To: [email protected]

From: Mack L.

Date: September 4, 2003 1:44 AM

Subject: My share of Rogers’ Horror!

First of all, I would like to start off with my thanks to you for standing up to this life sucking scum corporation. Keep it up soldier!

Our dealing with this leech corporation began in September of last year. Their cable service to be more specific. Originally, at our old residence, we had been using Bell ExpressVu services and were quite pleased with the quality of the content along with decent customer service. Around the
closing date of our new dwelling, we made a collective decision to try Rogers' Cable for a change. I called their order desk requesting a special deal as I was moving from their competitor, I wasn't offered much other than to waive the $100 installation charge and give me reduced rate highspeed
service for additional months. I accepted it and I was offered to pick between different three hour windows; I picked 5PM to 8PM. I reached my residence on the designated day at 4:30, take notice that we hadn't yet moved in though we were in charge of the property at the time. So, I sit through the hot day waiting for the installer to show up any time to no avail. I waited for 4hrs w/o leaving the area for one minute then I finally decided to give up and head home. I had nothing to drink or eat for those 4 hours, I was afraid to leave as I didn't want the guy to show up after I had left to grab something to eat/drink. It was around 8:50 when I receive a call from the dispatch who says to me that installer is waiting but nobody's there. He's rather rude which angers me, anyhow, I keep my cool and we agree on next day from 0800 to 1100hrs. This time, the installer does show up on time, from an outsourced company, I won't name the company though. The person seemed like a nice guy.

I follow him along while he's doing the installation, there were many critical points he missed such as proper grounding(well, originally I thought the person who's in the profession would know better and he will probably do it later, but he didn't). All the internal wiring he did was satisfactory minus the grounding part which I thought he would do. Now, this is where the horror begins(Perhaps it began right when we decided to deal with Rogers?). The installer had trouble finding the Coax from the junction splitter that lead to my premises, he did manage to find a black wire, but it happened to be my telephone wire which had my lot number on it(he was looking for a black coax with same properties). Rather than having a second thought about it, he cut the wire. I believe, if I were to give a Coax and that black wire cut to a 13 year old, they would be able to tell the difference. I ask the person; "WTF did you just do? Can't you tell apart a Coax from regular cable?" I go inside to check my phones, they were all dead. He says sorry to me, but offers no help in the matter.

After that, he does manage to find right Coax, and guess what, there was no cutting or crimping involved, as the cable already had a connector on it. He simply patches the cable to the splitter, and confirms that the modem has sync. After he's done his tests, he decides to leave, but I ask him for his help with my telephone. He says he has to go to other appointments but he asks me if I want to use his phone to call Bell to have it repaired. I said fine, so I call 310-BELL. I am told to call 611 as they deal with line repair issues. I call 611, and guess what? That took me to Rogers' repair service as that was his work phone and provided by mighty Rogers, so I could not reach Bell 611. The guy leaves after that. I am out there, diging up wires from underground on a Saturday morning when I got other things to do. People around the neighbourhood are giving me weird looks, why shouldn't
they? The underground box was full of mud and water, while the telephone cable the person cut was shielded by a 1MM copper braid which caused many cuts on my fingers as I did not have proper tools or gloves(hey, I wasn't expecting that big of a screwup). I had so much trouble stripping and
joining the wires(I had to join all 4 pairs, as I couldn't tell which ones were active or dry) with all the silicone and thick copper braid. Every time, I try to twist same coloured pair, the wire would brake. It was essential that I get them all connected since I had to make the 611 call from within Bell Network and I didn't feel like begging around an unknown neighbourhood(at the time, it was) to make a phone call to correct some monkey's mistake. I did manage to connect pairs and call 611, but it took good 2hrs of my time.

