What does it take? (Long)

[TOLady]

rerant - I know exactly how you feel.

This is coming from this thread http://www.customerssuck.com/board/s...ad.php?t=55357

Didn’t want to thread-jack so here this is.

Sorry, it's really, really long – but it took a long time in coming…

I've been dealing with those b*******s since July!

In early July, I realized I was having difficulty in paying my bills on time since all the due dates for my bills were all falling within the same 2 week period at the beginning of the month, along with my rent and Metropasses.

Finally becoming smart, I contacted half of my creditors and asked them to change my billing date to the middle of the month.

No problem at all. Even talked down my interest rate with 2 of them! - except R*****s.

First call was in July after I paid my bill.

I explained my situation, went over all the options we are signed up for (cable, internet and 2 cell phones) and decided to downgrade our internet since we weren't using half of it and asked about options for our cell phones (my DH wasn't working at the time and the overage is a killer). Nothing much could be done there.

After about 45 minutes, CSR pipes up with - "Oh - you have 2 cells, internet and cable. Did you know you're eligible for a 10% discount?"

I enquired where I would have found this on their website and was politely informed that "Oh, you have to ask for it. We don't advertise it."

So I have to ask for something I don’t even know exists. R****s customers, do yourselves a favour and check into this. If you have more than 3 options with them, you’re eligible for a discount!

Asked if I wanted the new digital cable, other upgrades etc. Thanked them and said no. “Just changing my billing date from the beginning to mid-month would be greatly appreciated”.

CSR - "Sure - our pleasure. Thanks for being a R*****s customer. There may be a larger bill than usual due to the new due date."

Cheers and thanks!

Come August - billing arrives, same date as last month.

Called back and asked again. CSR looks up file, "Oh yes, it should have been done. No problem. Sorry for the inconvenience. Your billing due date is now the 16th. There may be a larger bill than usual due to the new due date."

Cheers and thanks !

September - billing arrives - you know the drill.

Starting to lose it a bit, call again. CSR looks at file, (for response - see above). Assured billing due date has now been changed for the 16th.

CSR - “There may be a larger bill than usual due to the new due date. Blah, blah, blah. Thanks for being a R*****s customer”.

Cheers and thanks!

I received a call from their automatic calling system less than 5 minutes later.

"You have just called R****s for customer service. Would you like to participate in a survey?"

Sure - why not. Finish the tele-prompt survey explaining the situation and that I'm dissatisfied with the amount of calls and time it has taken to get this resolved, and during the "leave a comment" I mention that if I could, I'd leave them. Not sucky, just stating a fact.

That was Wednesday. Friday I get a call from "Dave" at a 604 number apologizing for the trouble and that "I assure you that your billing date has been changed. Sorry for the inconvience."

I thanked him, but wasn't exactly my usual chipper sweet self. Nothing sucky, though - at all.

I guess if you leave comments, they actually do listen to them!

2 Days later receive a text from collections. “You are currently over-due and your phone will be disconnected without immediate payment”.

Call collections, they can't help me. Apparently I have to pay my bill in full before they'll change the billing date. Where the hell did that come from?

DAMMIT! Feed the kitty again! $350 same week as rent, etc.

During all this time, I’ve been paying late because I’ve been assured that the billing due date has been changed.

Call again. CSR – “Oh, yes, I see that you have requested the change. Let's see what we can do.”

Nope – stop right there! Been there, done this. Done, done, done!!!

Request to escalate (I've been coming here to CS long enough to be very polite and ask to speak to a Manager).

Explain the situation, and then - brainstorm, “While we’re at it, let’s check and see if the discount and the change in internet speed has been applied to my account, shall we?” (Okay – I admit, I was fuming about the billing date and hadn’t checked to see if the discount and internet had been changed).

You can see where this is going – can’t you? Can’t you?

I’m sure you can. You’re all smart people here!

Aarghhhhhhhhhhh!

Sincere apologies. Discount has now been applied retroactive to July. Internet changed and discounted retroactive to July and billing date changed.

I explained, rather tersely, that if it wouldn’t cost me $200/cell to cancel, I would be out of the contract faster than Homer Simpson eating a donut (stuck ‘til Nov/10 and lookin' already!).

