by Erin Hipwell
The following article is reprinted here with permission of the Lexicon
It all started back in September, when I moved to a new place off campus. I called Rogers at the beginning of the month and requested that high speed internet be set up in my room. I explained that I rent a section of a townhouse, and that some of the other tenants already have internet access in the house. Rogers tells me that because of the "back to school rush", I will have to wait several weeks for service to be set up. That's fine, I tell them. It's my own fault for putting this off.
Several weeks go by and then my appointment date comes. The tech man from Rogers is pleasant and spends some time fiddling with the cables coming from my wall and setting up my modem. He tells me that everything is set up and is on his way. Later that night, while I struggle to figure out why my internet is not working my new housemate knocks on my door. His television isn't getting channels anymore he tells me. Can he look at what the Rogers guy did to the cables? I gladly oblige, and am told that the Roger's actually unplugged some cables to the TV in the next room.
Three more visits are made to my home by Rogers' tech employees, none of whom fix the internet in my room. After the third visit I call and cancel the service. I've already received a bill for my first month's charges, and I explain that the service has never been properly set up, and therefore I won't be paying that bill. The woman on the phone kindly agrees that paying a bill for internet which never worked would be silly. I thank her and move on with my life, thinking that my saga with Roger's ends here.
A month later I find a second bill from Rogers, with a note that says I have yet to pay my outstanding bill from last month.
"The internet never worked," I remind them on the phone. "I canceled the service last month."
I'm told that there is no record of my service being canceled, but that they will cancel it immediately. I tell them again that I won't be paying any bills for services I never received, and again the incident fades from my mind as I keep busy with papers and other realities of life.
Another bill, increasing in amount and with a note that I'm now two months past due. "The internet does not work and never did," I tell them as calmly as I can.
They apologize. All will be cleared up. Thanks for my time, sorry for the inconvenience. I email a complaint to their customer service department, the first of two I will send.
I go home for winter break and Rogers is the farthest thing from my mind. Life is good. I return in January to two bills and a notice that payment is seriously past due. A collections agency will be sent in 35 days time.
The days following are an angry blur.
I speak to twelve customer service reps in one day spread out between three phone calls. Most of them are no help at all. One is flat out rude, and one is really confused and just transfers me immediately. The 12th person tells me they'll send a tech guy out on Monday to collect the modem (which they said they'd pick up but never did) and to check the cables. I'm told he'll confirm that the cables are bad, and clear my bill so I owe nothing.
"Great," I say. "It's about time."
Monday. I'm stood up. No one comes.
Tuesday morning I'm awakened by a phone call.
It's the Rogers billing department: "When are you planning on paying your bill?"
I spend fifteen minutes detailing my Rogers experience. The customer rep is silent. She'll transfer me to the tech department, and they should cancel my bill from there. Then the line goes dead. I've been cut off. Again.
I call back and ask for the tech department. Another long explanation, another bout of questions. My frustration is growing by the second. One friendly woman keeps putting me on hold to "ask her supervisor."
I ask to speak to him directly.
No, he doesn't take calls.
We carry on like this for twenty minutes.
Can I please just speak to her supervisor?
"Ok..." she says. "He'll talk to you for a minute."
Half an hour later while speaking to her supervisor I was told my Rogers internet service works perfectly, was called a liar, told a collections agency will come after me, that it's not their problem I don't have money to throw away, was threatened by legal action, I burst into tears, had it insinuated that I'm lying again, was told I have to pay my bill, and yelled that it's not my fault their company doesn't keep track of anything.
Apparently I've only called them "a couple of times back in September and October" about this.
What? No notation of the calls I made after each bill I received?
"No calls were made, Ma'am."
"No, these things are recorded."
Can't they see that the service hasn't been used?
"We can see that no downloads have been made in the past two months, ma'am, but our records don't go back any farther than that."
I flip out. "It's not my responsibility to prove now that your internet service never worked! I have made a ton of phone calls and emailed twice! The tech guys who visited me can confirm that it never worked! This is ridiculous and I'm never paying you a cent!"
I am then told that the four tech guys that visited me were a figment of my imagination, as only one visit is in their log.
I guess my landlord's crazy too, I tell them, since he spoke to the tech guys each time.
"We have a note that a tech guy visited you on January 5th and back in September, that's all."
Well, first of all, that means TWO visits are recorded in your little log sir, and secondly, no one ever came on January 5th, as the visits were all back in the fall.
Also, he tells me there is no record of me ever emailing them, despite these things being "recorded". He'll cut the bill down to two months, but I'm going to have to pay some of it, he tells me. We argue some more, and then it's down to one month.
"It's only fair, and actually very reasonable," he says. "It's not even that much money," he adds.
"THEN YOU CAN PAY IT!" I yell.
Finally, I drop the name of the person who returned my angry emails back in November, and luckily I kept those emails in my inbox as proof.
The charges are dropped completely, but with no apology, just quiet disdain from the supervisor. He doesn't even hide his resentment toward me, and when I offer a polite "thank you" upon the dissolution of the bill, he grunts. I better return the modem within the next 3 days, he says, or they'll charge me $114.00.
Certainly. I'll take an hour of public transit to the nearest Rogers cable store and back to return the modem they had promised to pick up. Why not? I'm obviously the responsible one here.
Fuck you Rogers.
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#2
"I, too, have been a victim of identity theft"
/ By D.D.
Several years ago, I received a bill from Rogers. Interestingly, I had never done business with Rogers. The bill was in French and I am a unilingual prairie boy.
Within days, I received my Visa statement that illustrated what had probably happened - someone had stolen my identity and used my credit card to obtain 15 pagers for Montreal. I had never been to Montreal, so I contacted Visa who dealt with the issue immediately and issued a new card.
I called Rogers, who refused to consider the possibility that I hadn't charged the pagers. They claimed that their system required the individual to present the credit card in person and sign for the pagers. Obviously, I couldn't have been in Montreal to do that. I explained that whoever had used my name had misspelled it. I would not misspell my own name. I did not speak nor Read French and I could not understand the bill. When I insisted on speaking to a supervisor, I was transferred to someone who said that he would look into it and get back to me. Several weeks later when I got another bill, I phoned them again. They still said that they would look into it. This dance went on for months. I would get a bill; they would look into it and I would get a bill again. Eventually, I received a notice from a collection agency.
Please note here that the original bill was for $1500.00, but they had failed to cancel them, so the bill had increased to $2300.00 even after I contacted them!
At this point, I felt that I would have to contact Ted Rogers, as no-one else had been very useful. After a bit of thought, I decided I would contact Goldhawk, the consumer advocate whose sponsor is - you guessed it - Rogers. Goldhawk dealt with it very quickly. I received a nice note from a Goldhawk researcher who informed me that the matter had been cleared up.
The researcher also told me that no one at Rogers believed me!!! They all believed that I was perpetrating a scam!
With the exception of the first person I contacted, none of them ever informed me they didn't believe me. Visa believed me. The City police believed me. The fraud division in Montreal believed me.
I have not, nor will I ever, give Rogers one thin dime, willingly. I do not rent videos from Rogers, I will not purchase their phones. I actively tell co-workers, students and friends to avoid Rogers.
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