Rogers Portable Internet bait and switch
On Saturday I took advantage of Rogers 30 day moneyback guarantee and returned the Rogers Portable Internet WIMAX modem I wrote about last week. The reason for returning it boiled down to value. I purchased it hoping to be able to use it for occasional travel. If you make a couple of trips per month in Canada, then spending a few dollars with Rogers for a guaranteed internet connection sounded like a great deal. However, the service was so weather affected that I was really only able to get acceptable performance from it for a couple of hours over the Thanksgiving weekend. $49.95 per month for that level of service was hard for me to justify, given how often I expected to use it.
The process of purchasing and returning this unit, by the way, was one of the more surreal customer service experiences I've dealt with in some time. It began when I spotted a great looking deal on the Shop Rogers website. Rogers was apparently offering a full year of service on their Rogers High Speed Portable Internet service (not the cheesy 256K service) for $19.95 per month, and had waived the $29.95 installation fee. Printing the offer, I made a trip to my local Rogers store, only to discover that the offer was apparently not available through the store. The rep, a terrific young guy named Patrick, spent 45 minutes talking with different people at Rogers. When he had made no progress and I needed to leave, he suggested I simply buy the modem, call the customer line myself, and if I was dissatisfied I could then return the modem on the 30 day moneyback guarantee.
So I did.
Later that day I telephoned and spoke with a young woman named Sarah. It turned out, in fact, that the ShopRogers site was misleading. Very misleading! The page for the High Speed Rogers Portable Internet service asked you to "Click here to view our special introductory offer", which took you to a page offering "Pay $19.95 for 12 months", which then took you to a page offering portable internet for $49.95 per month less a $5 promotional offer. You can see for yourself below.
I expected that Sarah would simply honour the offer made on the site. After all, anything less would be false advertising, would it not? Sarah, however, offered me a $100 discount. When I objected, noting that the site offered a $30 x 12 month discount for High Speed Rogers Portable Internet, plus an additional $29.95, or $389.95, she then offered $150. I asked to speak with her supervisor. Perhaps the supervisor had the authority to honour Rogers offer.
This is where we entered the twilight zone.
The supervisor began by informing me that since I hadn't accepted Sarah's offer, it was now "off the table". When I tried to show her the offer on the internet, she explained that she didn't need to look at the web site because she already knew all the offers. After arguing with me for 10 minutes about the offer, she finally looked at the web site, and acknowledged that there was a misleading offer there. After speaking with her for a further 10 minutes, she offered one month of free service, a $49.95 value and stonewalled on any further compensation. The supervisor, instead of fixing the situation, had only made it worse.
Wondering if I could get any satisfaction from ShopRogers, I called their line and spoke with a young lady there. She immediately saw the problem, and offered to submit a trouble ticket to the ShopRogers website, in order to ensure that others weren't similarly mislead. She also offered a $49 credit on the modem, and an additional month of service.
It was a very frustrating and weird experience. Never have I seen the "it's off the table" tactic used against consumers. Nor have I have ever seen a company as unwilling to honour a published offer as Rogers was. Moreover, as of five minutes ago, the web site still hasn't been fixed so they're still pulling the same bait and switch tactic on anyone else looking to buy Rogers Portable Internet.
As for me, I have the $99 price of the modem back in hand, and I'm glad I didn't commit to 12 months of service at even $19.95. It simply wasn't worth it for the amount of use I intended to make of it.
October 16th, 2007 at 1:01 am
Your experience, while terrible, seems to be pretty much typical for Rogers customer service. Communications with their call centre tend to involve one of two extremes: either the height of efficiency for simple requests, or a ridiculous comedy of incompetence for anything slightly out of the ordinary.
I recently canceled my digital cable service with Rogers and returned my equipment to a Rogers store. The official “cable” section was closed, but the video rental people said they could take care of it. A salesperson had to phone the Rogers central call centre to carry out the return. She spent a full half hour on the phone, arguing with various people about procedure and how the return should be handled. It was only after she talked her way up the chain of command that she was able to convince someone that she knew how things were really supposed to work. I felt bad that she had to work so hard on my behalf, but I was also annoyed that it took so long!
Anyways, just wanted to let you know that your service experience was not atypical. The baiting and switching for WiMAX is inexcusable. Of course, you might see the offending web page corrected in the next week or two. I’ve a feeling that Rogers doesn’t have a streamlined problem tracking system for their website…
I found your post via Michael Geist’s excellent blog. BTW, I’m getting a kick out of the fact that your Google ads for this entry are all (quite understandably) for Rogers services. ;-)
October 16th, 2007 at 1:48 am
I had a similar experience with Telus.
I was offered a deal by a phone rep on upgrading my speed which I accepted. When the speed increase didn’t happen I phoned back and this time they wouldn’t honour the first deal. After a great deal of effort they made an offer and the rep essentially said take it or leave it.
I went from being a satisfied customer to pissed off in the space of a 20 minute call.
Must be some new marketing psychology I don’t quite understand.
October 16th, 2007 at 7:30 am
Have you posted your story on http://boycottrogers.com/ yet? :)
October 16th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Hey Joel, the problem I have is that I like so many of Rogers services. I prefer GSM phones, and I really like their MyFive deal. So what am I supposed to do? I definitely don’t want to boycott them. I just want them to behave in a little more consumer friendly fashion.