I politely, if rather clenched teethly (couldn't think of another word and already used tersely) ask if something could be done as compensation for all my difficulties.

Ending to the story? I get 3 months of free in-coming calls .

Actually – is this the end? It’s almost the new month. Wanna bet I don’t get a call on the 2nd or 3rd requesting payment?

Stand by!

[spookysonata]

OMG. Just how hard is it to do your goddamn job? Really.

[Andara Bledin]

Are they related to AT&T at all?

That seriously sounds suspiciously close to some of the saga my work is still going through with them.

^-.-^

[otakuneko]

OMG. Just how hard is it to do your goddamn job? Really.

Depending on the system involved, potentially very hard. The rep may THINK he's made the requested changes, yet they don't go through... As tech support, I received calls resulting from a billing error shutting off someone's service. It sucked, but I couldn't do jack for them, and billing was only open M-F 8-5. There were a lot of those calls. Too damned many. When I was doing DSL, any incoming call had a 90% chance of being a password/PPPoE issue, 8% chance of being a billing issue, and 2% chance of being something completely different.

Recently called TWC to update the expiration date on the card I use to pay for it -- hopefully next month, they won't try to bill an expired card.

3 months of incoming calls doesn't sound like much to me. But then, I don't use my phone much.

[spookysonata]

Depending on the system involved, potentially very hard. The rep may THINK he's made the requested changes, yet they don't go through...

How does that happen? I'm incredibly curious about this for some reason. Is the rep dumb, and doesn't understand how to make these changes, or does he have to forward a request to someone else who doesn't know how/doesn't do their job?

Seems like pissing off their customers is their REAL job.

[Stormraven]

Well, from my own experience in Customer Service, bureaucracy. Very often, you can't just make a change - you have to get it approved before you actually make the change itself.

So, depending on the change, you might have to write up what you want to change, and to what account, send it to your supervisor for signature, then when you get it back, perform the change.

Any number of things could happen. Wrong account number, supervisor can't sign it / doesn't notice it before they leave, etc. If they do sign it, most likely they'll just drop it into your in-box, and if something else lands there, you might not see it until the next day or later.

[DeltaSierra]

If the computer system Rogers reps use is ANYTHING like their main website, I can totally see it happening. Their website is the single WORST of any company I have ever used. Logins will repeatedly time out or end up with a 404 error. Clicking on links to make payments or query your accounts will have you directed to some totally different section of the site. You can get 4 different quotes for the same services, depending on how you ask for them, etc etc. Its absolutely crazy and I can't wait until my contract is up with them this Feb to get the hell out of Dodge. This is a company that provides internet service and they can't even maintain their own website.

Check out this: http://www.randomprocess.ca/2007/03/...-system-sucks/

[otakuneko]

How does that happen? I'm incredibly curious about this for some reason. Is the rep dumb, and doesn't understand how to make these changes, or does he have to forward a request to someone else who doesn't know how/doesn't do their job?

Seems like pissing off their customers is their REAL job.

Sometimes, the tool itself is flakey, others, the tool is poorly designed, still other times a rep may make a change and it takes effect, but later either a human or automated system reverts it back.

A few examples....

If I reset a password one someone's account, (and remember, 90% of my calls when I was doing DSL were password issues: modem couldn't authenticate with the PPPoE server) they absolutely had to change the password after I gave it to them. The password I provided (random string) would expire in 30 days. Or so I was told and began to suspect.

In the early days on FIOS, our tool for mucking about with people's phone options was a bit on the flaky side. It might show a change, but the change not actually take effect.

Later on, using the same tool, I as a tech support rep technically had the ability to add (and remove) features to a user's phone line. However, if I did, billing would later catch and revert my changes. I often had to make use of this ability anyway, for example if a caller wanted their voicemail disabled, I could do that -- but they'd have to call billing to make sure it STAYED that way. True story.

Fortunately word spread pretty quickly about that tool, and we'd hedge our bets when talking to callers, and always make sure to tell them to confirm with billing about changes to their phone stuff. I usually told them "I can break it so it doesn't work, but be sure to call billing to get it off of your bill."

There was also a period of time where our internet access was so locked down we couldn't even use ping.

