To: [email protected]

From: Gail P.

Date: September 8, 2003 12:53 PM

Subject: An unbelievable story

An unbelievable story:

I was originally with Shaw Cable which was then taken over by Rogers Cable. I work at home and rely on my internet connection for my job. Rogers proceeded to "upgrade" the services in the area, which took well over a year. In the meantime I experienced hundreds of disruptions in my service and actually stayed on hold for over 3 hours just to be able to talk to someone. Of course when you're already angry, holding for 3 hours just doesn't seem to improve the mood. I was told that my disruptions were due to the "upgrades" going on. I then pointed out that the President of Rogers was on television advertising that there would be "no disruption of service" and yet I was being told that the "upgrades" were causing the disruptions. The employee then proceeded to tell me that he could not be responsible for what the President of the company said. In the meantime, I was told we had "line noise", the signal was too high, the signal was too low and they put a booster on the line, more line noise, and on it went.

During one of our regular visits from a Rogers technician, we were told that the cable outside our house needed to be replaced. As it was approaching winter, they proceeded to do so by running the cable up the side of my neighbour's house, around the backyard, and down the fence separating our property. In the spring we began calling to have this taken care of, i.e. buried. After 5 months of calls and screaming, we finally got someone to bury the cable under our neighbour's driveway, where they proceeded to dig up our sod, leave it lying in a heap, with a large coil of cable sitting on the lawn. There it sat. When we complained about it we were told "it is your responsibility to call and get that taken care of" - I guess they hadn't noticed the numerous regular calls we had already made. I then proceeded to request a phone number for their head office and was told they don't have one. I proceeded to explain that I know their head office has a phone and that I wanted the number. I was again told "they don't have one" - I again explained that I did not believe for one minute that their head office did not have a phone. I was given an address. I wrote a 4- page letter detailing my complaints. After about 3-4 months I finally received a call from a Customer Service Rep in Toronto, approximately the same time the news was running the story of the law suit being launched against Rogers (coincidence I'm sure). I had a senior technician come to my home and check all the connections and lines. We had all new cable installed inside the house.

We then purchased a second computer and were told by a representative of Rogers that if we bought a router from Radio Shack we could just split the signal and save having two separate connections. We proceeded to purchase a router from a reputable computer company in town. However after that everytime we ran into problems we were told that Rogers does not support routers. Even when I told them the internet cable was plugged directly into the computer and not through the router (which I did before I called once I found out their stand on routers) they kept on about the router. They then proceeded to do some kind of installation all over town which caused disruptions over a period of about 8-10 months, when we had received a notice saying that it would take 2-3 weeks. Once this was resolved, a few months went by and I thought things had calmed down. We then proceeded to lose the connection to one computer when the power flickered. The computers were not even turned when these events happened. The first time I was told that the drivers were lost or corrupted and I had to take it back where I had bought it. They found nothing wrong with it. The next day, magically, we had internet service again. The second time this happened, I again took the computer in and nothing was wrong with it. We lost our connection for about 9 days on 1 computer. Then miraculously it was restored. Rogers of course kept saying there was something wrong with our computers as the modem showed on line. Finally the third time this happened, we lost the connection to both computers, however the technician at Rogers could see my modem asking for an IP address which their server was not giving me. He was then going to put in a call to have this investigated (finally!).

Shortly after this happened, we had the huge blackout. A week after that happened, the local power company cut my cable and rather than calling Rogers they brought in a "friend" to fix it. The next day the power company came to fill in the hole and when they threw the dirt in they broke the cable - I don't think the "friend" was too knowledgeable. It took me a few hours to get them to admit they had broken it again, because they had to send someone to dig up the hole again. They finally got this fixed properly. Then 2 days later, on Sunday, Rogers internet was down for about 8 hours with an Ontario-wide problem that would affect "most" users - I was one of the lucky ones that fit into this category. On the Monday everything was fine. On Tuesday Rogers internet went down again about 3:10 p.m. I called and was told they would send someone. I then called at 5:00 p.m. and was told it was a large area and would take about 4.5 hours to fix. I was also told this had nothing to do with the outage from Sunday. I called again at 11:00 p.m. and got a message that there were still problems and they were working on it. I called again on Wednesday morning at 6:30 a.m. as it was still out, however while I was on the phone it miraculously came on and the technician said that because it was working at that particular moment she could not do anything about it. I explained that it had very intermittently come on a couple of times for a very brief moment and that there had been a problem since 3:00 yesterday afternoon and could she please let someone know that the problem still existed. I came home again at 12:30 p.m. and again it was off. I then proceeded to demand that someone do something. I was told the Senior Internet Specialist would come to my house. In the meantime I kept track for a little over an hour of the times my internet went on and off to show the specialist. I had recorded over 15 disruptions in service in the space of about 80 minutes. When the specialist arrived he proceeded to investigate and said that he had found a little piece of cable that seemed to be acting up and that our modem had been acting up. He replaced both. I told him that we had just had new cable installed in the spring and that everytime someone came to the house they tested the modem and it was "fine". He just shrugged his shoulders.

