Altogether it took several months and endless frustration for me to get everything sorted out with Roger’s. Going just by the numbers, I actually made some money on the whole ordeal, if you assume that all of the time I wasted was without value. Of course, all of the time I was forced to waste on this is time that I wish I had not lost. Despite the massive amount of time I have lost to this, I still think that they got the worse end of the deal. I have heard from about a dozen people who have sworn, after reading this saga, that they will never deal with Roger’s themselves. Countless other people have told me that they have made similar oaths prior to ever reading of my experiences. I just cannot understand how a company can be so cavalier about treating customers so poorly.

So, where do I find myself now? Well, there have been a few more phone calls to the beast since the official end to this saga (I consider getting them to refund half the cost of the phone to be the true resolution). First of all, it took me a while to get the two $10 / month credits working properly. At some point along the line, someone removed and re-added these credits, but they only managed to get them to stick to one phone, not both. Also, I have found it more and more difficult to actually contact them when needed. It appears that they have made it so that their 1-888-ROGERS1 number is not accessible from devices on their network. I even had a couple of other Roger’s customers I know try and they got the same “this call cannot be completed” message that I did. The number works perfectly from a land line, so they have obviously blocked access in favour of calling *611 from a Roger’s device. That would be great if they still had the *611 number listed on their site anywhere. Useful.

Finally, and perhaps most depressing, it turns out that the Blackberry Pearl flip is a ripe piece of shit. The Pearl was the sole reason why we went with Roger’s for the iPhone instead of Fido, like a few people recommended. Lindsay has had no end of trouble with the damn thing. So, maybe I didn’t come out on top after all.

I will now finally be able to get back to blogging about tech stuff without this mess hanging over me. There has been plenty I have wanted to touch on but have not because, well, I really wanted to finish this damn story once and for all. As the final word on it all, I’ll quote from a comment on Episode 8…

Here’s your epilogue, “Don’t Buy From Rogers”
–Ralph Marchildon

The last episode ended with me being seven business days from finally getting the last issue with Roger’s resolved: the missing six months of warranty. After waiting with great anticipation, I dialed the phone. Even after all of this time (four months in total by now) I was somehow still optimistic that they would finally come through for me. The number I dialed was the direct line to the Resolve department and it connected me with the ordinary phone queue and eventually an ordinary customer service rep. Oh well, I didn’t really need to talk to someone in the Resolve department, right? Any old monkey could check my account to see if everything had been resolved. Sure enough, the woman I was talking to was able to look up my account and….nope. There was no resolution to the UPS investigation. No credit on the account for the original phone. No new phone inbound to me. I started over and told my whole story for the umpteenth time. She couldn’t help me. All of that, especially the new phone, would have to be handled through the Resolve department. So I waited patiently for a transfer.

The Resolve department rep I was connected to told me her name was Megan. Megan had a great deal of trouble entering my phone number into the system correctly. After three tries she finally got it right and put me on hold for 10 minutes while she read over the history of my file. I know that the music they play on hold is chosen to be soothing and put me at ease. Somehow knowing that just made me really angry. I was not wanting to be soothed, I was wanting to be helped.

Megan returned to the line to give me some good news: the charge for the original iPhone had been reversed! Excellent! How about the late payment charges? (I might have forgot this bit in the last episode – they had been charging me for late payments ever since the extra $250 appeared on my bill. I had explained to them there was no way I was going to give them an extra $250 just to avoid being unfairly charged for late payments. They didn’t get it and kept on charging me.) Negative on the late payment charges. How about the new phone? Nope. Megan told me that had to be done through customer service, not resolve. Exactly the opposite of what customer service had said. Awesome. Transfer time.

Megan hung up on me.

