Personal Crap

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Meaford, ON, Canada
A big lover of all types of media, from Movies to Video Games, Books to Music, Television to Stage.

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Okay, here's the deal: Blogger has been having problems with their counters as of late, specifically with those blogs marked as having adult content. Now, this particular blog was marked as adult content since it is written as a train of thought, including all the rotten language that flows through my head constantly :) As a result, I marked it adult for that, not for having pornographic photos all over the place. So, simply put, be aware that there is language on this blogsite, and if you are offended don't bother complaining because I wrote this so that you'd know it before reading, and it is your fault if you don't believe me and decide to possibly get offended anyway. If language of a vulgar nature might make you upset, go read something by Disney.

1/14/11

First On The List Of Useless Companies: Rogers Canada

Good morning/afternoon all.  If you can't tell by the title of this post, I'm fucking furious.  So furious that I am changing cable companies as soon as our term of service ends.  The company is not a secret, it is Rogers.  Now, I don't have anything against their Internet service, but their phone service is crap, their cable services are crap, and their billing department is handled by people who don't know their asses from their elbows.  This is not going to be a pretty post, it is going to probably be more expletive-filled than previous posts, and you have been forewarned.  I am sick of being treated like shit by this company, and if I can't get satisfaction in any other way, then I shall eviscerate them publicly.  The worst they can do is bitch and moan, because I am only telling the truth.

Since we switched from Express Vu by Bell to Rogers (due to the lousy billing department at Bell), we have had nothing but problems.  Literally, from the first week, in February 2008, we have had problems with their equipment.  Their PVRs, and I mean that multiple because we went through over ten of them, do not keep recordings, do not keep schedules in order to do recordings, and like to show that they are recording things when they in fact are not.  We have missed many hours of programming in this household due specifically to the fact that the PVRs provided by Rogers are, at best, cheap crap.  We had a PVR from Bell - never missed an episode of anything.  For the years we've been with Rogers, we have had the box replaced, we have had our signal strength increased, we have had technicians come to the house multiple times, we have had the trunk line our house is connected to checked repeatedly, and we have had nothing change the fact that the box constantly drops scheduled recordings, adds up the number of recorded shows saved on it incorrectly, and basically makes whether we can watch a show the next day that we have tried to save to the hard drive a total crap shoot.

After all this time, we have finally gotten the newest box, as of a few months ago, and the problem, though lessened, still persists.  We lose a lot less shows than we had previously, but we have had multiple shows across a number of channels be self-interrupted and then re-started in the middle of their recordings.  We have been told that a lot of our problems are coming form the networks that are originating the broadcasts of the signals, but wouldn't one of Canada's major cable subscription services (if not the largest) be able to communicate with them and get the problem fixed?  Wouldn't you expect that, since we're paying about $150 a month for this shit?  Why the fuck are we paying so much money, only to have unreliable equipment take away exactly the things we are paying so much to view?

Now, on top of that, their billing department has decided to start causing us grief.  We don't argue how much we owe to the company for the services we enjoy, but we do argue when we make arrangements for payments and the company decides that, even though they have assured us that the arrangements are fine, to disconnect our services, even partially, due to lack of payment.  I'll give you the entire scenario:  Andi makes arrangements on Monday to pay $493 on January 31st, the next time our ODSP (Disability) gets deposited into my bank account.  They say no problem, all is well.  Wednesday, our television service is truncated to only include the most basic services, to the point that we can't even watch stuff we've already recorded on the PVR.  I call them, and they say that the arrangements aren't good enough, they need $76 to put the premium stuff back online, and another hundred next Friday, $177 on the 31st, and $453 by February 10th.  If I give them the $76 and agree to this entirely new payment arrangement, we're good.  So, I give them $76 out of our ODSP, which is gone off my credit card within an hour (it is credited to our Rogers account within 10 minutes), and the stations are back before I'm off the phone.  In other words, when they want their money, they take it IMMEDIATELY.

Now to the good stuff.  Andi wakes up, hears what's happened, calls Rogers.  She is speaking to someone on the phone, and I need to pick up the other line because she is getting how it went down wrong.  While I'm on the line, not swearing at this fucker for being such an asshole, Andi asks a simple question: When will a manager be available to talk to us?  This bitch says that there isn't a manager available, but she is not willing to talk to us when we are both on the phone.  Are you fucking kidding me?  I state, truthfully (the tape has already been reviewed, and I'm being 100% truthful in this entire story), that I haven't sworn or yelled, Andi hasn't sworn or yelled, we have not spoken at the same time or interrupted each other, and yet when she is asked a simple, straight-forward question she refuses to answer because two people are on the phone?  We get no answer - we find out later she had muted the call, and was sitting there listening and not responding.  this is how the fucking customer service in the billing department at Rogers is trained, to treat people like shit because they don't feel like helping today.

Andi called the Ontario Ombudsman, who got in touch with Rogers and reviewed the notes on the file, the tapes of all three conversations (the one where Andi made the original payment arrangements, the one when I called and paid them $76, and the one with the muting bitch), and got angry.  Turns out the first person Andi spoke to never put the notes on the account!  Additionally, they never should even have spoken to me about anything due to the fact that they have in the notes that I have my heart condition.  Finally, the cut of our services should never have happened because the arrangements that were recorded but never entered on our account were totally valid and enough to take care of things without any interruption of any of our services.  He credited our account $100, told us that the $76 would be put back on my credit card the same day, and was so frustrated about the situation he was stuttering when he told Andi this news.  Now, you'd think that'd be the end of it, wouldn't you?  Well guess what?

As of 11am on Friday, today, the money is still not back on my credit card.

It seems Rogers is very quick to grab money from people who are doing the best they can with the hand they've been dealt, but they don't like admitting an error on their part and return the money as they are supposed to by order of the Ontario Ombudsman.  Andi just got off the phone with them again, and they are swearing up and down that the money has been put back on my credit card, but I am on the phone with Visa at the moment, and according to their automated voice service it is not there.  Should I assume Visa is lying, or Rogers?  Any votes?  (Update: Visa says they have no information on any transaction, but that it can take 3 to 5 business days for them to credit the account once it is already done at Rogers' end - you'd think that with them knowing we're on ODSP they'd take the time to actually call Visa themselves and get it done immediately, you know?  Since it is their error all the way around?  Fat fucking chance)

The upshot of all this is that we are going to be moving our cable to another company (probably Bell) by the end of February (see, we can't just cancel Rogers, they need 30 days notice...so they can grab one more month from consumers who don't know about this little pile of shit proviso they have) and with any luck, all of our problems in this matter will be solved once and for all.

Happy 2011 everyone!  Same Shit, Different Decade!