A friend of mine who ordered new Rogers cable service was offered the infamous free previews that become regular billable services unless canceled beforehand.

To top it off the CSR who arrived to install the new cable service stuck him with a free three months of Rogers VOIP.

Andrew
If a csr came and installed the equipment.Well that is the first tiem i ever heard of that.

Andrew
If a csr came and installed the equipment.Well that is the first tiem i ever heard of that.
I'm pretty sure he meant the technician/installer....
I can't believe the callousness the poor member received when his family dog was killed! Thats a terrible story, and they should be liable for leaving your gate broken, and open
It is Rogers equipment in the backyard, but it is private property, so I would expect a call, or knock on the door for permission
And then to complain about being bitten by the new dog, while tresspassing/coming unannounced is silly
I would put a lock on the door, or 2'x4' so the next time they try to break your gate, they have to put some more effort into it
My story wasn't as bad, but the installer came by while the wife was home, and hooked up the cable for us. Brutal job, a hole in the hardwood, down to the basement, when he could have drill in through the quarter round, baseboard, even out the exterior wall!
We had weak signal, so they had to run a temp to our neighbors house, until a new line could be burried in spring. Come August, a crew shows up, is digging outside, and then they start up a concrete saw. Me being a nosy customer, went outside, right as 1 guy was about to put the saw to my 2 year old driveway
I almost went beserk, told him to turn it off
He said this was the only way to get a new cable in
I said, it was unacceptable
We argued back and forth, and I told him to pack up and leave, I was cancelling my service, and didn't need a new line
Called in to complain, and was told that this is the only way it can be done, economically
I asked if there was another way, and they said yes, but it would be cheaper to CUT MY DRIVEWAY!
Thanks, but no thanks, I have seen other cut driveways, and it can be ugly
Went to ExpressVu, and have had some billing type issues with them, but no where near as bad as Rogers

Heres a good post


Last night we had a Drunken (well he should have been drunk) snow plow driver in Oshawa,He finally come into our court and plowed our circle. I guess you can see where this is going. This driver managed to clear away our circle and it only took 10 minutes to plow a 75 foot circle and only doing two passes before he stopped and noticed that he plowed snow 8 feet onto someones lawn.

http://www.sktechnologies.net/tbusa/HPIM0750.JPG

Yes he chopped everything off. So I called Rogers at 9pm just to let know that cable/phone and internet has been taken off line. Even though I had to explain what happened three times because he couldn't understand that the issue was outside of my house. But within 15 minutes a service van came and the repairs started and within an hour everything came back online.

So thanks Rogers for getting us back online fast, I figured it would have taken a day or more because of all the horror stories dealing with other big companies to get repairs etc.

That is good.

Last summer my elderly neighbour came over to ask if our cable was still on, as his was out since early that afternoon.

He said that he saw a Rogers tech at the box in his backyard doing something and after the tech departed, his service was out. The tech had left the cover off the junction tower and it seemed that he had been there to connect the neighbours on the other side and in the meantime disconnected my elderly paid-in-advane neighbour.

I called service to inquire and they said the earliest they would have someone out would be the following afternoon. I asked the cs rep if I could just disconnect the newly connected neighbour and restore my neighbours service as he has no other entertainment and he's nearly 90. The rep said that would be ok and they'd send a repair tech in 2 days to make sure it was working again for him.

Maybe it depends on whether it's a Rogers error or if it's caused by an third party on how that affects the response time ?

Okay, so I heard about this promotion ($42.99 for VIP) and decided to give Roger$ a call and upgrade from my basic cable, and get the HD specialty channels pack, as well. The guy that I talked to (I have his name and his number) says it's okay, then puts me on hold to "set everything up", then comes back and tells me that he cannot do it. The problem, and I quote: "If they upgrade me to VIP, I have to pickup a standard definition digital box (which I'm OK with, even though I'm not planning to use it), but ultimately this will cancel out my 2-year promotion for the free HD PVR, that I have running". A lot of BS, in my opinion.

