It’s been a while since I last wrote anything. Nothing on the news has irked me to the point I wanted to rant about it and there is no confirmed new information on the “Bring him to justice” file. And I just couldn’t see writing something just for the sake of writing something. So, that explains the long silence. But something has happened that I feel I can use to give vent to my views.
If you live in Canada, mainly east of the Manitoba/Ontario border, you know the name Rogers Communications and have probably been affected by them in some manner. If you don’t think so, I remind you of the events of July 8, 2022 where a problem somewhere in the Rogers system affected most of the country. You remember when the ATM wouldn’t work and there was no internet, cell service or cable for many people? Yeah, that Rogers.
A couple of months ago, after looking at my bill, I called Rogers to see if I could cut my cable back to basic cable. I knew I’d lose some channels I enjoyed but the cost was getting out of hand since my sole income is a government pension. That was when I learned that the service I have is now considered a “legacy” service, meaning they don’t offer it to new customers and if I wanted to reduce my service I’d have to switch over to their current, cloud based service. That’s the one that wouldn’t work last July. But in order to get that, I’d also have to get their internet service. I switched from Rogers internet years ago for two reasons: the cost and the fact that I was constantly having to reboot my modem. That left me with cable and home phone service through Rogers. As an aside, I think that over the past five years, I’ve had to reboot the modem maybe three times, as opposed to three times a month on occasion with Rogers. So already I have a sour taste over Rogers.
This story starts about two weeks ago. I had a question regarding my bill. The last three bills had each been higher than the last with no changes in my service or viewing habits, such as rented movies (I don’t rent movies). I know Rogers is in the process of buying their biggest competitor in western Canada but if they have to nickel-and-dime their customers to afford the billions the acquisition will cost, maybe they should reconsider. I called Rogers and spoke to perhaps the most unco-operative customer service rep in the company. For some reason he seemed to feel I wanted to change my billing from online to paper billing and kept pushing that option. He was being so obtuse that after going around in circles over the billing – NO, I DON’T WANT A PAPER BILL! – I eventually reached the point I was ready to go full “Karen” on him, but instead chose to just hang up.
February 21, after still being unable to get a satisfactory answer to my billing question, I decided to cancel my cable service effective February 28. I have Apple TV so won’t miss much and I have news outlets on my phone, so there is no problem there. Important point here that comes into play in the next paragraph is that with Rogers, phone service also uses the cable.
I presume that like most people, when I think of cable it I think of it as separate from the telephone. I’d forgotten that Rogers uses the cable for the phone as well. When I phoned in to cancel my cable, I thought that while I’d no longer have television service I’d still have the telephone and nobody told me otherwise until yesterday.
Fast forward to yesterday. I was looking at my bill and noticed that the billing period was from February 10 to March 9. Well, as of March 1, I will no longer have any services with Rogers. I couldn’t see why I should have to pay for my cable and telephone services for the period of March 1 through 9 since they will be unable to provide those services. Phoned Rogers and got someone in the accounts department.
I explained this to the lady on the other end of the phone and she explained, in a rather haughty manner (what’s with Rogers, do they intentionally hire people with zero customer service skills?) that I have to pay the full amount and they’ll issue me a credit. I explain that I’ll no longer be a customer so a credit on my account wouldn’t do me much good. She again told me I’d have to pay the full amount. I asked her if she’d pay for a service she isn’t going to get and again her response was “you have to pay the full amount.” She did tell me she’d put through a credit for approximately $38 for the overpayment but it would take two months to issue a cheque. So let me see if I have this right: you’ll issue a credit for less than half the overcharge, take two months to reimburse me and not pay interest of having my money for two months? Got it, and I don’t think so.
I have a background in business, mainly transport and import/export, and am fully capable of calculating such things as discounts. I’d already looked at the bill and determined that a proper discount for nine days would be in the area of $83. That was based upon the billing period of 28 days and the amount of the invoice. Something else I learned in business, more years ago than I really care to think about, is that it’s much easier to dispute a charge before you pay the bill. Knowing that I still hadn’t paid Rogers at that point, I unilaterally decided that I’m only going to pay them the revised amount using my figures.
After my telephone conversation with Rogers and coming away dissatisfied with the result, I went onto their website and used the live chat feature to plead my case once more. Same result. This time I gave them my calculations so they could see how I arrived at my figures. I also made sure to copy the entire live chat and save it.
In the end, I paid Rogers what I calculated what my service from February 10, starting date of the billing period to February 28 would be and paid them that. So, now I wait for the next bill from them to see what, if anything they’ve decided to do about this matter.
Cat.
Catseyeview 