To: [email protected]
From: Angie C.
Date: December 4, 2003
1:16 PM
Subject: 3 Reasons Why Rogers
Sucks
1. During their massive
Rogers Digital Campaign a Rogers Technician visited several
houses in our area and told us that the way our cable is set
up is causing problems with the cable for the whole neighbourhood.
He came into our house walked all over in his dirty boots
and basically messed up our cable so that none of our TVs
get clear reception and all we see half the time is static
and then suggested we get Rogers Digital Cable. We call
to complain about this technician and they suggest we get
Rogers Digital Cable, but they'll send out a technician.
We have to wait for hours during a business day and the guy
never shows up.
2. My friend moved into
a new apartment. The guy living there previously had
Roger's Digital Cable and Rogers Internet. She calls
them to tell them he left the equipment there and would they
like it back. They tell her to wait at home between
9-12 and they dont' show up. They call her to accuse
her of not being home when they eventually come and accuse
of her stealing the equipment.
3. My cell phone is on
prepaid billing. My Visa got stolen and I forgot to
report the new number to Rogers. They call everyday
at 8:30am. I pick up the phone and it says "Please hold.
Rogers AT&T has an important message for you regarding
your cellular account and they put me on hold. They
call me @ 8:30 AM to put me on hold for an hour. Who
the hell has time for that.
Customer Service - more like
Customer Irritation and Annoyance.
Angie
IhateROGERS.ca
Comments
Angie you have put together
3 of the most popular reasons ROGERS sucks. These are 3 complaints
I have heard over and over and over again. I applaud you for
being so succinct in your profiling of these mega media morons.
Well done Angie!
To: [email protected]
From: Gordon N.
Date: December 6, 2003
3:40 AM
Subject: My New Rogers Phone
A lot of people have cellphones;
most get the contract ones. I decided, about 5 years ago,
to try Rogers (RogersAT&T, now Rogers Cantel) Pay-As-You-Go
service.
I'm a pretty decent consumer; I look out for myself and don't
expect a bunch of "hand-holding". In other words, you can
make a lot of high-profit, hassle-free money off of me. If
you're in business, I'm the one of those guys you want as
a customer. People like me pay for your rent and the lights,
leaving a lot of company resources left over to grow your
business.
My job involves spending about 6 months a year outside of
cellular coverage areas; and by that I mean not even for a
second am I within hundreds of miles of a tower. If I want
to make a cellular call, I have to get on an airplane and
fly for 2 hours to do it, and then fly back so that I can
work the next morning at 6AM.
The rest of the time, I am laid off, and spend my time happily
hanging out where towers are as common as convenience stores.
I can really use a cellular phone then. It's handy.
I studied my options. At the time, I had my choice of two
providers. I go into a purchase decision with the assumption
that my choices are "average-equal". In other words, I take
you for your word, but I research my options as well.
The choice with the best service (better coverage) has a deal
where if you don't make a cellular call at least once every
60 days, they cancel your account. Rogers won't do that unless
you don't make a call for 12 months. (This later turned out
to be very important. Read on).
That's the one for me; I don't want to have to re-apply for
my account every time I finish my work in the middle of nowhere.
Prices were similar, phones were similar. I called the other
provider and asked about that provision, explained why it
didn't work for me (and others in my situation; I like to
call them "potential customers"). They couldn't change that
(that's their business, fine), so it's Rogers for me.
The first phone was a Nokia 918; a nice, easy to use Analog
phone. I liked it, it did the job. I happen to know one of
the Regional Managers for Nokia in the US. She tells me the
phone wasn't current manufacture when I bought it, and that
companies like Rogers buy them cheap as
closeout/discontinued. She was suprised to learn I bought
one in Canada; at the time she though they were selling them
only in Russia and other 3rd world markets. I knew I wasn't
buying a Cadillac, so fine, but there you go for those that
might be interested).
Rogers allowed me to give them my Credit Card info, so instead
of buying time with those prepaid cards, I could just call
at any time and add minutes. Perfect.
The phone worked good, and all was well. The battery in this
particular model is NiCad, which needed to be recharged once
a day. I can live with that.
For about 2 years, all was grand. Coverage was limited, but
I knew that and had accepted it. Nolo Problemo.
Then, all of a sudden, they couldn't access my CC number.
I had to give it to them each time I wanted airtime. They
never really explained why, but it meant that I had to renew
with a landline instead of my cellphone (never give CC numbers
over an unscrambled cellphone, folks. It's a radio; I like
to refer to talking on a radio as "broadcasting").
Fine for about a year. However, the NiCad battery is showing
it's age. It only holds a charge for about 6 hours now. I
knew that would happen. A new battery is (apparently) rare
and expensive. It costs pretty much what I paid for the phone.