There were many times when, having finished with a caller and sitting their finishing up the ticket to be sent up the line, the ticketing software would crash, sometimes in such a way as it was unclear whether or not the ticket posted. (On FIOS, we figured the initials for our software stood for "Crashed Again, Dammit") If we still had some of the caller's info we MIGHT be able to check and see, but most often, we didn't have it.

From the overall volume of billing issue calls I received on both fios and dsl, I could make one of two assumptions:

1. The entire billing department was staffed by clones of IPF's co-workers
2. The billing department's software was worse than ours. Oh, and there were also significant numbers of NumbNuts clones working there too.

Not to say rep incompetence is never a factor -- it most certainly is -- but it's not always the rep's fault.

[Mystic]

Maybe a dumb question to you, but what prevents you from putting the money you get in the middle of the month aside for the bill to pay at the beginning of the following month? Moving the date won't exactly give you more money when you have the same amount going out each month.

[Andara Bledin]

How does that happen? I'm incredibly curious about this for some reason. Is the rep dumb, and doesn't understand how to make these changes, or does he have to forward a request to someone else who doesn't know how/doesn't do their job?

Well, if they're anything like AT&T, most of their (AT&T's) sub-companies (the baby bells they bought up) aren't actually integrated except very tenuously. The poor reps sometimes have to go through elaborate rituals to their IT gods, and often, they are deemed unworthy and the changes they initiated in their systems just plain fail.

^-.-^

[TOLady]

Maybe a dumb question to you, but what prevents you from putting the money you get in the middle of the month aside for the bill to pay at the beginning of the following month? Moving the date won't exactly give you more money when you have the same amount going out each month.

The problem was that I had ALL of my bills due in the same 1 week period. I get paid every two weeks. That means I had one paycheck to pay all my bills - including rent and other stuff and then had to use my next paycheck to cover my day-to-day expenses.

Having the payment dates spread out means that I don't have to scramble for that first week to cover every bill I have?

BTW - Here's the update...

Got the bill yesterday. The billing date is indeed now the 18th of the month!!!! Hooray!!!

However, noticed that the internet connection was still set up for Extreme!

Called. Very calm, I must say (but then again, I've been coming here for a while a now know how to approach a situation like this - thanks so much to everyone on this website and I really mean that!!!!)

I'm also sick as a dog right now. Damn people coming into work when they're sick - ohhhh I have to finish this project (hack, hack, hack, cough, cough) but that's a rant for another day.

In any case - spoke to the CSR about it and she was bending over backwards so much I thought she was going to hurt herself. I guess the number of times that I've called does show up.

Long story short - the internet is being changed (for sure this time) and we get a $50 credit!!!

Happy, happy, joy, joy!


Another BTW - I don't blame the CSRs at all. I truly believe it's the sytem that R*****s uses. It just doesn't make it easy for the CSRs to make the changes that are requested.

Why they didn't downgrade us from extreme to light after the 4th call I made - I don't know. I'm just wondering how many other people out there have asked for the change. didn't get it, and are still paying for it and don't check or ask for a refund.

Now back to bed and a bowl of chicken soup!

[infinitemonkies]

to paraphrase Churchill: "Rogers is the worst service provider there is, except for all the other ones."

My cellphone service is through rogers, and personally, I have no complaints about it. I wouldn't go so far as to say I like them, but rather I dislike them slightly less than all of their competitors.

I will agree though, when asking for anything to change, it usually takes 4-6 "ok, that's all taken care of for you" before anything actually does happen. Also, the accounting department seems to encourage creativity and imagination among its staff. I find it more than a little curious that every time there is an error or mistake on my bill, usually once or twice a year, it's never in my favor. Personally, I suspect they do it on purpose, and make a very large profit off of those who don't pay enough attention to notice.

On the other hand, in my area rogers has the best cell reception and coverage by a large margin. And any problems I do have with customer service/billing/tech support are just as bad or worse with any competitor.



Rogers doesn't do internet or cable in this area, just cellular service. I don't watch television; I just rent, borrow or buy dvds. Last spring, my ISP offered me 3 months of cable free as a trial, cancel any time, or start getting billed for it after the 3rd month. Except they didn't notify me about it. From march to may I had free cable, but I had no idea.