So instead, he offers to upgrade me to the "extended basic", for the same VIP promotional price. He tells me that this promotional price will be valid for a year, and that I can cancel it out anytime. I agreed, and he sets up my account, adding the full price of the extended basic package, manually adjusted with credits on the monthly basis, to bring the total price down to the VIP promotion price.

I have asked him 2 or 3 times to confirm everything, because I've been lied to so many times in the past, by these jokers. The deal was: upgrade from basic to extended basic cable for $42.99 (good for a year) and get the HD specialty channels pack for $8.95 (first 3 months free).

Today, I gave Roger$ another call, wanting to order the Movies Package, but before I did, I asked this other guy about what exactly is on my account currently (just to make sure everything is as agreed upon). To my surprise (if there are any surprises with Roger$), he tells me that my deal for the basic extended package is good for 3 months only (manual adjustments in the system). After I explained to him what I was told the day before, I asked to talk to his supervisor.

He puts me on a 10 minutes hold, comes back and tells me that he talked to the manager and that this was the best they can do. His manager was "not available to talk to me".

So instead of getting a promotional upgrade to VIP for a year, I am getting that price for only 3 months, and for extended basic package only (fewer channels).

I thought of canceling my whole service with them (cable TV, internet, home phone) right away, but I managed to stay calm and think first about how to possibly get a better deal with their competitor.

Just like I said, a bunch of lying clowns!

I know exactly what you are talking about. Maybe this will help. I received a telephone call this week from Bell Telephone saying the usual about me no longer being with Bell, asking what they could do to get me to go back and did I have any problems with any particular department.

I told them I thought when I had Sympatico their tech support was very poor. The bottom line is they offered me that same package as Rogers for about $10.00 less a month. This is the package with internet cable, telephone and t.v. Additionally the package she was trying to sell me included 5 specialty packages for the t.v. I dídn't have time to talk any longer and took her number down. I am going to call Bell back (not the same person) and see if what she said is true and if so I am going to cancel Rogers. I really have had enough of their crap and it sounds to me like Bell is once again trying to attain first place in these wars by changing their attitude and service toward their customer. I should mention if you don't know that the t.v. is a satellite dish. Expressvue I think she said and I know nothing about satellite dishes.

So many some of you can use this information to your advantage. Don't you wish we had the old Bell Telephone Company back where the customer was always right and they did their best to assist you?

Yes, petpntr...unfortunately we have to play these games and waste our time. This whole thing about having pretty much only two competitors (in Toronto region) reminds me of the days when Bell had practically no competition in long distance phone service, 10-15 years ago. The rates were ridiculously high. When Sprint showed up, and later a few other players...guess what? The rates were going down, and they were all trying to get your attention with better plans.

That is what we need in TV business...unfortunately I don't see it coming. These bullies are too strong, killing all of their competition, and we are pretty much screwed.

Anyway, I am thinking of switching (it would have to be Bell). A little bit of a problem is that I am in a condo, so the dish idea may not be the easy way out (not impossible though). Has anyone heard of whether the HD service will ever materialize with Bell TV for condos?

Yes, petpntr...unfortunately we have to play these games and waste our time. This whole thing about having pretty much only two competitors (in Toronto region) reminds me of the days when Bell had practically no competition in long distance phone service, 10-15 years ago. The rates were ridiculously high. When Sprint showed up, and later a few other players...guess what? The rates were going down, and they were all trying to get your attention with better plans.

That is what we need in TV business...unfortunately I don't see it coming. These bullies are too strong, killing all of their competition, and we are pretty much screwed.

Anyway, I am thinking of switching (it would have to be Bell). A little bit of a problem is that I am in a condo, so the dish idea may not be the easy way out (not impossible though). Has anyone heard of whether the HD service will ever materialize with Bell TV for condos?
If they have upgraded the equipment in your building HD is possible as they came through my building (Mississauga) after finally installing the latest HW they had (now whether it was only 720p or passed through an actual 1080i signal I was never able to get the presenters to confirm for me)

NefCanuck

Thanks, NefCanuck. I'm in Mississauga too and will have to call Bell to further explore this option.

Rogers always has a great introductory offer, unfortunatley my parents don't get what an introductory offer is.