We have moved in and connected our 57" Sony HDTV Monitor to Rogers' cable, WARNING: Brace for impact!, and behold shit quality picture. The picture is so grainy that it almost took away our interest in watching TV. We call Rogers and complain, we are given the run arounds, mostly our TV was blamed. What ticked me off was, that they blamed our TV and I knew it was not the problem as we were watching crisp and clear satellite service on a few days earlier. Few calls later, the blame shifts over to the wiring(hehe, this one really cracked me up knowing that the wiring in the area isn't more than a year old). I was offered to take their Digital Cable service to rectify the situtation, but I knew for a fact that not all the channels are digital on their so called digital cable, especially the CBC Newsworld which I mostly watch. I wasn't going to pay more for same service. Oh well, I accepted the grainyness and moved on as I knew I couldn't get much done anyway.

My internet service wasn't that bad though, but there was one thing, that was clearly their responsibility where I was given the run arounds. The main 5-1Ghz splitter they used had one of its outputs die, and it happend to be the internet side. So, I troubleshoot myself why the modem had no sync, and I discover it was the splitter. I call their Monkey Tech Support # to get a Monkey on the other end(isn't it understood & expected though?). I explain what I had done to the person, yet he's making me go through the script. Wanted to make sure the cable etc was fine, that modem wasn't near anything electrical components etc. He almost had me pull my hair, but I did manage
to convince him so a trouble ticket was open and a tech was dispatched. I already had removed the splitter for the tech support person and had it next to the door, my doorbell rings, its a red cubevan driving Monkey. I give him the splitter and ask for a new one, but he insisted that he had to conduct
tests etc but I wasn't so sure of letting another idiot touch my perfectly working wiring(see above). I really value my time, but then again, who doesn't? I decide to let him in, as our talks were getting us no where, he hooks up the splitter, lets the modem sync and leaves.

A few months later, I cut off my internet service when the special was over and I didn't feel like it was worth my hard earned $45 + tax every month. Got satellite and the same TV is functioning like it used to with 100% digital crisp and clear picture.

For those of you using Rogers' Services, make sure to get your hair insured ASAP, you may need a hair transplant sooner than you think.

Mack L.

IhateROGERS.ca Comments

WOW! That is a rant! These rat bastards sucked from start to finish with you (big surprise). I would love to know what they did to screw up the grounding. If you click HERE you can see what they did to my neighbour when it came to grounding. Fortunately with satellite, not only is the reception and service infinitely better, but your hair will all grow back and thicker than it was when you were with ROGERS!

PS — Good use of the word "monkey".

From: The Bird

Date: September 8, 2003 2:23 AM

Subject: Here’s my Rogers story

Here’s my story. I WORKED for the bastards at Rogers.

I can’t say what town I’m in because of a court order, or mention any names. But Rogers has so many people dialing for them, I could be from anywhere.

For over a year I worked as a Rogers Customer Service Representative (CSR). It was at a call centre where we were all low-paid sub-contractors for Rogers, much like the goofs in the rusting sub-contracted vans who pretend to be skilled cable/internet techs.

I have personally spoken with thousands of Rogers’ customers. The majority of Rogers’ customers don’t like Rogers, with the minority split between those that are indifferent, and those that hate them passionately. I have never spoken to a single person who "loves" Rogers, or shared with me a long yarn about years and years of great service and great people to deal with.

I’ll never forget an Italian man who started screaming at me the instant I said "Rogers." "They are the worst company in the universe," he screamed. Earlier that day, Rogers had just sued the man for six dollars. Even the biggest lumps of white trash on Judge Judy wouldn’t bother suing somebody for six dollars...and that would be in American dollars, too! The reason why Rogers will have their on-staff lawyers draw up a lawsuit based on their twisted view of things is because most ordinary folks can’t afford $150-$300/hour to hire a lawyer to defend themselves against Rogers, and Legal Aid won’t get involved, either. So, for the fiddling sum of six dollars, Rogers can spoil a man’s perfect credit record, because after they win, they’ll report you to the Credit Bureau. Even if you’re right, their lawyer will throw so much horseshit at you that you’ll likely make a mistake and lose. Once you’ve lost, Rogers will punish you by damaging your credit. What if YOU want to sue them? Too bad...remember what I said about the cost of justice? The abhorrent aspect of this is that Rogers WILL sue you for next to nothing, and would rather kick your ass while you can’t afford a lawyer, and spend a few thousand to do it, rather than to admit they were wrong, and give you a credit. It’s by design. It’s a mindset engineered to show their customers who the boss is. With Rogers, you’re never the boss. And that was just one story.