So, off to the phone store for a replacement. I buy a fancy
new one, another Nokia. Analog/Digital, fancy new stuff, holds
100 (instead of 40) numbers. $150.
Getting the phone up was a problem. As a returning customer,
no free minutes. I figured as much. But, I had to get a new
phone number, I couldn't use my old number for some reason.
All this was done over the web; by this time (2002) there
was no customer support over the phone for Pay-As-You-Go.
Here's where the fun begins.
To activate the phone, you deal with an advanced voice-activated
menu system. Note: "Advanced" means better than the last system
we knew how to make; it does not mean "breakthrough in technology
and ease of use".
What happens is you speak to a computer; it hears your response,
and moves you through what amounts to a menu of choices or
services. What you can't do, like you could before, is use
the keypad to enter choices. This is the "advanced" part.
The computer had a hard time understanding me. I would get
through about half the stuff, and then I would hear a sweet
voice say "I'm sorry, I didn't get that. [repeat choce]".
After about 2 hours, I gave up. Maybe I'm tired, I thought.
I will call back when my voice is easier to understand.
6 days and about 20 calls later (they take time) my phone
is activated. Hint: yelling doesn't help the friendly voice
understand you any better. This must be the advanced part;
because yelling often works with humans.
The phone didn't work as well as my old one did; the digital
signal seemed to be noisy, and coverage was poorer even when
I called from the exact same places as before. I often ran
about my own home trying to keep a call alive.
I had laughed when I saw others doing it before. Now I'm the
joke. Oh, well, that's cell service for you.
Meanwhile, one of my best friends tells me his whole company
had abandoned the other provider for Rogers. He couldn't make
calls while sitting at his desk. Apparently he had to move
to the basement of his building to make a call now.
I run out of minutes on my phone. I go to add minutes. To
do this, you must use the friendly computer babe again. I
tried one night. "I'm sorry, I didn't get that" was heard
about 20 times. I give up.
I try the next afternoon. "I'm sorry, I didn't get that".
I am reminded as to how the yelling is a poor method to communicate
with the female computer voice.
By now, I am having second thoughts about the sweet voice.
It seems to me that when I spoke with her, I no longer associated
the voice with the sweet college girl I had once imagined.
To me, this takes away somewhat from the experience, but everyone
needs a job.
Next day. Nope.
Day after. Having some problems, here.
I go on the web. I can't seem to find any way to contact Rogers
Pay-As-You-Go.
I go on a bit of a wild card chase; I eventually find a number
for contract phone users. I call them.
The guy (a real human being this time) was friendly, and tried
to be helpful. However he did inform me that he "wasn't allowed
to help me" because I was not a contract phone customer.
During this week I read a glowing article in the Globe&Mail,
quoting Rogers representatives saying how the "new generation"
of computer voice thingys were, essentially, perfect. He went
on to explain how Rogers was able to reduce the cost of providing
any service whatsoever to their "less profitable Pay-As-You-Go
users".
That's me, I think to myself. Up to now, I was under the (obviously
mistaken) belief that Rogers liked the $400 a year I gave
them. I realise that I've given them about $1500 so far, and
yet I seem to be an onerous financial drain on the Rogers
balance sheet. Oh, well.
I eMail them, telling them a much shorter version of what
I'm telling you. They reply (after 2 weeks and a few reminders)
that there is not a single person in the whole Rogers Corporation
who has the time to speak to me on the phone for even a moment.
I eMail them and say, well, it's been swell, but I am afraid
I have to cancel my service and sell this phone to someone
who speaks the same dialect of English the computer does,
because I simply cannot envision spending weeks trying to
add time to my phone every month. It seems, to
me, that Rogers was becoming an onerous drain on my free-time
balance sheet.
The reply back (after a few weeks and and after I send them
a few reminders) that they cannot cancel my service so that
I can sell the phone. They explain that the only way to cancel
my service is by calling the evil troll-like trickster that
I now imagine belongs to the computerized voice at the other
end of my phone (First computer: " ... then I gave him the
'I'm sorry, I didn't get that' and he started to bawl like
a little girl! Ha, Ha Ha!" "Stop it, you're killing me, ha
ha ha" the other computer responds).
Meanwhile, I report my troubles to my friend, over a beer
that I recklessly chose over another pleasant evening with
the computer's soothing reminders of how pathetic a human
I am. He informs me that problems with his business communication
demanded a radical change. It was so bad, the whole company
ate the cancellation fees for dozens of phones and went back
to the original provider. I guess it cost them many, many
thousands of dollars in penalties for this little 4-month
"experiment" with Rogers Wireless service.
