As some of you have known, I had cancelled my Rogers contract a month ago to get my iPhone.  At the time it was the only way for a new and current client of Rogers to get an iPhone, before waiting for their “upgrade window” to come (usually 12 months).  A week after my cancellation and move over to Fido (to keep my current number), Rogers changed their policy to allow current clients with a good standing record after 3 months to upgrade their phone.

I wasn’t too pleased with them, yet again, and filed a complain with the Better Business Bureau.  I had thought nothing would come of this.

On Friday I received a call from Rogers regarding my complain. Rogers, being them, played dumb and asked me why I should get my money back when I “signed a contract”.  I quickly let “Rosie” know that the reason I was wanting my money back was because they changed the rules a week after I cancelled.  Rosie of course was saying that I had already a subsidized phone and thus was responsible for the $400 cancellation fee.  I told her Rogers themselves said the only way for me to get the iPhone was to cancel my contract. She asked me for proof of this. I wasn’t sure I had the email still from Rogers that told me to do just that, so she offered to return $200 back to me to satisfy the complaint.

I have found the email which stated:

In your recent email, you have informed us that you are disappointed
that you cannot upgrade your current cell phone to the new iPhone.

We do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

You would be able to upgrade to the iPhone after 12 months of your
current contract as we allow an upgrade once a year if needed.

The iPhone 3G pricing is competitive and as you’ve read, it’s a heavily
subsidized model:

The maximum early cancellation fee is $400, the 8GB model is $199,
that’s $600. To compare, that’s the original price of iPhone 2G and this
one is twice as fast.

$600 is also well within the range of a variety of our unsubsidized
smartphones today (BB Curve $549.99; Nokia N95 is $689.99).

Gotcha!

I think I’ll have my full $400 back please and thank you! I’ll be calling Rosie on Monday and send her the lovely email.

UPDATE:

Well it looks like now they don’t want to return any money to me and have said they will close off their files on this matter? WTF?!!!!  When speaking with Rosey, she claimed now that the fee stays. I wanted to speak to her supervisor, but of course she wasn’t there so I left a message and have yet to hear back from her after 1 day.

I’m still going to fight this.  Who’s with me?!

Today I was catching up on my RSS Feeds and I came across this interesting blog post by John Beihler.  It looks like Rogers has changed their rules on upgrading your phone.  As you are all probably aware I have been trying to get an iPhone from Rogers and they have refused to let me do so until my 12 months were up.  Last week I had said “screw you” and cancelled my contract (which they had suggested) and went over to Fido and picked up an iPhone.  But oh no Rogers has to say “no screw you” and throw this in my face.

What is a boy to do?

I’m not sure they will revert my cancellation fee back as I know they will say that I cancelled from Rogers and moved over to Fido.  Granted if I stayed with Rogers themselves they might have returned the fee back.

Should I be surprised at this.  I don’t think so.  I think Rogers finally realized that they have pissed off so many of their clients and they are fearing that people will just let their contracts run out and wait for the new players to come into the market.  I think this is their way to secure customers for another 3 years which will make it difficult for the new players to get customers.

Time will tell and see if Rogers will let my cancellation fee go, but I think hell will freeze over first before that happens.

Well Rogers you did it! You have crushed my dreams of owning an iPhone.  How does that make you feel? What’s that? You don’t care? Yeah I figured as much.

I have been going back and forth with Rogers this past week trying to attempt to get an iPhone.

First they tell me I’m not able to upgrade until I have been with them for 12 months.  When I question this and let them know that they are treating their “new customers” like dirt, they return with another offer.  What is that offer? Cancel your contract and pay $400 and then get a new three year contract and start like a new customer.  I’m not at that point yet.

My hopes grew when a friend referred me to FIDO’s site and they have “something in the works” for people who don’t qualify for an upgrade and are new customers.

When I questioned Rogers on this, their response:

We are unsure of what FIDO is planning, however, be advised that the terms for obtaining the phone are the same between FIDO and Rogers. We do not have any information about anything planned in the future by FIDO and the IPhone, nor at the present time does Rogers. This product has been available for less than a week now and the terms are still applicable.

What? As a parent company you have *no* idea what is in the works?

I think my frustration is more on the “hush hush” that Rogers has. I think if they just open up and tell people that something is in the works that would be great!

I’m even willing to pay a premium to get the iPhone now, but just not willing to spend $400 and cancel and then renew again.

At this point my dreams have been crushed.  We’ll see how I feel in a few days, weeks or months.

As a new Rogers customer I feel like I’m in prison waiting for my parol hearing to come in 12 months to decide if I qualify for the phone.

I fully regret signing up with Rogers and I should have gone with FIDO long time ago!

I have signed it, you should too!

Update: Based on their Facebook page, this site has been blocked by Rogers (no surprise here), but you can still access the site via a webproxy. When I did and looked at their blog, it looks like the they have a new DNS and will need about 48 hours for it populate.

It also looks like Rogers might be caving in and saying you can use any data plans now and any voice plans. I wonder then if the $7/month unlimited websurfing would work then.

It’s official. Today Rogers announced that the Apple iPhone is coming to Canada this year. Though not much more was said, I’m definitely excited about it finally arriving officially in Canada.

Of course the questions on how much it will be and how much the data plan will be still remains to be seen. As well the launch date wasn’t mentioned. I hope the phone won’t cost over $600, but with our luck it probably will be. It will most likely be the 3G version of the phone which is suppose to be launched sometime this summer.

I was hoping to have gotten the scoop ahead of time from my niece (who works at Rogers), but alas she was tight lipped about the whole thing. Maybe she can make it up to me by sending me an iPhone when it arrives.

So it has been about 2 weeks now that I have switched over to Rogers from Telus. I have to say the process was very easy and luckily now I can keep my same cell phone number.

I was told by the Rogers rep that someone from Rogers would be calling me in a weeks time to follow up on the activation and process. I have to admit I was looking forward to getting that call, but alas no one has called me yet. On top of this, I was actually expecting Telus to follow up with me as well to see why I had switched; they haven’t called me either. I’m starting to feel like I wasn’t important enough for either of them.

I did receive my bills from both this past week and I have a full month to pay on both. How does that work I wonder? Am I paying one month ahead for Rogers and one month behind for Telus? I am finding it hard to get through my Rogers invoice. I guess after 7 years with Telus I’ve become accustom to their invoices and I should get use to their invoice soon. I also did register on-line to view my invoices, but I have yet to see my current invoice on-line (though I can see my current balance).

Oh well time will tell.

Well I did it.  Yesterday I took the plunge and changed my cellphone company from Telus to Rogers.  I’ve been thinking of switching from sometime (read my to Blackberry or not to Blacberry post) and after much thought I did.  Now to my surprise I’m on even better plan than I was with Telus.  For roughly the same price (maybe $5 more) I’m actually getting weeknight and weekends for free! WOOHOO!

I did get the Sony Ericsson w580i which is a cool phone, but alas it doesn’t sync with my MacBook Pro.  This even after the sales person said it would sync with my calender.  What I will say it does, via the bluetooth and USB cables, is allows me to access files from my phone.  Now I hope Apple will include this phone in their iSync since they include many other Sony Ericsson phones.

At any rate this will set me up for when the iPhone officially launches in Canada, but I might have to wait until their lawsuit is finished.  Which might be a good thing as we’ll have a second generation phone.