Can somone explain this Rogers issue to me

[Statik]

Hey guys, so I'm running into a bit of a weird issue with Rogers and I just want some second opinions, because I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it.

 

Long story short, my SO sent me a photo of her Fido app showing the balance left on her phone was only $100, and saying how she's getting a new phone when it's up, so I decided to just check on the balance of my iPhone 8, for curiosity. To my surprise my balance is zero (aka my phone is paid for in full). Yet I'm still paying $130 every month (on the rogers website my plan is being sold for usually $95/mo, but is currently marked down to $85/mo). So I hopped on the live chat, and explained the issue to an agent. Their reply was that when you buy a phone with rogers you pay your "tab" plus your bill, and once your "tab" is empty and your phone is paid off, rogers makes no changes on their end, and you have to manually contact them and change to a "no tab plan".

 

Basically meaning if you're paying $100/mo for your plan, and $25/mo for your phone, you pay your phone off, rogers will keep charging you the original bill until you tell them not to. How the fuck is this a thing? I can't wrap my head around the fact that they can just take advantage and take money for something you don't owe them money for? That's like paying off your car in full, but until you tell the bank that they just keep taking monthly payments... Am I understanding this right? Has anyone had similar issues?

[TrueTaylor]

TAKE YOUR BUSINESS ELSEWHERE!..... Oh wait ISP's have a monopoly and dgaf

[Statik]

2 minutes ago, TrueTaylor said:

TAKE YOUR BUSINESS ELSEWHERE!..... Oh wait ISP's have a monopoly and dgaf

It's criminal. I'm still in the live chat and if I can't make any progress I might have to call in and talk to customer retention and try to bitch my way to an agreement. This country is insane.

 

I spend a few months in Eastern Europe a while back, and I paid 3 euros for a sim card, and 10 euros a month for unlimited data.

 

Isn't it like 2020, or 2021 though when the contract that keeps American providers out of Canada coming to an end? Then there will be actual competition and we can't get fucked anymore?

[IntMD]

They used to do a similar thing here, but pretty sure they stopped doing that 5+ years ago. Also, Canadians pay way too much for internet & mobile plans... Where I live there is sort of a duopoly on the mobile side but they still don't screw us over nearly as much and coverage is nearly 100% 4G+ everywhere at the minute except for in a few small random cliff areas and a couple of housing estates where people complain about the signal being crap but those same people also object when the companies try to get planning permission to put a mast anywhere sensible for that area... repeatedly (although I think I had heard that the main one of those has now been approved).

 

Fixed line internet here is overpriced compared to pretty much anywhere else in Europe, but it's generally still nowhere near as bad as prices I've heard from Canada either. This is with a monopoly on who owns the fixed lines too, although their are quite a few other providers who resell and the other mobile company will either resell fixed line or do you an unlimited mobile hotspot for you house.

[Statik]

7 minutes ago, IntMD said:

They used to do a similar thing here, but pretty sure they stopped doing that 5+ years ago. Also, Canadians pay way too much for internet & mobile plans... Where I live there is sort of a duopoly on the mobile side but they still don't screw us over nearly as much and coverage is nearly 100% 4G+ everywhere at the minute except for in a few small random cliff areas and a couple of housing estates where people complain about the signal being crap but those same people also object when the companies try to get planning permission to put a mast anywhere sensible for that area... repeatedly (although I think I had heard that the main one of those has now been approved).

 

Fixed line internet here is overpriced compared to pretty much anywhere else in Europe, but it's generally still nowhere near as bad as prices I've heard from Canada either. This is with a monopoly on who owns the fixed lines too, although their are quite a few other providers who resell and the other mobile company will either resell fixed line or do you an unlimited mobile hotspot for you house.

I'm pretty sure Canada has some of the most expensive phone plans in the world. But it's somewhat sorted now, and this is how they explained it to me.

 

When I bought my phone in March of 2018, financing "was not available". So what rogers did was they bought the phone from Apple themselves, then just added the price onto my bill. And since it wasn't a "finance plan" it was a set amount, they could just continue to charge me the same until I manually changed to a "no tab" option. It's bullshit.

 

As I was talking I shopped around but didn't find many better deals. She offered me a Loyalty plan that's exactly the same as my current one (Unlimited Talk + Text, Unlimited Data with 20GB cap) for $75/mo, which was the best deal they seemed to have, and I couldn't really find a better deal elsewhere.

 

Regardless I'm not bound via a contract anymore, and I'm heading overseas for ~6 months in about a month here, so I'm just going to freeze my phone plan, and when I come back decide how I want to proceed.

 

EDIT: My phone was also fully paid off in March of 2020, so I'm glad I caught it now, and only overpaid for 2 bills.

[IntMD]

26 minutes ago, Statik said:

I'm pretty sure Canada has some of the most expensive phone plans in the world. But it's somewhat sorted now, and this is how they explained it to me.

 

When I bought my phone in March of 2018, financing "was not available". So what rogers did was they bought the phone from Apple themselves, then just added the price onto my bill. And since it wasn't a "finance plan" it was a set amount, they could just continue to charge me the same until I manually changed to a "no tab" option. It's bullshit.

 

As I was talking I shopped around but didn't find many better deals. She offered me a Loyalty plan that's exactly the same as my current one (Unlimited Talk + Text, Unlimited Data with 20GB cap) for $75/mo, which was the best deal they seemed to have, and I couldn't really find a better deal elsewhere.

 

Regardless I'm not bound via a contract anymore, and I'm heading overseas for ~6 months in about a month here, so I'm just going to freeze my phone plan, and when I come back decide how I want to proceed.

 

EDIT: My phone was also fully paid off in March of 2020, so I'm glad I caught it now, and only overpaid for 2 bills.

Yeah, that sucks.

 

I usually just buy my phones outright to be honest, but for a SIM only pay as you go deal here, I can get 10k mins/texts per month and 20GB data for £20.00 which lasts a month and is not a great deal by any stretch of the imagination compared to most of Europe but is what happens when you are on an island that doesn't have any of the larger providers from the UK getting involved. That £20 is about CAD33 or so per month at the current exchange rate. If I was in the actual UK for the same amount of money, I could get unlimited texts, minutes & data (and they mean unlimited apparently, not like the unlimited data but actually a 20GB cap thing and their is no fair use policy while using it in the UK)

[Statik]

27 minutes ago, IntMD said:

Yeah, that sucks.

 

I usually just buy my phones outright to be honest, but for a SIM only pay as you go deal here, I can get 10k mins/texts per month and 20GB data for £20.00 which lasts a month and is not a great deal by any stretch of the imagination compared to most of Europe but is what happens when you are on an island that doesn't have any of the larger providers from the UK getting involved. That £20 is about CAD33 or so per month at the current exchange rate. If I was in the actual UK for the same amount of money, I could get unlimited texts, minutes & data (and they mean unlimited apparently, not like the unlimited data but actually a 20GB cap thing and their is no fair use policy while using it in the UK)

That's still awesome. And I think I'm going to start doing the same thing. I've always had andriods before my iPhone 8, and I've always had horrible battery issues with them after about a yearish, but my iPhone 8 is holding out better than all of my previous phones ever have, so I'm probably just going to keep it until it dies, and try to save as much money from cheaper plans as I can, then just buy my next phone outright.