[kibosh]

I will try and keep my story short, but I'd love some opinions and/or help.

I was one of the lucky few that moved from ExpressVu back around 2002 when Rogers offered lifetime free digital box rentals. I was given a HD PVR rental, 2 digital terminal rentals, and the digital services fee all free for life.

Last July I was offered 30% off my cable bill for a year so I thought to myself why not, and I took it. A few months later I thought to look at my bill and noticed that when they applied the 30% off the cable, they removed the lifetime free from the 2 digital rentals and the digital services fee but left it on the HD PVR. I called in and asked them to correct it. The lady told me that they would instead give me 15% off my home phone plus waive the SAF for a year to make up for the difference but that I would need to call back in July of this year to have the lifetime free discount re-instated. I figured this would be a pain but agreed.

Fast forward to 2 weeks ago and I called in to lower my internet from Extreme to Express. I checked my bill produced 2 days ago knowing that Rogers likes to screw them up and low and behold my lifetime free rental had now been removed from my HD PVR as well!! What does one have to do with the other?!?!? But anyway . . .

I called in immediately and was forwarded to customer relations. The woman agreed that this was all a mess and put me on hold for 10 minutes. She came back to tell me that they could no longer apply the free for life promo code to my boxes. She offered to waive the rental on my PVR and the digital services fee for a year but that I will have to keep calling in every year forever (we all know how painful it is to call into Rogers)!! She said she would also mark the other 2 rental boxes as purchased. I pointed out to her that this sucked because if anything goes wrong with those boxes now, I can exchange them no problem since they are rentals. If they are now considered purchased, I will have to replace them out of pocket. She said she would mark down that Rogers would replace them if I needed . . . RIGHT . . . we'll see in two years if I can get a free box from them.

All I really want is for the lifetime free promos added back to my boxes. I understand that their front end does not allow the codes to be added, but surely someone in their IT can edit my account. I work in IT for RBC and we do this type of thing. If someone messes up in a branch and removes something that is no longer offered, we will rectify it (assuming the branch staff escalates it properly).

Does anyone else have any experience with this?

Phew . . . thanks for listening!

Kibosh

 

[crazyhawk]

all i can tell ya is that when rogers is done with a promo after 6 months the delete it all together from the system... had a few issue's myself... your most likely stuck calling once a year for it as i cannot see them re-doing the code just for one cx... sorry for being the barer of bad news

 

[crazyhawk]

then again for 500.64 in yearly savings i would have no problems calling them lol

 

[kibosh]

No doubt! However, what's to say that next year or 10 years from now they say to me "sorry, we aren't going to do this anymore."

You should see the confirmation fake bill thing they sent me! I got 3 of them?!?! Each one gets worse . . . in the last one it has them charging me 49.99 technician install fee, 99.00 digital terminal purchase, and only a $50 hardware credit. Oh, and they definitely forgot to reverse the digital services fee of 2.99.

MAN! I guess I'll be calling again on Monday . . . I think they offshore support in the evenings and weekends. Don't they?

 

[17671]

it looks as if the 30% off your cable bill promo conflicts with the other promo you had ie the lifetime pvr thingy. I know it shouldnt conflict, but once you sort out this mess, i would not combine promos from this point on. just keep what you have and let it be. account changes are different, so changing your internet tier wont affect your promotions so its ok to do things like that, but its very bad but they should be able to put the promos back on, perhaps someone from the rogers social media team can chime in here and help out the op?

 

[kibosh]

When I had called originally to get the discount re-added to my account and was offered the discount on my home phone instead, the person told me that you can't have more than one promo code on your account at once. But that didn't explain why the lifetime promo did not fall off the HD PVR as well.

If I were a skeptic, I'd say my account was targeted for the 30% off so that I would lose the lifetime promo off my boxes intentionally. At the time I asked if I would lose the lifetime promo and was assured that I wouldn't.

 

[richiehack]

"If I were a skeptic, I'd say my account was targeted for the 30% off so that I would lose the lifetime promo off my boxes intentionally. "


Bingo!!! winner, winner, chicken dinner...

 

[billpaidJr]

yup..for sure not a mistake. They all do the same thing...suggest people move to "better" packages...but usually when its them calling you and not the other way around its because they intend on making it better for themselves.

These companies are not known for calling people to save us money.

 

[pvj]

I also have the lifetime deal with an HD PVR and 2 SD PVR's etc.When I changed the HD PVR out after it died I also "lost " the free lifetime promo.Trust me,they can put it back.But it will take a supervisor to do it not one of the first level CS reps.Keep on them it is doable!

 

[wysiwyg]

I play this game each year trying to hold on to my Winback (Free PVR) for life deal. My deal was a little different than yours.. I have the Free HD-PVR which is a lifetime rental (Already got it upgraded last year to the 8642) and at the time I also received a free 3200 SD box and free cable modem, both to own. I also got the Digital fee waived. Each year for the past 3 or 4 years, I managed to save 20-30% off my bill by going through retentions, but last year was a bit different. They wanted to give me the discount, but told me I would loose the Free PVR promo. (I specifically mention each time I call to never touch it as it's no longer available and next to impossible to add back on). When they told me it was not possible to have both, I declined the offer and decided to wait a few weeks and call again. At that time I would either switch to Bell or seriously reduce my services to just basic channels. When I called back, I was offered the 30% off everything (including all the specialty packs, etc..) which I never had before, but my Digital access fee credit was gone. My Winback promo remained. I never bothered calling in for the $2.99 fee, as my additional discounts more than made up for it.

One thing I learned from the Winback promo is that each time you make changes to your account, be sure to specify that you have a lifetime promo and to never remove it. (They should get a pop up on their screen if they try to add something that prompt them to remove the other promo.)

I also learned that if you ever get Rogers to fix something for your account/terminal and part of their troubleshooting is to "temporarily" remove and add back your PVR from your account, the promo goes along with it. So be careful with that.

Now that Bell Fibe is in my building, if I ever loose the Winback promo, I will switch to Bell. The free PVR is the only thing holding me back right now.

 

[SMCKINNON24]

When a new upgrade box comes out ask for it to upgrade it. I had issue as well. with my Hd box. is a purchase. I have note on my account that if it deflects Rogers should be still responsible for it as it is a rogers box and will not work on any other provider.

 

[kibosh]

I just got off the phone with a CSR in customer relations. She maintained that there was no way to add the promos back on to my boxes so I told her that I wanted to escalate the call to a manager. She said no problem and put me on hold for a few minutes. She came back on and told me that she spoke to her manager and that they have a "new" escalation method to add the promos back on via a back-office function. She said that it takes about 48 hours and that the technical team will call me when it is done and explain it all to me.

I am very hopeful that this will be resolved!

 

[kibosh]

So I haven't heard from Rogers (it has been 2 weeks) so I decided to give them a call today to see if my account had been fixed.

Can you guess what their response was? That's right . . . a big fat NOPE!

So they put me through to customer relations again and they explained that they are busier than normal but that it will get fixed . . . fine I said.

I actually got a call back about 30 minutes later from someone in their technical area telling me that they would add the promos back on immediately. When she tried, the 30% discount off the cable prevented her from fixing it. She had to remove my 30% to add the lifetime promos back on and then she warned me that in the future, I am not allowed to add any promos to my cable account or risk losing the lifetime promo and that I would be forfeiting it if I did.

So be warned people with the lifetime promo . . . do NOT add any discounts to your account if asked!

I will say that all of the people I dealt with at Rogers have been very helpful and pleasant . . . I'll give them that!