How to Get Free 411 Cell Service from Rogers

Well, now that we’ve got your attention…!

(Or variously titled: Project #Rogers411 – CCTS Complaint re Rogers 411 Fee Hike)

What’s happened is that Rogers wants to increase the cost of 411 calls, by 50¢ each, for their cell cx’s effective Mar 16, however postpaid cx’s who are under contract do not have to accept this fee hike, and if you pushback on this then it seems that Rogers will capitulate and give you unlimited, free 411 service for the remainder of your contract in order to negate the fee hike that you took the time and trouble to complain about. (You should have been notified of the hike in a bill you received where the “invoice date” on it was between approx Jan 10 and Feb 9).

Detailed instructions for how to achieve this free 411 are in this HoFo post I made and the outcome of free 411 is based on the posted details (post #54 of the thread) of one especially helpful cx, ‘Arjun_Rudra’, who pursued the issue and has posted back about their experience.

If you’re interested in pursuing this I’d suggest getting on to this some time this week tho (let Rogers know that continual, chiseling fee hikes are unacceptable to you!). Carpe diem!

The journey begins here :  )

A Catch-All Catch-Up… $Data Overage Hike; UMA Funny Business; QC Less Speculum; $35/$50 Unlim; CCTS Annual Report

Data Surcharge Price Hike
– In June 2010 Rogers raised the data overage rates charged for all ‘normal’ data plans (i.e. non-6GB, non-FlexData [both RET and in-market flavours], non-Can+USA plans)
– Only affects those who signed up during or after June 2010; pre-existing cx‘s have no price hike
– Old rate: 3c/MB ($31/GB)
– New rate: 5c/MB ($51/GB) (66% increase)

UMA Funny Business
– Prior to late August 2010: cx’s with a supported, UMA-compatible handset could make calls to any Canadian number and consume only ‘local’ airtime minutes, when using UMA (aka WiFi calling)
– And cx’s could do this for no extra charge
– At the end of August Rogers disabled this for all users, unless you have a paid TalkSpot service (min $5/mo)
– As is not uncommon, Rogers gave no notice of this to cx’s
– Since the Rogers website, in places, doesn’t say that this is a paid feature a cx has, IMO, a right to expect to be able to use UMA this way, for no extra $ per month
– I go into more detail about all this, incl advice for cx’s wanting to get this feature back for free, on this page:
—- /UMA

QC Less Speculum
– Quebec’s Bill 60 took effect June 30 2010.
– The text of the bill is here:
—- http://www2.publicationsduquebec.gouv.qc.ca/dynamicSearch/telecharge.php?type=5&file=2009C51A.PDF
– HoFo user FidoSeniorAgent summed up nicely the impact of this consumer-protecting legislation for (only QC!) cellular cx’s, in this post:
—- http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?p=13792691#post13792691
– One of the obvious impacts of this bill is that 3 of the 7 stick-it-to-ya surcharges listed by Rogers, here:
—- rogers.com/Charges
do not apply to QC cell cx’s (and 7 of the 14 surcharges for TV/Internet/HomePhone are similarly mooted).
– There appears to be a possible loophole of sorts, that would let a cx who has an economic inducement in their current contract replace that contract with a new one that has no inducement, thus letting them now cancel@ECF=$50; discussed here:
http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php/1684089-Quebec-cancel-cellphone-contract-loophole
– Vive les Québécois!

$35/$50 Unlimited, From Rogers
– As of early September the RET dep’t of Rogers has had available two interesting plans:
—- $35/mo – unlimited local airtime minutes
—- $50/mo – unlimited local airtime minutes + unlimited Can+USA LD minutes + unlimited SMS to Can+USA numbers
– note that since these are RET plans you need to have, generally, a minimum of 6 mos tenure before Rogers will permit you to switch to them
– these offerings could be pulled at any time
– both plans do NOT have “detailed billing” included, which is $3/mo extra (UNLESS you have online billing setup)
– both plans are very allergic to credits – if you have a plan with credits now and switch to either of these you should expect a) you’ll be informed of: b) all your voice-related credits will disappear
– if you are not told that your credits will disappear when you accept these plans then you have a right in law, IMO, to force Rogers to not molest or disappear your credits that were pre-existing… but you’ll have to fight Rogers for this, it seems
– after signing up for these 2 plans some people have been reporting having their not-previously-mentioned-as-disappearing voice credits disappearing, and some odd notations (“revenue recovery tag”) showing up online, under “Manage My Addons” of MyRogers
– it’s somewhat surprising to see Rogers ‘whoring’ themselves at this basement-price of $35/$50
— Related:
—- HoFo thread re these price plans (the thread is stale-titled with an old $70 price mentioned)
——– http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php/1654415-New-Rogers-UNLIMITED-Minutes-Plan-70-(retentions)
—- My HoFo post re Rogers ‘whoring’ themselves at these (relatively) bargain-basement prices:
——– http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php/1681530-Rogers-posts-Q3-earnings?p=14097084&highlight=whoring#post14097084

CCTS Annual Report
– a couple of weeks ago the CCTS released their annual report for 2009-2010
– in it they give stats on how and for what reasons cx’s contact them, the number of complaints (incl breakdown by carrier), and Recommendations and Decisions they issue
– they also give some feedback on what sorts of complaints they are seeing
– finally, they also give some example complaints and what was their outcome – these are really useful for cx’s to read (see pdf page 26). In part, for the general lessons about where the gotchas lie when dealing with a carrier, but also in part for getting a general idea of how the CCTS assesses complaints and resolves them.
– it’s fairly light reading; see it here:
http://www.ccts-cprst.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/CCTS-Annual-Report-2009-2010.pdf
– Notable bits:
—- number of contacts up by 150%, compared to last year
—- highlighted is the surprisingly pervasive issue of undesired yet expensive Premium Text Message charges showing on cx’s bills, and the difficulty encountered by cx’s in having them removed/refunded
—- “A public hearing [CRTC Telecom Notice of Consultation CRTC 2010-247] will be held in November 2010 [on the 29th] with a decision expected in late December. This will be a seminal moment in our brief history”. (More info in my blog post: /2010/06/09/ccts-procedural-code-changes-and-crtc-review/)
—- “For the first time, over half of the complaints we accepted dealt with one line of business: wireless services. We received more than twice as many complaints about wireless as we did for any other line of business. This should not really be a surprise. The wireless business has the highest rate of growth, the greatest pace of change, and the greatest degree of complexity–at least at a retail level.”