I respond back, by eMail, that my only remaining option was
to wait (remember the beginning of my tale) the remaining
11 months until Rogers cancels my contract as per the user
agreement, for not making a call for 1 year. This was a given,
since I had no means of using the phone without airtime, and
I had no means to get more airtiime. Even if you use the prepaid
cards, you have to run it past the evil computer-woman.
It's now been just over a year. I'm about to get the phone
out and give it away for free via the newspaper. I can't imagine
giving it to someone I actually like, and to charge money
for it seems to pretty much guarantee I will never make it
to heaven; knowing that I am sentencing the unlucky new user
to a lifetime of certain torture.
Thanks for listening. For anyone out there who is considering
Rogers Pay-As-You-Go service, I want you to close your eyes,
step back from the keyboard, and repeat 80 times:
"I'm sorry, I didn't get that".
IhateROGERS.ca
Comments
WOW. My head hurts from
reading all of that. A condensed version of that story would
have been appreciated, but a rant is a rant is a rant. Next
time try something like this:
I tried ROGERS Pay-As-You-Go
service. What a mistake! I had a beer with a friend. His company
also thinks ROGERS sucks ass.
See how easy that was.
To: [email protected]
From: Amer
Date: December 8, 2003
2:55 PM
Subject: I Hate Rogers Too
Hey Guys/Gals
Thank god the only experience
I have ever had through Rogers was a Mobile phone I used for
2 Hellish Years, I got the Typical Rogers Billing Fowl ups
and get this, they had a policy to stop sending you bills
to your address if your where late paying the others (who
the genius who thought that one up)? Anyway After speaking
to The CEO at Rogers and him promising that it would all be
fixed 2 months down the road they mysteriously lost my mailing
address again AND EVERYTHING STARTED ALL OVER AGAIN. I will
never ever, ever go back to Rogers for anything even if its
free.
As for the Morons sending in
hate mail to this site get your heads checked or do you get
certain pleasure from Rogers Screwing you?
MCA
P.S. The site is great I love
it.
IhateROGERS.ca
Comments
A head checking is certainly
in order for anyone that sends me hate mail, no question.
Although I do enjoy getting it
and youre right,
this site is great!
To: [email protected]
From: sureamannoyed
Date: December 10, 2003
11:39 PM
Subject: you have no idea
Hello,
I thought I would take this opportunity to provide
an "i hate rogers" employee perspective. Yes,
unfortunately, I too have fallen prey to the demon that is
Rogers. I have screwed myself over perhaps in the worst
way of all.... as the dreaded customer service representative
(pity replies accepted). I do want to address first
that in the defense of MOST of the representatives, we are
intelligent individuals...however, we're just discouraged
completely from using our own sense of logic. Please
don't feel as though we actually believe or even understand
the policies that the company has set in place, nor do we
find it easy to make up bullshit excuses to cover their mindless
decisions to save our jobs. we usually find out the
latest ways they've discovered to screw over their existing
customers when we get the call telling us what happened from
you.
That's why you're getting the "I'm not sure..." response...
WE HONESTLY AREN'T TOLD ANYTHING until it's already in place.
Just as an example of this genius marketing team's latest
decision, they have recently decided that we will now be automatically
consolidating cable, internet and wireless accounts without
notifying the customers that it will affect. As well,
we will not provide new
customers the option of having separate bills.... oh, and
did I mention that the accounts they consolidate (not done
manually... that would require THOUGHT which doesn't really
apply to this scenario) may not even be accounts that are
for the same person? Yes, enjoy your joined bills with
your other family members, parents at another address, maybe
even your neighbours! ha ha....
it's a fucking nightmare. So, as reps we're now expected to
defend this decision, explain the "logic" behind it, and on
top of that not get upset when all the customers call in legitimately
complaining that they didn't want it and that they weren't
notified in any way. beautiful. As well, Rogers prides
themselves with a "Respect & Dignity" policy which they
advertise to new employees and basically is used mainly by
upper management to blow hot air up each others' asses.
They constantly ask for employee feedback, which we are asked
to provide through monthly surveys, feedback forums with
upper-management who occasionally come to over-see things,
and by providing it to our management team.
This, of course, never gets implemented or even addressed
back to us. It's basically a waste of our
time filling out, and a waste of their money paying us to
do it. (not that I don't mind NOT being on the phone... who
wouldn't when all you get is yelled at all day)
Promises are made for advancement and compensation as well
which never seems to actually take place. It's basically
a screw your way to the top situation... and for the rest
of us, just bend over and prepare yourself for the same dry
hump we're dosing out for the customers!!!
IhateROGERS.ca
Comments
That ladies and gentlemen
came from someone named Ted Rogers III. Just kidding
relax.
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