Billing vs. marketing vs. me
I was just about to pay my Rogers Cable TV bill when I noticed something amiss: the Digital Terminal and Digital Services fees added up to $7.48 (they were $4.49 and $2.99 respectively), but my “VIP Discount” was only $6.98. This bothered me because in the past my VIP Discount exactly cancelled out those two fees.
I called Rogers customer service, who did a pretty good job with my call: the first-tier agent gave me enough information to convince me that my total was correct and only the breakdown was wrong, but because I still was unhappy she passed me on to someone in the “management office” who explained the whole story. Apparently Marketing had decided to raise the digital terminal rental by 50 cents for everyone, so that non-VIP customers would pay $4.49 instead of $3.99 while VIP customers would pay 50 cents instead of zero.
I objected that the bill explicitly stated that my VIP Cable package included a free digital terminal: “Your VIP Cable package includes ... first digital terminal (from $4.49), Digital Services Fee, ...”. Guess what: it does, if you look at it just the right way. This price change was made at the same time as another price increase, that of VIP Cable. VIP Cable programming went up by $2.50 and digital terminal by $0.50, for a total increase of $3. (If I didn’t have a digital terminal I’d save 50 cents a month. Plus tax.) But if you look at it another way, the increase was $3, which includes a 50-cent credit toward the higher digital terminal fee. Multiple answers with no official contradictions: these people should start a religion.
If you haven’t followed all this, that’s ok: the point is that the total is correct but the breakdown is misleading. (What they really need is to tell their billing system that there are now two VIP Cable programming products, one analog and one digital, with slightly different prices. But perhaps their billing system can’t handle it.) I suggested to the “management office” person that he pass this complaint on so that clarifying the bill could be looked into. He obviously didn't want to so I badgered him and he said that he would run it by his management, but I’m not holding my breath. He knows, as I know, that hardly anybody actually reads their bills and insists on understanding them. But as I pointed out to him, most people who think something may be wrong won’t call Rogers; they’ll just hate Rogers, unfairly in this case.
I called Rogers customer service, who did a pretty good job with my call: the first-tier agent gave me enough information to convince me that my total was correct and only the breakdown was wrong, but because I still was unhappy she passed me on to someone in the “management office” who explained the whole story. Apparently Marketing had decided to raise the digital terminal rental by 50 cents for everyone, so that non-VIP customers would pay $4.49 instead of $3.99 while VIP customers would pay 50 cents instead of zero.
I objected that the bill explicitly stated that my VIP Cable package included a free digital terminal: “Your VIP Cable package includes ... first digital terminal (from $4.49), Digital Services Fee, ...”. Guess what: it does, if you look at it just the right way. This price change was made at the same time as another price increase, that of VIP Cable. VIP Cable programming went up by $2.50 and digital terminal by $0.50, for a total increase of $3. (If I didn’t have a digital terminal I’d save 50 cents a month. Plus tax.) But if you look at it another way, the increase was $3, which includes a 50-cent credit toward the higher digital terminal fee. Multiple answers with no official contradictions: these people should start a religion.
If you haven’t followed all this, that’s ok: the point is that the total is correct but the breakdown is misleading. (What they really need is to tell their billing system that there are now two VIP Cable programming products, one analog and one digital, with slightly different prices. But perhaps their billing system can’t handle it.) I suggested to the “management office” person that he pass this complaint on so that clarifying the bill could be looked into. He obviously didn't want to so I badgered him and he said that he would run it by his management, but I’m not holding my breath. He knows, as I know, that hardly anybody actually reads their bills and insists on understanding them. But as I pointed out to him, most people who think something may be wrong won’t call Rogers; they’ll just hate Rogers, unfairly in this case.
posted by Rohan Jayasekera @ 3:51 PM
1 Comments:
At Thursday, January 17, 2008 10:30:00 o'clock AM EST ,
Anonymous said...
Hi,
I've noticed the item 'Digital Services Fee' recently and I wonder what its all about. Is it similar to the 'network access fee' that's tacked on to most cell phone fees? In the case of the cell phone fee this can be removed from your account if you bitch enough.
My point being: Has Rogers come up with a similar scheme to 'nickel and dime' us?
I have asked Rogers about this and was informed that everybody pays this and it cannot be removed. That's it?!
Thanks for the forum.
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