Fido / Rogers (Canadian provider) to charge $10 for customer support that can be done by customers on their own

[Derangel]

4 hours ago, kokakolia said:

I agree. The Koodo (Fido competitor) system is very unhelpful. You basically have a limited number of questions with answers. It’s nothing more than a fancy FAQ. It’s seldom helpful. That is not the future IMHO. 

The big problem is these companies outsource the design of their automated systems to the lowest bidder and only demand the minimal amount of effort be expended so the system just barely qualifies as “working”. I have never seen a good phone or website based automated help system.

[Tsuki]

22 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

Now they are going to charge people for not using the self checkout at grocery stores too. I hate dealing with automated systems and would rather talk to someone. I shouldn't have to pay for customer service. 

there are actually a lot of stores in my area, that are self checkout only.  they no longer have normal checkstands.  and with that, they only have one person managing a group of 10 stations.  which means i have to wait forever for somebody to tell the computer to shut the fuck up because it doesnt like that i put the item in the bag.  

[Brooksie359]

1 hour ago, Tsuki said:

there are actually a lot of stores in my area, that are self checkout only.  they no longer have normal checkstands.  and with that, they only have one person managing a group of 10 stations.  which means i have to wait forever for somebody to tell the computer to shut the fuck up because it doesnt like that i put the item in the bag.  

Yeah I dont have a single store like that in my area. All of then have a normal checkout lane as well as self checkout lanes. 

[Drak3]

1 hour ago, Tsuki said:

there are actually a lot of stores in my area, that are self checkout only.  they no longer have normal checkstands.  and with that, they only have one person managing a group of 10 stations.  which means i have to wait forever for somebody to tell the computer to shut the fuck up because it doesnt like that i put the item in the bag.  

In the place where the general populace wasn't trusted to pump their own gas? Damn that was a fast 180 for Oregon.

[aezakmi]

On 3/24/2019 at 5:27 PM, Raskolnikov said:

Canadian providers are thieves

 

south american ISPs:

[Tsuki]

5 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

In the place where the general populace wasn't trusted to pump their own gas? Damn that was a fast 180 for Oregon.

right?  in my area, home depot is entirely self check out, walmart is almost there, and a few other places.

on the plus side, in 15 counties you can self pump any time, and in 3 more you can self pump after hours (and people are still mad about it cuz "I shouldnt have to do it myself" lazy fuckers)

[Drak3]

Just now, Tsuki said:

on the plus side, in 15 counties you can self pump any time, and in 3 more you can self pump after hours (and people are still mad about it cuz "I shouldnt have to do it myself" lazy fuckers)

Thank god I don't live in Oregon.

[IntMD]

22 hours ago, schwellmo92 said:

I thought you were exaggerating so I looked at Fido’s plans, wow they’re really bad. Phone plans in my country cost that much about 5 years ago, mind you Canadian cable broadband is much better.

Yeah, I just had a look at some of their prepaid plans... Holy balls those prices are awful, I knew it was bad, but didn't realise it was pre 2010 bad. 1GB of data, no minutes & unlimited texts for CAD30.00 per month.

 

I don't live somewhere that is cheap for mobile plans either, but for £20.00 (approx CAD35.40) prepaid I get 20GB data & 10000 mins/texts.

[Tsuki]

Just now, Drak3 said:

Thank god I don't live in Oregon.

but hey, no sales tax!  just one of the highest income taxes in the country...

honestly i would love to move out of oregon, but my wife likes it here for some reason

[Drak3]

Just now, Tsuki said:

i would love to move out of oregon, but my wife likes it here for some reason

Move to Idaho. All the good things of Oregon, none of the 99% of the remainder of Oregon.

[Tsuki]

3 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Move to Idaho. All the good things of Oregon, none of the 99% of the remainder of Oregon.

cant smoke weed their (legally), which puts a damper on things.  although i have considered it.

[kokakolia]

1 hour ago, IntMD said:

Yeah, I just had a look at some of their prepaid plans... Holy balls those prices are awful, I knew it was bad, but didn't realise it was pre 2010 bad. 1GB of data, no minutes & unlimited texts for CAD30.00 per month.

 

I don't live somewhere that is cheap for mobile plans either, but for £20.00 (approx CAD35.40) prepaid I get 20GB data & 10000 mins/texts.

