I recently moved further north, to a remote little area not well populated.  In fact, my house doesn’t even have phone jacks and the township doesn’t even plow to my driveway on my road in the winter!  Enough said.  I opted for a Rogers Rocket Hub, to provide me with both telephone and internet capabilities.

Thankfully, we are on enough of a hill, that the service works (not too bad, but with some more tweaking at the company level, we’ll get this working even better).  It’s not bad though.

The first bill arrived yesterday.  It was over $300!  I just about ditched the van!  I was in shock!

The breakdown, so you can keep up to speed with me:  $20 for unlimited long distance.  So, I wasn’t charged for anything like that.  And, my regular Flex-Rate plan for internet, depends on usage.  But, what’s this DL (download) with a company which offers ring tones!  Over $117.  And text messaging?  I don’t have text messaging and I don’t have ring tones. (the balance was for part of one month, and advance on the next).

So what happened?  The phone number assigned to me, only a few weeks ago to my Rocket Hub phone number, was formerly somebody else’s cell phone number.  Believe it or not, the cell phone number which the former person had, was only out of service about THREE WEEKS!

This meant, that every service, premium or otherwise, which the person had before me subscribed too, was following the number!  It went right to the next owner of the phone number, which is ME!

Believe it or not, it is true.  I have the bill to back it up.  It is even written on the actual Rogers bill, the third party (a website and 877 phone number) to contact them.

When we contacted the 877 number, the lady on the other end was VERY helpful and acknowledged that there ‘could be’ an error, and she was ‘refunding me $20 to cover the cost.’  But wait a minute, the cost was over $117, how was $20 going to cover the cost?

She simply said, that was the best she could offer, but what she couldn’t understand was ‘how it could be $117, because their services only bill at a rate of $10 to $13 per MONTH!’  So, the best she could refund, was what she considered about two months worth of services, at $10/month.  Just trying to please the customer.

So, back to Rogers.  We called them back, and to this point, they were only willing to reduce the erroneous charge by 50%.  I said to the very patient Rogers employee, “you don’t understand, YOU (meaning Rogers) and I, are being billed, by a third party company, for charges YOU can’t explain and you are not wondering who, what, when, how, and why this could be happening?”  I said, “you know Rogers may be able to take a loss of $50 odd dollars, but that’s groceries for my family! and I can’t afford to have this happen or be repeated!”  He was patient, I have to admit.  I was not yelling at him, but I was very frustrated.  When we called back, the Roger’s employee, ‘this time’ we called, KNEW EXACTLY about this type of charge (how interesting, that one employee knew and the other had me on hold for near an hour, trying to get some help, in order to assist me!).  The second employee, QUICKLY gave me a complete reversal of ALL funds from the third party.  AND looked to next month
s bill, and found charges that would be added to then, as well.  (she took next months third party charges off already!)  Then, I requested my phone number be changed to one that has not been in use for a longer period of time.

Bottom line #1:  when being assigned a phone number, ASK when it was last in use.  Get one that is VERY old, to avoid this nightmare!

Bottom line #2: Read your bills very closely!  This third party, appeared like a ‘normal’ charge on this bill.  Had this not been my first bill, I may have not noticed it… but I was waiting to see the cost of operating the Hub; so I was scrutinizing more carefully.

Bottom line #3:  Don’t take the first deal that a company offers you.  The 50% was NOT okay.  100% was what was appropriate… if you are entitled to a refund, get the entire amount, don’t settle because someone isn’t “authorized” to give you more back.  If it’s your money, and there is no doubt about that, then get the supervisor if you need to.  Money is not free, don’t let a big company weasel their way to keeping what is yours.  (and Rogers was not trying to weasel this time, it was simply that this person didn’t have authority to place more of a credit on my bill; so he said.  I try to remain non-confrontational about it).

Bottom line #4:  Share with your friends about this story, because they may be paying for something that they really aren’t using!

I am very happy with the service which both companies provided, both the third party, and Rogers.  I was patient with them both, and they worked to get this fixed.

If you require more information, because you have seen something on your Rogers bill show up and you think that this all sounds familiar; please message me, and I will be happy to confirm if that is the same company.  I don’t want to give them extra press or advertise their name.

Best wishes, happy savings.

P.S.  The first employee at Rogers also admitted, his findings into this matter proved that this service wasn’t even able to be utilized on the Rogers Hub.  That’s because it was for a cell phone number!  Not, a regular phone number.  The thing is, that the Rocket Hub, is wireless.  So, that means you are being assigned a number which ‘could have been’ a cell phone number in the past… because technically; it’s not a land line.

If you are considering a Rocket Hub, I can tell you that it works and I am in the middle of no where.  I run my computer (wireless) off of it to power the internet and my cordless phones.  They plug into the Hub itself and everything is cordless (except where it plugs the main parts into the Hub and wall outlet).  So, there is alternative to long distance for phone calls.  All Canada, $20 a month, unlimited.  not a bad deal; given that EVERYONE is now long distance to me!  LOL