusive trade practices to poach customers and siphon away their business base.
Phelan runs Espace Bell cellphone outlets in St. Laurent, Dollard des Ormeaux and Vaudreuil-Dorion, and said he's being set up to fail as the mother company pushes ever more intensively through its corporate Web site with cheaper cell-phone offers than he's permitted to provide.
Bell is also directing unhappy customers with problem cell phones sold through its Web site to its discontented dealers - without compensation, thus "seriously undermining the quality of its customer service," added Espace Bell franchisee François Carrier.
The former Bell Mobility executive said he was forced to fork over $200,000 to overhaul one of his outlets, only to discover that Bell footed a bill for the same amount a few stores away to convert an electronics outlet into a competitor:
"How can we survive," Carrier asked, "if our own supplier is scuttling our businesses?"
Canada's most powerful telecommunications group responded by calling the allegations "groundless."
Bell "has honoured the terms and conditions of its contractual agreements with its ... dealers and franchisees," BCE official France Poulin said.
Expect the utility's competition against its own middlemen to intensify, she warned: "We have to continue to diversify our distribution network."
- - -
The dealer group, the Association of Independent Owners and Franchisees of Bell World and Bell Mobility Stores in Quebec and Ontario, filed an $80-million lawsuit against Bell arm Bell Distribution Inc. a year ago.
Phelan said the group has already racked up $600,000 in legal costs .
In the past, Bell "always came back and did the right thing," Phelan said.
"Since 1999, that whole position has changed.
"The game plan," he suggested, "is to draw this out, demoralize the dealers along the way, and re-acquire the dealers as they weaken, at bargain-basement prices for a fraction of their real value."
© Copyright 2002 Montreal Gazette
Mother ship trying to sink us: Bell dealers
Retail franchisees say wireless unit is acting unfairly
JAN RAVENSBERGEN
The Gazette
Friday, November 29, 2002
ADVERTISEMENT
Some cracks are starting to show in Bell Canada's wireless operation, a retail arm of Montreal-based BCE Inc.
Scott Phelan, twice named West Island Retailer of the Year and with 15 years of selling Bell-branded cell phones behind him, isn't the kind of guy you'd expect to see in the streets any time soon dodging tear-gas canisters to protest, for instance, a G8 Summit.
But there he was yesterday, allied with two other Bell Mobility cell-phone retailers to publicize a dealer-and-franchisee
insurrection against Bell Canada that's been bubbling behind the scenes for more than two years.
"Enough is enough," the 49-year-old Phelan declared. "We can't take it any more."
The three launched a frontal attack on Bell Canada, saying that they were speaking for more than 60 businesspeople who own 230 independently operated Bell Mobility and Bell World stores in Quebec and Ontario.
These account for 70 per cent of Bell's retail outlets across the two provinces.
Bell is allegedly undercutting these dealers and franchisees - tied by exclusivity agreements - using what Phelan and the others say are illegal and abusive trade practices to poach customers and siphon away their business base.
Phelan runs Espace Bell cellphone outlets in St. Laurent, Dollard des Ormeaux and Vaudreuil-Dorion, and said he's being set up to fail as the mother company pushes ever more intensively through its corporate Web site with cheaper cell-phone offers than he's permitted to provide.
Bell is also directing unhappy customers with problem cell phones sold through its Web site to its discontented dealers - without compensation, thus "seriously undermining the quality of its customer service," added Espace Bell franchisee François Carrier.
The former Bell Mobility executive said he was forced to fork over $200,000 to overhaul one of his outlets, only to discover that Bell footed a bill for the same amount a few stores away to convert an electronics outlet into a competitor:
"How can we survive," Carrier asked, "if our own supplier is scuttling our businesses?"
Canada's most powerful telecommunications group responded by calling the allegations "groundless."
Bell "has honoured the terms and conditions of its contractual agreements with its ... dealers and franchisees," BCE official France Poulin said.
Expect the utility's competition against its own middlemen to intensify, she warned: "We have to continue to diversify our distribution network."
- - -
The dealer group, the Association of Independent Owners and Franchisees of Bell World and Bell Mobility Stores in Quebec and Ontario, filed an $80-million lawsuit against Bell arm Bell Distribution Inc. a year ago.
Phelan said the group has already racked up $600,000 in legal costs .
In the past, Bell "always came back and did the right thing," Phelan said.
"Since 1999, that whole position has changed.
"The game plan," he suggested, "is to draw this out, demoralize the dealers along the way, and re-acquire the dealers as they weaken, at bargain-basement prices for a fraction of their real value."
© Copyright 2002 Montreal Gazette