We phoned people six days a week, from 10AM to 9PM weekdays, and from 10AM to 4PM Saturdays. There may be other hours at other call centres, but those were my hours.

The poor Rogers customers! How I hated having to bother those people with those crappy offers! I was there, selling Rogers hispeed internet to people as it melted down in public. "Isn’t Rogers internet going bankrupt?" people would ask. We condescended to these good people, treated them like children on a snow day, as if they were asking just to be a part of the emergency. I hated doing that. A news story would show up in the Globe and Mail about the upcoming Rogers’ internet disaster, and we were given a hastily scribbled, photocopied script to keep at the side (so it didn’t get into the "official" Rogers pitch on our computer screens, natch) to use when we were asked about Rogers’ internet problems. We were told to say ANY report was not true. Ha! As if! As if the Globe, or any OTHER newspaper in Canada could get away with printing a story based on LIES about Rogers the company that sues people for six dollars.

Of course it was true! Who can you trust a big newspaper, or a sinking company’s telemarketing reps? Rogers@home was really Excite@home, and Excite was sinking in the United States, and eventually DID go bankrupt. Rogers kept lying for as long as it could, right up until Excite started issuing press releases in the USA, letting all know it was heading for bankruptcy.

Rogers knew damn well that was gonna happen, but judging by how badly they handled things, you could almost think that they didn’t know. That means that they were either stupid as hell and didn’t follow any of the reports in the US about their REAL provider, or, they were evil, and made the transition as difficult as possible for their customers, not caring that as they kept up the facade of solid service, they were scrambling to find a way to make the transition. They were buying time, and all the while lied to their customers in order to keep them. If we told people the truth, some would likely have left Rogers as well they should. Only after Excite publicly collapsed did Rogers then admit it and start moving their customers to their own network, during the time Excite was up only long enough for all its users to begin leaving the sinking and doomed ship.

Yes, the customer was right. Rogers@home was going bankrupt. And yes, I did lie and tell people with questions that the reports were not true. They WERE true, Rogers would have sued the newspapers if they were lying. Rogers knew people were reading the newspapers, so they knew what was being said and issued tactics to meet the stories. The didn’t sue the papers. The only action Rogers took was to instruct my boss, who then instructed me, to lie...to you, the Rogers customer.

Tons of people lost irreplaceable emailed material in their Rogers@home accounts. Changing your email over is a complicated thing for the best of us, and some people aren’t very computer literate. It was a mean and heartless thing for Rogers to do.

In their stupidity to get people to put up with the monster delays if they DARED to phone and ask for a tech to help them figure the mess out, and to get their customers to transfer abruptly (and to distract them, as well), Rogers started up a contest that people could enter after they’d completed the transition. Great, only people now phoned the SAME lines to make sure they had entered the contest properly, AND with their questions about the service itself. This, of course, just tied up Rogers’ pitiful customer service even more than normal at an already horrible time.

I apologize for lying, everybody. I had no choice.

I was only making $9.50 an hour when I was fired, and I started at $8.25 or $8.50 (can’t remember) an hour over a year ago. I live on my own. It’s not a lot of money. Basically, all telemarketing jobs suck ass, anyway. But the thing is, like so many other Rogers employees, I was sub-contracted out. You ever see those Rogers commercials with the CSRs? What crap! How about running commercials that say "Hi. I’m the one calling you 6 days a week, I’m the one looking at your account, and I don’t even work for Rogers. I’m sub-contracted. Yayy! I'm also poorly paid, so you really want ME looking at your name and address, don't you?" It's likely Rogers won't produce such an advert about itself.

There are very few GENUINE Rogers employees out there, and the many that are sub-contracted, as I was, make very poor employees indeed. Not for a lack of trying on the poor footsoldier’s part, but thanks to the neglect and stupidity of Rogers itself. It’s important to understand the conditions of a "Rogers" employee, so as to obtain a better grasp of its abysmal customer service.

