City
Torstar to Rogers: Stop peeing in our ears and calling it rain
So the second wave of Bills in Toronto action was a bit of a dud. The stadium wasn't full, and the game wasn't exactly a thrill. This is the message the Toronto Star delivered to its readership yesterday, in an article titled "Bills game was much hype, little excitement".
But what I found to be far more intriguing was the scathing attack sports writer Dave Perkins unleashed on their big media competitor Rogers (highlighted above).
Perkins didn't stop at accusing the event promoters (who are under the umbrella of Rogers) of being dishonest about the Bills in Toronto event; he went as far as suggesting that Rogers can't be trusted at all.
While I've had my fair share of beefs with some of the media outlets and services in the Rogers family, I'm not sure that I'd go so far as saying that the organization as a whole completely lacks credibility. I do, however, think it's worth scrutinizing the cross-property promotional efforts they dish out, especially when said promotional efforts are disingenuous.
How will Rogers repond? Will they get some lawyers involved? Will they volley the accusations back at Torstar in the pages of one of their many competing media outlets?
Incidentally, on a somewhat related note, I spent over an hour on the phone yesterday with Rogers. They had erroneously charged my mobile phone account $50, twice, and it took a lot of effort and frustration to have the charges reversed. Next time I call Rogers customer support, I assure you...I will be recording the call for my own quality control purposes!
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On another note, Fido's new plans aren't exactly new; they've just copied Telus' Koodo plans. Plus the fine print points out that the new plans will require a $25 'set-up' fee for EXISTING Fido customers prior to Nov 4th, 2008 and they'll start tracking time once you push the 'call' button, regardless if the recipient picks up your call or not. I'm so ticked off.
I can't wait for new GSM service providers in Toronto. Where's Vodafone and 3?! =(
And if people didn't like the lame tailgate party junk around the dome then woopdy doo who cares.
It was a regular season game. Wtf were people expecting?
But the lies about it selling out are annoying.
Next time you call press the button for French. 9 times out of 10 you'll end up with an operator within seconds who resides in Canada and speaks English as a first language (if the company is Montreal based they may not speak English that well however).
The best part is that because they are outsourced less often they usually have more authority to actually help you with your problem. Just say that you must have hit the wrong button and it's unlikely they'll refuse your call.
If you still can't get someone to address the issue, chances are you're still talking to people who aren't technically Rogers employees. They can only do so much. Even managers and supervisors at these call centres have little or no power. Look or ask for an email for someone who actually works for the company (it's unlikely they'll give you a phone number). It might take a few days for a response, but you can usually get further with a quick email than spending hours on a phone.
Oh, and there were tons of empty seats at the game. Good seats and bad. I assumed they were all sold and people just didn't show up, but it looks like the sell-out claim was bogus after all.
That being said, I had a great time. If the price-point wasn't so high, it would've been a smashing success, in my opinion.
Oh, and some people paid over $500/ticket for the Bills game in Toronto. I buy my Bills season tickets for $375. Yeah, that's a ticket to EVERY regular-season home game plus one pre-season game. Whether they're lying about the sell-out or not, it's clear Rogers is gouging football fans in this city.
I called, and one customer service rep didn't listen to my question, proceeded to interrupt me at every turn, and yell at me, and refuse to answer my pretty simple query by referencing how their 'policy' didn't allow it, and NOBODY would answer it no matter who I talked to.
I called back immediately (full of unhappy) and a differnet, nice guy answered my question in like two minutes, solved the problem completely.
The pattern: I certainly can't find one.
Rogers was nearly as bad, and lately their cable Internet service has been so sketchy (particularly after the price increase, and then a few months later the speed bump, followed by the bandwidth cap) that I'm starting to look around for affordable alternatives.
I fail to see how any Canadian consumer can deal with Rogers (or most of its competitors, for that matter) for more than one or two transactions without coming away with an impression of corruption.
Telus in sheeps' clothing.
I've already started hearing bad things about them.
Someone needs to do more than take Rogers to task, it seems like people ought to be taking them to court en masse. Does anyone have any insight as to what sort of real recourse we might have against actually fraudulent behaviour on the part of the country's largest corporations? (Waiting for politicians to do anything obviously not being an option.)
Also, I worked at the "tailgate" party, and it even seemed like a total crock from the staff side of the tables. The $6 beers on top of the restrictive liquor laws and insane game ticket prices was an awful lot of billshit and probably took away the only part of football that's actually any fun to many of these people... and no doubt the $6 pricing cut into the tips that would've ended up in my pocket. Scam-o-rama all around.