October 16th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
This actually does sound quite familiar to me. however, while i have received both good and really puzzling (to put it really nicely) customer service at Rogers, it is still much better than the service i’ve received anywhere else. especially Bell (and Telus to a smaller degree). i cannot convey to you the inadequate and frustrating service that i received at Bell, every time, and while Rogers tends to have issues, they are the less of the existing evils. in comparison to your “deals off the table” situation, at Bell, when i threatened to cancel all my services b/c the supervisor refused to get on the phone to speak to me (yes, REFUSED), the young guy on the other end responded with a simple “OK”. so, while i’m sympathetic to your situation, they all have very inadequate customer service, but Rogers seems to be the lesser of the evils.
October 16th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
In regards to Mark W.’s post above, I have also experienced Rogers’ own employees frustrated with Rogers’ call centre.
To make a long story short, I dread changing any service I have with Rogers because when push comes to shove, the deal you strike on the phone is never what shows up on your monthly bill. Your monthly bill never reflects the compensation or benefits you agree to on the phone.
October 16th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
[...] As for me, I have the $99 price of the modem back in hand, and I’m glad I didn’t commit to 12 months of service at even $19.95. It simply wasn’t worth it for the amount of use I intended to make of it. Source: Rogers’ WiMAX bait and switch — Alec Saunders .LOG [...]
October 17th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Alec - Snapshot #2 says “Pay $19.95 for 12 months!” it does NOT say pay $19.95 per month for 12 months. You should have argued for a full year’s worth of service for
$20.
October 17th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
Hah! You’re so right, Jim.
October 18th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
isn’t the free market great?
oh wait, there’s no free market for wireless in canada.
October 20th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
[...] Alec - a nightmare with Rogers Portable Internet. Related [...]
November 29th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
[...] a new Rogers service he tried out - in particular, the basic buying (and returning) experience: Rogers Portable Internet bait and switch. There’s something strange going on when a market leader makes even more elementary mistakes [...]
December 18th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
[...] As for me, I have the $99 price of the modem back in hand, and I’m glad I didn’t commit to 12 months of service at even $19.95. It simply wasn’t worth it for the amount of use I intended to make of it. Source: Rogers’ WiMAX bait and switch — Alec Saunders .LOG [...]
February 28th, 2008 at 11:32 am
I just did a search on this Hi-speed Internet solution and found your site. Funny, the reason I was checking is that I just received a flyer in the Mail offering the exact same promotion. $19.95/month for the first 12 months with a savings of $72.00 (doesn’t add up if it is usually $49.95?) from Rogers.
Same bait and switch offer??? This is late February 2008, doesn’t look like they have taken this offer off the table.
Hmmmmm.
April 11th, 2008 at 10:28 am
[...] Surprise #1: I explained the situation to the rep, who promptly knocked $185 off the bill without question. He also offered to allow me to speak with the supervisor if I wanted to ask for more. I declined, having been burnt on that one previously. [...]
April 20th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
I have this portable internet at my house and its HORRIBLE, it spikes all the time, can’t wait till my area gets the ability to have cabel…
May 15th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Funny, I guess I lucked out. My portable internet works great. Now if I could only figure out how to acquire a new dynamic IP…
May 15th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Oh yeah, and as for their customer service… that’s definitely to be expected of Rogers. Back in the day they used to have great customer service which is why I signed up with them again in the first place, but it seems times have changed since then. I guess they were bought out by somebody who doesn’t give a flying **** about the customers.
May 15th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
By the way, I think the 19.95 / month price is for their basic portable internet which is a lower speed. That makes sense since the regular price is 27.95 a month so that’d be a 72 dollar savings. Did nobody at Rogers mention that to you? Duuuuuumb…. :P
May 15th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
By the way, I think the 19.95 / month price is for their basic portable internet which is a lower speed. That makes sense since the regular price is 27.95 a month so that’d be a 72 dollar savings. Did nobody at Rogers mention that to you? Those customer service freaks are Duuuuuumb…. :P
June 3rd, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Great posting. Rogers customer service is truly awful, which seems consistent with being (roughly) a monopoly.
July 6th, 2008 at 2:27 am
Never has any other company or commercial organization elicited the visceral rage and vitriol that Rogers has over the years. While there are a few good men and women there, the (dis)organization at large has purposeful and reckless disdain for their client base. Why? Because you cannot go elsewhere for many of their services. Monopoly. Guaranteed clientèle breeds contempt. I cannot begin to relate the dozens and dozens of inane policies, disputes, and abusive actions I have experienced at the hands of Rogers. If it didn’t make my blood pressure rise just thinking about it, I who am a video producer would launch headlong into a scathing, revealing and high embarassing doc against Rogers. Maybe some day.
September 21st, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Rogers is awful, worse company in the world. I once lost my phone and called it in right away. They said that I did not call it in and wanted me to pay the 3500$ charges that eventually came up as a result. Of course I did not pay it. They sent it to an agency who called me for 18 months and they tagged my credit rating. I will never deal with Rogers. Biggest crooks in the planet. Never once have I heard anyone say that they had good service from Rogers. Just theifs. I got back at them though because I have 120 people working for me and switched them all off Rogers.