Something very strange happened last night. I’m sitting here this morning wondering if I’m naïve enough to believe that SaskTel had a huge system glitch or if I’m distrustful enough of them to accuse them of messing me.

I was in the middle of a download yesterday evening when I hit 23GB of data usage and promptly received a text message that I was being throttled again.

Sure enough, my download slowed to a crawl, going from the roughly 256Kbps throttled speed they give me to less than 100Kbps. I could barely get online. Text-only pages took about 10 minutes load, pages like Facebook were unavailable.

My first instinct was to check to see if they had changed their fair use policy. Yes, just a month ago, but there was nothing about double throttling on unlimited plans and, in fact, the only thing that applied to me was super positive as they had removed my data limits when outside of SK (but still in Canada). Yay for that.

So I got on the phone and after waiting on hold for more than 15 minutes, I finally got hold of tech support. The guy looked at my account and told me this:

1. When I had a major data issues at the start of August, when I didn’t even have service in town, the tech removed my plan and put it back, which brought my data back. I triple checked with her that I was going back to my grandfathered unlimited $70 a month plan, not the limited, and she said yes. Last night’s tech said that I was actually on the limited plan and after 23GB you get cut off because of excessive overages and that I had about $300 in overages on my account.
2. After 8:00p.m., tech support doesn’t have access to your full file and cannot help with complex issues like this, so I had to call back in the morning.

This morning, I called them right at 8:00 when they open. I’d been up for a bit and been online and my connection appeared to be back to normal….

This is what this morning’s tech told me:

1. I am still on my unlimited plan.
2. There is no way I could have the overages last night’s guy said I did because the new telecom laws force them to cap your data at $50 of overages. I know about this because when I still had my Bell Mobility account I was tired of having to call every few days to tell them that I knew my account was at so much in overages and they finally had me sign a document that meant I no longer got capped after a tweak in the law gave them permission to do so. I haven’t done that with SaskTel since I’m on an unlimited plan.
3. There is no automatic throttle at 23GB for any plan.
4. There is nothing wrong with my account. They must have just had a huge glitch last night.

SaskTel’s frontline techs are usually very good, so last night’s experience was a huge anomaly. The lady who helped me on August 6th is my favourite as she is really quick to understand what is going on and find a resolution. So I trusted her when she said that she would give me back my unlimited plan after taking it off (and that doing this would give me back my data). So I was shocked last night to be told that she had betrayed me. I’m glad to know that she didn’t.

So happened last night? Was it truly a system glitch that put the wrong information in my file, was it a tech guy who was making up stuff because he didn’t have access to my full file, or was there some sort of trap put into my account that was triggered when I hit the 23GB cap? Just a few months ago, I would have gone with the tech support guy making up stuff. But now, I’m rather suspicious.