"Wow, only 29.99$ for Rogers Home Phone!" "*coughfirstthreemonthscough*" "What?" "Nothing."

It's truly awful. I have been with them since September ( previously on expressvu for 3 years ), they haven't gotten a SINGLE bill right. Not one! I am sick and tire of having to call them to have my bill fixed EVERY month. It's driving me bonkers.

Now that they are going to start compressing their HD, I am fed up. That's the last straw.
Their program guide is garbage.
You can't program favorites like on expressvu.
The HD-PVR works pretty well, but it's dumb as a post.

And can someone PLEASE tell me how Rogers can justify compressing the signal when I often have up to FOUR copies of the same channel strewn around different channel numbers!?!?

Even though I hear that expressVu downconverts everything to 720p... I may be going back to them.

Just to be clear, tinkertank, the channel-mapping for Rogers HD does not take-up any extra bandwidth. It is just plain-and-simple channel mapping. That is why when you change the channel from an HD channel in the 500s to one mapped in the 100s you do not see any obvious signs of channel changing (temporary black screen).

Even though I hear that expressVu downconverts everything to 720p... I may be going back to them.Doesn't sound right - uncompressed, 720p would take more bandwith than 1080i. 720p would be 720 lines of information every 1/60th of a second. 1080i would be 540 lines of information every 1/60th of a second.

nfitz:

Actually it is correct. 720p takes less bandwidth than 1080i. See the FAQ on HDTV Formats, here:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=76129

Ah - I went a bit further with the math and I see my mistake - sorry about that. Yes, 720p takes less bandwith. It's more than the lines, I didn't account for the increased vertical resolution. So a 1080 image is really 1920×1080 and has 2,073,600 pixels, while a 720 image is 1280×720 and nly 921,600 pixels. So if you only have half the image being transmitted with 1080i, it's still 12.5% more information than required for 720p. I'll suggest to 57 that he expand the FAQ.

Actually, 1080i takes quite a bit more. 720p is typically still only broadcast at 30fps, whereas the 1080i fields (540 lines each) switch 60 times each second. Basically you get the full 1920x1080 set of pixels 30 times a second.

And even if 720p was broadcast at 60fps, it would compress a lot better than the 1080i fields, as usually very little changes between two frames.

So, 1080i really does use quite a bit more, if you want the same pixel-to-pixel quality.

Here’s a case study of Rogers' customer service (http://blog.webcopyplus.com/2008/04/20/rogers-customer-service/). Rogers didn’t deliver its scheduled home phone service for an entire year, and then charged the “valued customer” for a phone service he never received!

I used FCI Broadband for my home phone, and they were purchased by Rogers. For about a year they just continued the same plan and pricing as I had before. Then about a month ago, I got letters and phone messages stating that the FCI Broadband plan would be ending soon and it was time to switch to Rogers home phone. As a "special offer" for FCI Broadband customers, they offered either $10/month off my home phone bill for 12 months OR a Rogers bundle discount. If I had simply signed up online through the Rogers site, I would have gotten both, plus a $20 credit. So the "special offer" was basically a "screw you". I suppose I could have called customer service and haggled for the better offer (and negotiated my way out of the system access fee because FCI didn't charge any), but I was so turned off by their correspondence I signed up with Primus instead.

Everything has been going pretty smoothly since switching from EVU a year ago, aside from the occasional service blips and glitches.

I received my first bill of the 2nd year of the promo and my 'free for 2 years' discount for the 3250 box has disappeared.

After some re-examination it appears that this was also missing from last months bill also.

Rogers is at a loss to explain it other than 'someone entered the wrong promo code'.

Currently on hold to see if they will offer me any compensation other than a retroactive credit for 2 mos @ $12.95 ea to make up for this.(at 20 mins into the call and presently on hold for the accounts dept).

UPDATE:

After first denying that the promo was even included the 2nd HD box rent free for the second year, they had a change of heart, re-allowed the discount for the 2nd year and gave me a half price on my additional HD channel pack for 12 mos for my trouble.

I supposed I could have done better if I had pushed it but that's not my game.... until the end of the 2nd year ;)