[if(is_geek)…]

This is part 7 of a multi-part post on my battle to get an iPhone for myself and a Blackberry Pearl Flip for my wife from Roger’s wireless. Previous episodes: Episode 1: The Phantom iPhone, Episode 2: A Lack of a Phone, Episode 3: Revenge of the Pissed, Episode 4: A New Phone, Episode 5: The Empire Bills Back, Episode 6: Return of the Mad Guy.

At the end of the previous episode, I was left with my warranty situation unresolved due to the UPS investigation not being completed. A helpful woman had agreed, after I informed her it was not my responsibility, to chase down the issue with UPS and get some resolution for me. It looked like I was finally on the way to getting a brand new phone with a full 1-year warranty. At this point I should have known better.

I received a new bill in the mail before the call (which I just knew was going to come this time) regarding the UPS resolution had a chance to come in. Upon opening the bill I was greeted with a new horror to get my blood boiling. This bill had a brand new $549 hardware upgrade charge on it. You see, they had originally charged me $250 for my new iPhone. Here now they charged me $549 for the lost/stolen replacement phone. I was given an account credit of $300 to bring the $549 down to the $250 that the phone should have been. However, they never bothered to reverse the original $250 charge. So, I was being charged $500 for a $250 phone. I dialed them up.

It took the guy on the phone 20 minutes to get everything figured out. His answer was that I was not charged $500, I was charged $250 and I was forgetting about the $300 credit. I told him I was not forgetting it. I explained that $250 + $549 – $300 was $499. The phone was supposed to be $250. He was silent. I repeated the math for him a little slower this time. He asked me to hold. I sat on hold for 20 minutes until an automated voice came on to tell me that the location was now closed and I was disconnected.

I dialed again and was connected to a call centre that was still open. A quick summary of my previous call got me a $15 account credit and a transfer to the resolve department. An automated voice told me that I could expect to wait around 30 minutes. I didn’t have 30 minutes so I hang up.

The next day I called in and asked for a transfer to the resolve department and found myself transferred to the track and trace line. The woman on the line, Kelly, told me that I did have the right place. Apparently their building is called “Resolve” so everyone calls their department that, even though it is not called that. Exciting information! I explained everything again from the top. She seemed to be following me better than the others had. She found the discount that was applied to the BlackBerry, was that the missing piece? Nope. I told her to check the dates on the various credits. Having all of the bills I had received from them in front of me while on the phone was an immense help. Telling Kelly to check the memo from a specific date allowed her to understand what they were all for in a very short time. Finally, she understood what was going on. She actually said “So, we never reversed the original $250, did we?”. Finally! Now she just needed to put a credit on my account for $249 and everything would be all good (on the billing side of things if not the warranty). Would she do it? Nope.

Kelly then told me that she could not reverse the original $250 charge because that charge was for the stolen phone and the UPS investigation was not yet complete. I asked her if she could check on the status of that in case UPS had let them know the status and no one had gotten around to calling me yet. After a brief stint on hold she returned to tell me that they had not received the investigation report from UPS because no one at Roger’s had requested it yet.

If it wasn’t for the fact that Kelly had been so good to me the whole time I had been talking to her, I would have stayed on the phone until I made her cry. I was that angry. It had been somewhere between 2 and 3 months since my first phone had disappeared and no one had bothered to contact UPS to request the investigation report. It was a huge effort to not take my frustrations out on the woman who had been very helpful up until this point, and I am glad that I was able to keep my temper in control. She continued to dig into things and found that UPS had never contacted Roger’s about the phone at all. They logged it as within the UPS network but noted that something unexpected had happened. No report of it being stolen, no indication that any follow-up was needed. At this point I cannot tell which is a worse company Roger’s or UPS.

Kelly managed to find the correct tracking number for the original MIA iPhone and she sent out the investigation report request form. She told me that it should be another 7 business days for the report to be provided and that I would need to contact Roger’s yet again to get the credit placed onto my account. I felt like arguing that they should be contacting me, but I was feeling very defeated by this point.

Kelly finished up the call by placing a $25 credit on my account for my troubles. She told me that this was the first account credit she had ever issued as she had only been there three months. I told her I was surprised that she had managed to go that long without encountering someone who was abused like I was.

Seven more business days and I’d be back on the phone…for the last time I hoped…

Update 07/13/2009: Episode 8: Resolution has been released.

Update 07/27/2009: Roger’s Wars Epilogue has been released.