As a telemarketer at this nameless call centre, we had scripts and guidelines written by people who hadn’t even set foot in a college, and were merely friends of the greedy lunatic who ran the dump. When people such as myself (who had actually been to something beyond secondary education) would offer suggestions for improvement or pointed out flaws, all we inspired was anger from our "superiors."

I am a Mac (Apple Macintosh computer) guy, and was the only one there who knew how to get the system specs from any of the poor saps who owned Macs and said "yes" to Rogers’ internet service offer (by the way, these people are "saps" for saying "yes" to Rogers, and NOT for owning a Mac. Hee hee!).

I was thereafter mistaken for a "computer expert," and while I did indeed have an understanding of the quirks of the Mac, I had ZERO experience with PCs, and I told them as much when I was put on outgoing customer service duty.

My task was to phone Rogers internet customers and ask them if their internet was working. If they said "yes" (and less than half did), I just said "thanks" and checked off their name and said "bye." The problem lay in the majority of people who did indeed need help. And who were they then asking? Me, the guy who didn’t own a PC and knew nothing about them. Macs make up less than 10% of the computer market, so you can believe me when I say that I was of no help at all 90% of the time, posing as the PC internet expert while I used a Mac, had set up my internet only once and soon forgot how to do it again even for myself, and I used Bell Sympatico, to boot!

I told my lead hand that I was not a PC expert, but just as before, my corrections were met with indifference. The people who were thriving there were the ones who didn’t listen to criticism. So, I struggled on, taking a long-ass time with anyone who dared ask me for help after I bothered them to begin with, fumbling my way through a PC instruction book. I had no answer for even the simplest of questions.

At one point, I was sitting next to a co-worker whom I was told could help me. This "help" lasted a brief time, for that CSR was busy with his or her (court order, remember?) own lists. After a short time this person told me to go back to my book. I then brought my questions to the lead hand again, who said "How should I know?" I was then given permission to send a truck out for a service call for the problem if it couldn’t be resolved with me (the guy who didn’t know what he was doing and admitted it). They weren’t resolved. I started sending out quite a few trucks, which I was then told was getting too expensive. The situation degenerated further. When some people said that it was working, they would often follow it up with a "but I was wondering about..." which would often lead to a question I couldn’t answer, which would lead to a co-worker who refused to help me, and a lead hand who didn’t even own a computer and whom had already refused to help me and had previously began the problem with sending out trucks. The solution was classic Rogers customer service.

Now when I phoned and asked the Rogers customer if their internet was working, I waited with my finger on the "kill" (end call) button. If they breathed "yes" I broke in and said "Thanks, bye!" and hung up before they could say another word. I then checked off their name, which meant they were counted as a "satisfied" Rogers internet customer. If others did have a problem I offered to write it down and phone back later, which I never did, since I also gave them the "big" Rogers 1-800 number that handles everything, and just hurls the customer back into the main Rogers labyrinth again. When they never got their scheduled callback, if they got angry enough they’d just jolly well phone the big Rogers number. On the rare occasions when a customer insisted on immediate help, they got a truck sent out. And oh, we also had to keep a stats page. If a person needed a truck send out, they were listed as having the internet "working" and they were "okay" even if the service call didn’t solve the problem, which it often didn’t. So, even after Rogers bothers you and fucks with you, they exploit you by listing you as a "satisfied" customer even before the service call takes place (if the tech guy even shows up, that is).

Rogers is filled with bad data. We used to say that Rogers hispeed internet was "100 times faster than dial-up." HA! How the hell did they arrive at such a pretty number as "100?" Eventually we had to stop saying it either because it was such a lie, or was based on an example in laboratory conditions, and didn’t work in the real world. Another horrid piece of misinformation was referring to cable as being "99% reliable." Based on what study? The same study which produced the "100 times faster than dial-up" lie? Rogers plays fast and loose with numbers at all times, feigns ignorance when corrected, and then does it again. And again...and again. They foster and encourage slimy relationships with fetid call centres. This stuff isn't happening by accident, folks.

And here’s all the advice and help you’ll get for your crummy old (and already oft-repaired in many cases by the time you get it) Rogers digital boxes: "Unplug it."