During all of this, I have been paying $133/month for TV, internet, and 1 extra receiver. They actually had the nerve to increase their price by $2.00. The other thing that really pissed me off was while I'm sitting on hold trying to get answers as to why my internet doesn't seem to work, a message comes on about online billing and payment services and to log onto www.rogers.ca for more information - well that's just great. Here I am sitting on hold because I don't have any service and they are telling me to pay online at their website - again that didn't really improve the mood.

We finally surrendered. We bought a satellite dish and had it installed on the weekend. Bell Sympatico is being installed today. I have heard very good things about both Star Choice (which we chose over Bell ExpressVu) and Bell Sympatico - I figured it really couldn't get any worse. A friend said she had heard Bell Sympatico was slower than Rogers high speed internet, but I figure slow service is better than no service.

Gail (AKA Alice F.O.D. from Dilbert)

IhateROGERS.ca Comments

I have heard your tale of woe too many times. And I have no doubt I will hear it over and over and over again. This story does have a happy ending thought doesn’t it? Can you say "ALTERNATIVES"? Good choice. Too many people just let bad servcie happen again and again and take no action. Just because you’re told this ‘affects a lot of people’ or ‘you’re not the only one with this problem’, you have to realize that nothing has improved after someone has imparted that load of crap. You’re still stuck with crumby service.

There are alternatives and if you don’t try one, you’ll never know. Good Luck Gail (AKA Alice). Full steam ahead to happier, ROGERS free days.

To: [email protected]

From: 000

Date: September 9, 2003 9:09 AM

Subject: yikes! John tory for mayor???

liar!!! i've been on hold with rogers and am still on hold now for over 30 minutes! yes, over half an hour! and you want to be mayor of toronto! yeah, ok. weren't you prepared for the channel re-alignment?

"Finally, on the question of customer service and answering the phone, there is no doubt a year ago our call centres were overloaded…We have now reduced in half the number of poeple who feel the need to call the call center. I read the reports everyday. we are answering the phone in 2 minutes or less – not the long hold times people had in the past."

http://www.cbc.ca/consumers/market/files/shorts/hero_oct24.html

IhateROGERS.ca Comments

You’ll have to click on the link to know what "000" is going on about. Are you telling me this guy would make a bad politician? He has all the characteristics of a good politician. However, he has none for a good mayor. Maybe I’ll look in to some kind of new addition to this site to cover his running for Mayor. Hmmm…the wheels are turning and I’m open to suggestions.

To: [email protected]

From: John R.

Date: September 10, 2003 1:13 PM

Subject: Headache I’d like to share

Dear ihaterogers.com; (This is actually ihaterogers.ca John)

I'd like to share my suffering and frustration with your readers.  It all started when I received a call from a Rogers Representative of the "Win-back" promotion.  He said that in exchange for Bell ExpressVu equipment, I would receive a free digital terminal plus a programming credit for 3 months.

Dependable IT was contracted out to perform the installation and pick up my Bell equipment.  What was supposed to happen was the equipment would be processed by Rogers's warehouse and the credit of the equipment applied to offset the balance owing for the Digital Terminal.  That didn't happen.  They lost the equipment.  Rogers had no record of receiving any equipment.  Dependable IT said their technician doesn't recall picking it up from me.  I wasn't issued a receipt for the equipment to prove he'd taken it.  When I asked Dependable IT why they didn't issue a receipt, they said they were following a policy written by Rogers Cable, and that in their policy, it was not a requirement to issue such receipts, or to even record serial numbers of any received equipment in cases like this. 

So here I am, with no idea what happened to my old Bell ExpressVu equipment and a charge on my Rogers account for the cost of the Digital Terminal.  Repeated calls to Rogers is getting me the big runaround, as noone seems to have any control over issuing a credit.  The people in the Executive Office said they would escalate the problem for a speedier application of this credit.  However, my faith in Rogers Customer Service is dwindling rapidly, and I fear I'm going to be ripped off the cost of the Terminal.

Thanks to a untrustworthy technician at Dependable IT, lack of communication between Dependable IT and Rogers Cable, and even between internal departments at Rogers Cable, I'm hosed, I'm pissed, I'm so frustrated I can't even sleep at night.  No matter how this turns out, as I am still fighting this, I'm going to tell Rogers to stuff there service where the sun doesn't shine, and I'm switching over to Look TV next week.

Thanks for NOTHING, Rogers!

John R.

IhateROGERS.ca Comments

I wish I could be a beacon somehow and tell you that everything is going to be alright. I wish I could say, "Don’t worry John. ROGERS will straighten this all out and you’ll be completely satisfied." Well, I can’t.