And that’s all, folks!

écois

BCB Contract Molestation – But Nothing Changed?!

Hmmm, sorry for this belated update but since, all in, apparently nothing changed there’s little harm in my tardy advisement.

You may recall the BCB billing fiasco I mentioned here (on HoFo) about how Rogers messed up years worth of BCB and had to give a bunch of money back to cx‘s – $30M to be exact. What I didn’t mention at the time was that as of June 18 Rogers changed (molested) the BCB contract too.

But oddly, they made no apparent substantive changes to it … based on both my own comparison of the old and new versions and in calling and speaking with a Rogers CSR. They changed things like “12 months” to be “first year” and re-ordered some of the paragraphs but all the main factors stayed the same.

Which makes me nervous as all heck – why would Rogers changes things except (usually) to advantage themselves further against the cx? If I can’t figure it out then I’m probably missing something important is my own take.

But oh well, some mysteries of the universe are not meant to be understood by mere mortals … or cx’s I guess.

BTW the icky TaC are still harsh, IMO, so if you want to enter into the so-called “Better Choice Bundles” game read them first; they’re located here:
– visit rogers.com/BetterChoice
– then click the fine-print “Terms & Conditions” link at the page’s bottom

Of particular note is that you may be subject to an ADDITIONAL ECF of up to $400 if you cancel all your Rogers services before you have ‘completed’ your BCB CP (2 years).

Since the BCB scheme has so many exceptions and is so confusing that even Rogers couldn’t get the math correct for years (and has a steep, steep ECF to boot) my own advice is to just stay away from it entirely.

Or as as Buddha would say, “Deny the battle”.

One addendum: if there are material changes between the old BCB TaC and the new TaC, and you signed up for BCB under the old TaC, and Rogers did not advise you, in writing, of the change to the TaC AND what has changed they can’t hold you to the new BCB TaC, per:
– rogers.com/CustomerCommitment
– click on “Read our commitment to you”
– click on section “We help you understand your purchase.”
– read: “We will notify you in writing 30 days in advance of any material changes to our pricing policies or terms and conditions of service and as part of this notification, we will show you specifically what is changing.”

We help you understand your purchase.

CCTS’s Constating Documents

Discovery of the the CCTS Constating Documents:

One funny thing I came across in examining the CRTC 2010 review of the CCTS was the existence of the “constating” documents of the CCTS, which are in essence the organ’s incepting and governing docs. Funny, in that for the CCTS being quite ‘transparent’ and all and having a helpful, simple, informative website … there’s no record of these constating documents on the CCTS site, nor TTBOMK even mention of them. I emailed them the suggestion that they might post those docs on their website but haven’t heard anything back.

2008 Docs:

The original CCTS constating docs were submitted to the CRTC on August 5, 2008 and are located here:
— — http://www.crtc.gc.ca/public/partvii/2007/8638/c12_200719099/935111.zip

They include:

– the Procedural Code
– Corporate By-Law #1, which is the entire body of corporate by-laws, and spells out the usual corporate things
– the TSP Membership Agreement
– and esp Schedule E of the Membership Agreement (the “Complaint Level Costs for Eligible Complaints”), yet this Schedule is empty/redacted

2010 Docs:

On 31 May 2010 the CCTS submitted a response to the CRTC’s review of them:
— — http://crtc.gc.ca/public/partvii/2010/8665/c12_201007229/1400969.zip

It’s comprised of 19 PDF documents:
– 3 of which are specific Response to Interrogatories,
– 2 of which are a cover letter and an introduction,
– and the remainder which are Appendices (including the Letters Patent this time).

What’s curious is that the Response to Interrogatory titled “30Apr10-1 TNC 2010-247” (filename: “…DOCS-#1400973…”), wherein the CCTS responds to the CRTC’s request for a filing of a copy of the all the constating documents, refers to a large number of Appendices: 1-16, most with [a] and [b] subsets. However many of these Appendices are outright missing from the CCTS submission; most notably though is the absence of the Membership Agreement.

I’ll send off to them an email asking about this and see what they have to say about it.

Update: Apparently the missing 2010 docs was a CRTC problem it’s been corrected.

The CCTS is turning out to be a much more curious thing than I had originally thought, especially since they really, really want to withhold Schedule E of the Membership Agreement: “It is the view of the CCTS that disclosure of this information on the public record would undermine the operation of CCTS’s complaint resolution process.” This schedule documents how much each carrier has had to contribute to the funding of the CCTS, because the formula is partly based on carrier’s market share (which is no secret) and partly based on complaint share).

Pray tell, how would divulging complaint shares (and consequent contribution levels by individual TSP’s) “undermine the operation of CCTS’s complaint resolution process”, especially when the CCTS makes such complaint-share breakdowns already known by way of its annual reports (e.g. PDF page 20 of the 2009 Annual Report, here)?