Back to the telemarketing for a moment. When the call is over, we have to end and select a disposition from a menu that is far too wide. They range from "too expensive" to "foreign speaking" and an attendant list of languages that one must speak to even recognize. Of course, we mustn’t spend too much time on the disposition, or we catch hell, so a CSR just picks one of the top two selections and applies it uniformly. More bad data for Rogers to share with its investors.

When you ask to be taken off a list, all we do is remove you from the current offer. Rest assured, you’ll get called again. Maybe not right away, but you’ll get called again. As for truly being removed from even that list, there is no mechanism which guarantees it will be done. When the customer demands it, I tell him it's been done, but all I get to do is write the name down on a scrap of paper, and leave it in an open basket, which lies there, unsupervised, for the duration of the day. Your name could literally be blown out of the basket by a gust of wind generated by the normal traffic of a call centre. I have no clue or verification as to whether or not you have been taken off ANY list, but I'm instructed to tell you that it's been taken care of. I get notification of people who cancel Rogers or refuse it at the door (and the loss of my commission), but I get ZERO verification as to whether or not you've been "taken off the list." The sanctity of your liberty and privacy means nothing to Rogers, while kicking their sub-contracted poor employees in the teeth over a cancellation means everything. I hate Rogers for good reason, and from direct personal experiencefrom the inside.

If you have any complaints, we’re told to say "I’ll make a note of that." Yeah, right! It’s a mental note at best, and an accompanying note to laugh at your concerns during smoke break. Why? Because that’s as far as it’s gonna go. Rogers has dozens of dispositions to select (many repeat themselves) to find out why you didn’t buy something, but they have NO conduits to deal with or even keep stats about your complaints if you dare to point something out while we’re in the act of bothering you at dinnertime with another piece of crap you don’t want and did not ask for.

Rogers is so pathetic that we literally can’t give it away. Sometimes we have offers to try a new block of channels for a period typically lasting three months. Rogers sets their computers up to begin billing you if you forget to cancel, when they could just as easily set their computers to terminate the service without billing you. When the channels vanish, you’ll order them if you miss them, right? Right! But with Rogers they start billing and the channels keep coming. They do that because the nature of the product is such that many people will forget to cancel, or in some cases Rogers will screw up the paperwork even if you do cancel in time, which leaves you fighting to get rid of the damn package which was supposed to be a "free" try-out. And even after you finally get rid of it, you’ll likely be pestered with more Rogers telepestering asking you why you canceled, and offering you another "free" web to fall into!

When people ask for the address of the CRTC, we are not allowed to give it to them. You’d think that a popular question could have its answer brought to the customer by quickly finding out the address, and then printing off a pile of photocopies to give to all the CSRs. But oh, no...Rogers doesn’t want that. I actually got in trouble for giving a Canadian citizen (whom I had bothered with my telemarketing job) the address of an agency of his government: the CRTC. We’re told to say "I’m sorry, but I don’t have that information," and then give them the big Rogers 1-800 number. By that time, most people will be less steamed, and the CRTC will have fewer complaints about them. It’s the Rogers way: LYING to the customer. We had the address of the CRTC and we could EASILY get it. But instead of that, we LIE and say that we don’t know what the address is.

So there you have it. My time as a Rogers CSR for over a year. I am sorry for bothering you. I would have been nicer and more honest, but I was only following Rogers’ orders. From personal experience I can offer you this advice: Rogers is nothing but trouble and will cost you time and money, all while bringing you lousy service and endless telepestering in return. STAY AWAY FROM ROGERS IN ALL ITS FORMS!!!!

The Bird

IhateROGERS.ca Comments

Well, there are rants and then there are RANTS!!! There you have it people, more inside information. Although I can’t verify this story myself, it sounds more than just "plausible". Deception, disregard, malice, misrepresentation and confusion. Everything you want in a company you’re going to pay thousands of dollars to…NOT!!

I’d rather deal with Tony Soprano. At least then, I know what I’m in for.

I feel sorry for John Tory if this "Bird" is ever flying overhead.