LMAO that’s cheap!!! Anywhere outside of Canada is cheap for mobile plans, comparatively. 

 

At the very very least you get more than enough data for a very affordable price. If you want more than 10Gb of data in Canada you’re looking at over $130 easily. And any Canadian plan requires you to spend another $5/month for unlimited phone calls over getting “only” 500 minutes. They also used to charge for voicemail and call display several years ago. 

[Noctus]

2 hours ago, IntMD said:

Yeah, I just had a look at some of their prepaid plans... Holy balls those prices are awful, I knew it was bad, but didn't realise it was pre 2010 bad. 1GB of data, no minutes & unlimited texts for CAD30.00 per month.

 

I don't live somewhere that is cheap for mobile plans either, but for £20.00 (approx CAD35.40) prepaid I get 20GB data & 10000 mins/texts.

 

41 minutes ago, kokakolia said:

LMAO that’s cheap!!! Anywhere outside of Canada is cheap for mobile plans, comparatively. 

 

At the very very least you get more than enough data for a very affordable price. If you want more than 10Gb of data in Canada you’re looking at over $130 easily. And any Canadian plan requires you to spend another $5/month for unlimited phone calls over getting “only” 500 minutes. They also used to charge for voicemail and call display several years ago. 

"Back in the day" (~10 years ago) you used to be able to get unlimited data/text/minutes for £15 top up for a month. Sickens me the nickle and dime dance we do in this day n age.

[kokakolia]

20 minutes ago, Noctus said:

 

"Back in the day" (~10 years ago) you used to be able to get unlimited data/text/minutes for £15 top up for a month. Sickens me the nickle and dime dance we do in this day n age.

Yeah! The simple fact that you’re comparing Canada to your country 10 years ago is sad. 

 

I dream of the day where I can use all of the data hungry apps like Spotify, YouTube etc...without concern. If you think about it, these Canadian mobile companies are slowing down the use of internet services with their stupid data plan rates. So I’m just wondering if a company like Amazon, Apple or Google would be interested in bettering the Canadian Mobile market to sell more services to Canadians. 

[kirashi]

On 3/24/2019 at 2:11 PM, Syntaxvgm said:

Always been a thing for service calls.

kinda like how comcast literally would fuck something up on the pole, fix the pole, then file it as "customer's fault" and try to charge 75$ me back in the day. 

Eh, in Canada, ISPs don't normally charge for service calls when it's anything leading up to the point where the drop enters the customers homes, which makes sense, since the customer is not legally allowed to touch lines running on the poles, or even the CPE box outside the home, as these belong to the cable company.

 

Now if we were allowed to touch these cables ourselves, I'd be on board with ISPs charging for service calls, since technically we could do it ourselves, or hire a 3rd party contractor to do it, but again, since the ISPs own these portions of cable, the onus is 100% on them to ensure the service I'm paying for works from the Node up to the entry point into my home.

On 3/24/2019 at 5:32 PM, TetraSky said:

I think you mean oligopoly here. It'd be a monopoly if there literally was only 1 provider. But there are a handful big carriers who own the infrastructure, hence an oligopole.

I'll just leave this here...

Oh, and we can't forget the one about net neutrality, especially now that Article 11 & 13 have been passed in the EU...

 

[Syntaxvgm]

10 minutes ago, kirashi said:

Eh, in Canada, ISPs don't normally charge for service calls when it's anything leading up to the point where the drop enters the customers homes, which makes sense, since the customer is not legally allowed to touch lines running on the poles, or even the CPE box outside the home, as these belong to the cable company.

 

Now if we were allowed to touch these cables ourselves, I'd be on board with ISPs charging for service calls, since technically we could do it ourselves, or hire a 3rd party contractor to do it, but again, since the ISPs own these portions of cable, the onus is 100% on them to ensure the service I'm paying for works from the Node up to the entry point into my home.

I'll just leave this here...

Oh, and we can't forget the one about net neutrality, especially now that Article 11 & 13 have been passed in the EU...

 

oh we're typically not charged either for anything past your house, Comcast just felt the need to lie about shit. Fixed the pole, never came to my house, said they did and it way my equipment. Every few months with them was an argument like this.  They were just scummy. 