Unfortunately it sounds like they set you up to take the fall. Leaving no evidence with you that they picked up anything was like foreplay before they screwed you. If you want to get some advice from some people that may have some answers try posting your experience at http://www.dslreports.com/forum/rogers. That is the link directly to the ROGERS section of their forums and maybe someone there can give you some input that could help your situation. Good Luck.

To: [email protected]

From: 5329

Date: September 11, 2003 11:02 AM

Subject: liars!

i had a service call booked on september 11, 2022 between 8 and 11 am. at 9:32 am i received a call saying the tech would be here within 30 minutes. it's now after 11 and no one has been here. liars!

IhateROGERS.ca Comments

I don’t know what day it is, presently, as you (the visitor on www.ihaterogers.ca) are reading this, but I’m pretty sure the submitter of the above rant is still waiting...

To: [email protected]

From: Rebecca L.

Date: September 15, 2022 3:27 PM

Subject: Great site…it made my week.

I apologize in advance for the length of this rant. But I sure do hate Rogers and would love to walk around the city with an "I hate Rogers" shirt. Here I go...

2 weeks ago I called to get Rogers High Speed Internet/Cable installed. I called on Monday and made an appointment for Friday 2-5pm. On Friday I patienty sat at home and waited and waited for the guy to show up....but did he? No.... So I call Rogers at about 5:15pm and talk to a customer service rep. who tells me that someone did come but nobody answered the door when they knocked. Now of course I have a doorbell, AND left my door open except for the screen door so there was no way in hell that they actually came. And if they did, they would have to be pretty stupid to leave because there was obviously someone home!

So then the rep. tells me that he will try to get someone to come over that night but otherwise, it will be another week before someone can come by. Seriously, do you not think they should make some kind of effort to fit me in the next day or give me some kind of priority?? But no..and needless to say, nobody showed up that night. So far..that's 7 hours of waiting...

The next day I called and complained a little which resulted in my appointment being moved to up a few days to the next Tuesday between 5 and 8pm. So I had a bit of renewed hope. On Tuesday, I again waited and waited, this time I sat outside as it got dark and approached 8:15pm at which time, somebody "appearing" to be from Rogers showed up. He speaks. "Yo mon...I don't tink I can set eet up today. I don't got dee software." I asked if I really needed the software and what it was for, but it turns out that he didn't know either. (Please tell me how this guy got hired as a tech???) Then I asked if he could just install the wiring for now, but he told me if was too dark and he couldn't see!! He also informed me that he doesn't work past 8pm which makes me wonder why he even bothered coming at 8:15 and what his flashlight was for...It was clear that I wasn't getting any internet that night. That's 10 hours of waiting..

So after he left, I called again and they said they could get someone there the next day. The next day came I waited for another 3 hours, the sun set, nobody came, nobody called. Nothing. That's 13 hours of waiting...
So I called again! And they apologized and said they could come on Friday morning between 8 and 11 am and would give me priority. So I figured there was no way in hell they wouldn't show up this time. What could possible go wrong?? I woke up at 7:30am and waited outside again. Three and a half hours later, I was still there without cable or internet! Now at the beginning of this ordeal, I would have wondered how they could completely miss an 8am, first priority appointment, but by then I realized that it would be relatively simple for this bunch of useless morons to accomplish. So....16 hours of waiting for nothing!!

That was my last attempt....I could not take the frustration of waiting on hold for half an hour for the customer service rep to explain to me that there is nothing they can do but make another appointment, or wait on hold even longer to talk to somebody "important". Now I have NEVER in my life heard of a company failing to meet 5 appointments (or even 1 for that matter) in a 2 week span without even having the decency to call and say they can't make it, or will be late, or after failing to come, call to apologize, and assist you in rescheduling. But I guess that is just Rogers for you....5 appointments missed, and 5 30 minute waiting periods on hold to reschedule. Do they really think avoiding and lying to customers is a good business strategy?? I don't know what kind of people are running their installation operation, but I hope they burn in hell. I was delighted to hear that Rogers Video has become the victim of a chain of robberies, probably carried out by angry Rogers customers.

Today I got a familiar automated message from Rogers confirming my appointment for tomorrow between 2 and 5 (which I didn't schedule). This is just becoming funny now.....

Rebecca L.

IhateROGERS.ca Comments

Rebecca, ROGERS doesn’t care about their customers. They still have such a huge portion of the market their attitude reflects their "you need us more than we need you" credo. There is no hesitation in lying to their customers and they make it a standard business practice to do so. THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU!!!

Lots of their competition will though. If you are in an area that offers/supports high speed phone connection for Internet access, forget about ROGERS. Check out http://www.ihaterogers.ca/internet_on1.htm (if you’re in Ontario). You’ll get Internet access just as fast as ROGERS, without the lying, the run around and poor customer service from a company that WANTS you to be happy.

Show those monkey moron bastards that THEY NEED YOU MORE THAN YOU NEED THEM!!!