We made the huge mistake of signing on with them. Our phones have been sent away for repairs more than we have actually had them to use. I was standing in the store, the communication tower is directly opposite them on the hill about a mile away and there was NO signal on my phone. I have been back six times now with problems with the phone, yet it hasnt worked properly from the time I bought it. I was charged 25.00 for the time my phone was away, for a loaner phone.

My daughter has someone else cutting in on her phone all the time and answering it when it rings, both of them will be saying "hello" at the same time. Her phone has been sent away twice for repairs and they want her to pay 25.00 PER WEEK for a loaner phone, the average turn around time of repairs is 4 to 6 weeks.

After about 50 calls to Customer Service nothing has ever been resolved.

When the bills for December came in, mine was totally unreal - almost 300.00 worth of calls over and above my contract time. Three other people I talked to had the same thing happen to them. Interestingly enough one of those had gone away for most of the month and forgot his phone at home so it hadnt been used during the period he was billed for calls - they just billed calls to numbers regularly called.

I allegedly phoned my lawyer six times xmas eve AFTER office hours ! One of the guys in the Rogers store told me that sometimes the phones just call numbers previously dialled on their own, he said it was a glitch in their system. Yet they insisted the bills had to be paid as issued and that they "dont make mistakes". 5 calls to my son in Edmonton while he was in fact on his way to B.C. - one call was for 15 minutes. (?)

To this day we have received no satisfaction on these problems. Does anyone know if we can break out contract with them because of this kind of crap going on?

A friend of mine was sold what was said to be a new phone, only to discover when she sent it away for repairs that it was a refurbished phone and had previous water damage. Rogers refused to replace the phone saying she had to have been told it was a refurbished phone when she purchased it. It wont hold a charge and she has replaced the battery which isnt cheap, it still doesnt charge properly. She was told she can "upgrade" to a new phone in two years, and pay the difference, in the meantime she is stuck with this phone that she cant use most of the time.

One of the things that really bugs me is that they act like this is the first time the problem has happened, and that if their database says something it must be true. I have worked in data entry and I know how easy it is for someone to click on the wrong box and send a totally incorrect message. Not to mention computer network problems that screw upthe data.

Now, the question is, what can we do about these kinds of problems if the company refuses to fix them?

Recent examples with Bell Sympatico:

1) I had to spend about two hours at a payphone, just to sign up for high speed Internet. I got bounced around to about 4 different people, each one asking the same list of questions. Even the last person wanted to bounce me back to the department I just got sent from.

2) Last week I checked my bill and there was a $99 charge for "installation" even though no such thing occurred. The first customer service person said that there probably wasn't anything I could do, and that I would just have to pay it. It took three days for the matter to be resolved, and since they already took the money out of my account, I won't get a credit until the next bill. I won't be surprised if the credit doesn't appear and I have to call them again. And of course they're not going to give me any extra credits, services or even pay me the interest I would have recieved if the $99 was in my account for a month.

[ 06 April 2003: Message edited by: Andy Social ]

Supposedly I can change it though, and I think I'll try to do that this week. I think I'll also compile a list of complaints and mail them a letter, although I don't know if it will have much of an affect.

(And if anyone was going to suggest getting Rogers cable Internet, I've heard horror stories about them too.)

[ 06 April 2003: Message edited by: Andy Social ]

I had cancelled my cellphone contract before I left and the charges kept going to my card. About a $120 hit in total for absolutely no services - the phone was deactivated.

But Rogers AT&T likely has the same idiots running their billing departments as their cable folks. I have cogeco cable internet. No one can touch them for speed, which is why I stay with it. But man, their billing department SUCKS. If you pay your bill ahead of time (e.g. when I was on OSAP, when I got my 4 month installment, I would just drop a lump sum on my cable bill so I wouldn't have to worry about running out of money by the end of the semester), they don't send you a bill during those four months! Even if you change your services!

Not only that, but it took them something like 8 months to get my address correct, after about four different calls, when I first started my account with them. I didn't receive bills that whole time, and every time I called I was told I'd be receiving it soon now that the address was fixed. I paid through internet banking because I didn't want to get a lump sum bill once it did come, but geez.

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But Rogers AT&T likely has the same idiots running their billing departments as their cable folks.

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They expanded like crazy, took on a whole lot of debt and then came the crash. So they've cut costs by cutting "front-end" customer service.

So, customer service in the computer software/hardware, ISP, cable TV and telco sectors is the pits. You spend the first part of your time making your way through voice-mail hell.

Then, once you get past voice-mail hell you get to the "first tier" customer service agent who asks you all kinds of stupid questions. Usually this person is very poorly trained, poorly paid and just gives you "stock answers" from their computer screen.

If you don't get cut-off in the midst of being transferred around from person to person (and have to go through this all over again) you then might get to someone who actually knows something
that isn't on their computer screen.

If its really bad then you might even get your problem "escalated" to a manager or supervisor...but if something goes astray...repeat the first couple of steps.

By the time you've done all of this, you've wasted a good chunk of your day or perhaps days...maybe even weeks!

I had great fun trying to setup Bell's high speed business internet service at a site just outside of Toronto recently. They screwed me around for a month...and finally I just packed it in with them and went elsewhere.

I've found that call centres just about everywhere suck. Some that used to be pretty good have gotten just as bad as the rest of them.

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All of the tech companies are suffering from the post dot-com meltdown blues.

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I agreed with a lot of what you said but I wouldn't blame it entirely on the dot bust. Tech support at large companies like Compaq went bad long before the dot even boomed. First tier support is an entry level position and anyone who shows any talent is quickly promoted out of it or quits for something else.

[ 10 April 2003: Message edited by: Slim ]