[Chett_Manly]

This is very scummy. Does Canada have consumer protection for the elderly? Because this is 100% targeting them because they know they will call and likely not notice the charge!

 

 

[thorhammerz]

Oh Canada.... what exactly are we guarding again? And we have to stand?

[kokakolia]

1 hour ago, Chett_Manly said:

This is very scummy. Does Canada have consumer protection for the elderly? Because this is 100% targeting them because they know they will call and likely not notice the charge!

 

 

I feel so bad for the elderly! Because Canadian mobile companies continue to charge the consumer after the 2-year contract is over. Long story short: you’ll be indirectly paying off your phone indefinitely, even after the 2 year “tab” period if you forget to switch your plan over to BYOD (bring your own device) for lower rates. The rationale of Rogers and co. is that the provider doesn’t want to interrupt the service for the consumer. And that’s so scummy because it would be just as easy to automatically remove some of the fees after the 2 year term is over. 

 

On 3/26/2019 at 10:15 AM, Tsuki said:

right?  in my area, home depot is entirely self check out, walmart is almost there, and a few other places.

on the plus side, in 15 counties you can self pump any time, and in 3 more you can self pump after hours (and people are still mad about it cuz "I shouldnt have to do it myself" lazy fuckers)

I can rant all day about self checkout in stores: 

 

- It unloads a big chunk of the stores’ workload to the consumer. I can’t help to wonder if I should be payed to use the self-checkout. It is literally a job to scan items and bag them. Further, these self-checkouts are finicky. Why should the consumer have to troubleshoot issues or call and wait for support to spend money? It just utterly ruins the shopping experience in the name of increased savings for the store.

- It removes a social interraction between cashiers and the consumer. Any amount of small talk is invaluable for maintaining social health. Lonely people are at risk of being even more depressed and feeling isolated. 

- The quality of the service provided from a machine is far lower than a cashier, yet you pay the same price.  

[Andreas Lilja]

6 hours ago, Chett_Manly said:

This is very scummy. Does Canada have consumer protection for the elderly? Because this is 100% targeting them because they know they will call and likely not notice the charge!

 

 

No offense but time to adapt.

 

Always a line at the bank because of idiots who can't deposit or withdraw through the machine. They're not stupid, they just don't want to learn. 

[Derangel]

7 minutes ago, Raskolnikov said:

No offense but time to adapt.

 

Always a line at the bank because of idiots who can't deposit or withdraw through the machine. They're not stupid, they just don't want to learn. 

How about company's offer automated systems that aren't utterly fucking worthless? Who wants to adapt to systems that barely work, are poorly designed, and never actually provide the solutions people need?

[GoodBytes]

On 3/24/2019 at 5:09 PM, Raskolnikov said:

We do get - hopefully - shorter wait times.

You know what will happen? They'll cut the staff because there is not enough callers.

I am so glad that we don't have competition. Like the CRTC (government agency related to radio/television service and broadcasting) once said: It is bad for all Canadians to have a competitive field. I mean, it only leads to job losses and poor service... wait...

[r3d3mpt10n]

Is open access not a thing in the US and Canada? In Cape Town we have multiple open access networks. Normally 1 per sub area, sometimes more. Vumatel, Octotel, Openserve, Frogfoot, Lightspeed etc. All of which are open access. 30+ ISPs on some of them. Cell networks are a different story though. We have 4 major ones, and there's a data only one. Each of their mobile networks are also rolling out their own fibre networks. A lot of competition. The main problem in SA is the mobile data price. On Vodacom, 1gb prepaid is about $10 us and some change. We still have analogue tv available and that spectrum is needed for other things 

[Andreas Lilja]

19 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

You know what will happen? They'll cut the staff because there is not enough callers.

I am so glad that we don't have competition. Like the CRTC (government agency related to radio/television service and broadcasting) once said: It is bad for all Canadians to have a competitive field. I mean, it only leads to job losses and poor service... wait...

Tbh they improved a lot. Not a lot of offshoring anymore, you can actually understand the people over the line.

[S w a t s o n]

Not sure if it's been mentioned but Koodo, another Candian telecom has been doing this for a couple years now. They are a direct competitor with Fido (pricing and target demographic)