Here's the thing though: throughout the summer I get my usual bill for internet service, and pay it on time and in full. In september, I get a bill for my usual internet charge, and also an extra $300 for cable tv service applied retroactively for june, july and august, even though it had not been mentioned in any way on those bills.

Ensue argument with billing dept which ends with an apology & all cable tv charges being removed after I calmly and politely give them a little lecture on the finer points of the Generally Accepted Accounting Practices and threaten litigation for mail fraud.

[otakuneko]

I guess the number of times that I've called does show up.

On DSL we didn't get to see an explicit number, but we could easily (and were required to) pop up the notes from previous calls.

On FIOS we did see a number, indicating how many calls in the last few days, and again were required to at least make it look like we were looking at previous notes. Supposedly if the number turned red (around 4 I think) we were supposed to bend over backwards and do everything possible to fix that caller's issue. Given that a lot of times, repeat calls weren't actually caused by the same problem not being resolved but rather multiple problems or just caller stupidity, we kinda ignored it a lot.

I imagine most if not all callcenters have that.

[Hyndis]

Depending on the system involved, potentially very hard. The rep may THINK he's made the requested changes, yet they don't go through... As tech support, I received calls resulting from a billing error shutting off someone's service. It sucked, but I couldn't do jack for them, and billing was only open M-F 8-5. There were a lot of those calls. Too damned many. When I was doing DSL, any incoming call had a 90% chance of being a password/PPPoE issue, 8% chance of being a billing issue, and 2% chance of being something completely different.

Recently called TWC to update the expiration date on the card I use to pay for it -- hopefully next month, they won't try to bill an expired card.

3 months of incoming calls doesn't sound like much to me. But then, I don't use my phone much.

Had this happen to me. I had Verizon at the time, and unfortunately still have it. I wanted to update the name on the account to who they'd send the bill to. Same account, same address, same service, same family. Person who's name was previously on the account said she agreed to it on the phone. Put down my info instead of hers, everything seemed fine.

It wasn't. The next day I lost all service, including phone, internet, and TV. I had been a customer with them, same setup and everything, for about 5 years at that point.

They disconnected all service for almost 2 months because the account had been canceled.

Also, they told me that I am not eligible to receive service in that area, and unfortunately their DSL connections are up to full capacity in my area, so they could put me on a waiting list and they might be able to hook me up in 6-12 months time.



I spent a very, very large amount of time on the phone with them to try to fix the problem. I admit I did become rather sucky at the time. But after 3 weeks of calling 4-5 times a week, I was completely enraged at their incompetence.

[TOLady]

Another freakin' update

I spent a very, very large amount of time on the phone with them to try to fix the problem. I admit I did become rather sucky at the time. But after 3 weeks of calling 4-5 times a week, I was completely enraged at their incompetence.

I have to admit, myself, I almost lost it today...

Update...

I'm still home sick with the flu.

Got dressed and went to check the mail.

Guess what - R****s bill in the mail.

Bill due date - 24th of November.

Sent date - October 28th.

Remember that I posted above that I received a bill with the new billing date and was so thrilled!!!!

New bill also has the old “extreme high speed” system.

My total bill is also almost $120 more since they took the charges from the 1st to 18th and then recalculated the outstanding balance for my “new due date” and added the new amount to the 24th!

FUCKKKKKKKK!

So - I have to pay another freakin' $346.97 by the end of the month instead of the $238 that was due on the 18th and then continuing for $238 - $250!

I have been assured that everything is now okay and that I will not have to pay any late charges. Just pay everything by the end of the month!

Assured my ass!

What the CSR said to me...

"Well - you would still have to pay that amount to us anyway. It doesn’t make a difference in when you pay it. It still gets put towards your account. If you pay it late, we'll refund the late payment to you."

It still means that my payment is going to be late.

I changed the payment date and the extreme to lite in order to reduce my payments.

It's been this way since August.

As well – the extreme was still NOT change to Lite. Apparently, they’ve refunded me again for now 3 months of that and they are giving me free incoming-outgoing calls for 3 months.

I’m still pissed off. What does it take?

I've been as nice as I can.

Stay freakin’ tuned! Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Sorry, thanks for letting me vent.