I call again, this time trying to get to customer service. Katherine is there to assist me. Yet again I tell my whole tale. Can she help me? Nope. It isn’t customer service that can help me, it is customer relations. Customer relations is also known as the resolve department. sigh. I hold my breath this time as I am transferred to…

Isabel. Again I tell my tale. I am no longer in the mood to be helped. I am in the mood for an ultimatum. “Isabel,” I said as politely as I could, “you really only have three options now. I paid for a brand new phone with a one-year warranty and I did not get it. So, you can either 1) send me a brand new phone with one-year warranty intact, 2) credit my account for one-half the original cost of my phone since I am only getting half of the warranty I was promised or 3) extend the warranty on my current, refurbished phone to a full year.” She told me she would see what she could do and placed me on hold.

I am not sure what I was expecting to hear when she came back online, but I wasn’t expecting what she told me. She told me that they were placing a credit on my account for $150 to cover half the price of the phone. Furthermore, she was placing $30 worth of credits on my account for the erroneous late payment charges. Finally, she was going to put a long note on my account indicating that if I ever call in again with problems, I am to be transferred to the customer relations department where they will provide me with a new phone at the lowest possible rate.

I am not sure that I believe all of her promises, as I have been fooled by them plenty before. However, the credits she promised all appeared on my bill. All told, I ended up paying them $199 for the iPhone and $49 for the Blackberry. They then applied $320 worth of credits to my account, plus $10 / month /phone for three years (totaling $720 over the course of the contract) and whatever the unlimited local calling and unlimited data would have been worth. On the balance sheet I came out ahead of the game but I am not sure whether or not all of the pain and trouble was worth it.

Some final thoughts and reflection on the whole ordeal is next, in the Epilogue.

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

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.

Thus far in my struggles to get an iPhone, all of my problems have been in getting the phone itself and in my dealings with Roger’s on billing and such. I had not had any problems at all with the phone itself. Considering the way everything had gone with the whole ordeal, I guess I should have expected there to be something in the works for me.

It all started with my wife accusing me of ignoring her. Several times she had called me and I didn’t answer my phone. I really was not ignoring her, I just thought that I had my ringer turned down too low. I would wake my iPhone from its slumber to find a missed call. Or two. Or three. And voicemails. I tried turning up the ringer volume. I even tried setting the ringer for my wife to be a loud klaxon alarm. Nothing. I told her that I just wasn’t hearing it when she called. She didn’t believe me so I tried an experiment – I placed the phone on the table in front of her and called it from her cell phone. It rang away in my ear but sat silent before us. As soon as I woke it, it registered a missed call.

Now, being the kind of guy that I am and dreading having to speak to anyone at Roger’s, I decided to do some searching for the problem. Fairly quickly I discovered that there were two possible issues. One was just a software glitch that could be solved by doing a reboot of the phone and the other, a hardware problem affecting a certain percentage of Canadian iPhones, would require replacement. I shut down my phone to see if I was lucky enough to have the software version of the problem and while it was restarting, I dug into the box it was shipped in to see if there was a special number to call for technical issues. What I found in the box was far more troubling than the phone not ringing while asleep.

My iPhone is a refurbished one. I was originally sent a brand-spanking-new one, but it was stolen en route to me. Since I received my replacement phone through the lost and stolen program, they sent me a refurbished phone. I knew this when I received it but I didn’t really care. First of all, I was very happy to finally have the phone in my possession. Secondly, I understand how refurbished hardware works. In fact, the MacBook Pro I am using to write this is refurbished. Refurbished machines can be anything from returned in an open box but never used to machines that had some small problem that was then repaired. Refurbished products are usually heavily tested and checked and in most cases they are just as good as new. What I didn’t notice upon first receiving the iPhone was the small red card in the box that now grabbed my full attention. This little red card stated that my refurbished iPhone came with a 6 month warranty.

It was that small red card that prompted me to call Roger’s once again far more than it was anything to do with the not ringing issue. In fact, since that reboot my iPhone has never failed to ring while asleep. Not once. In all likelihood it was something caused by an app I had installed and not rebooted afterward. I’m a bit of an App Store whore and I am loath to ever turn my phone off. Nevertheless, I called in to Roger’s to see if anyone there could kindly send me a brand new phone with a full 1 year warranty, since that was what I paid for.

I dialed the hated toll-free number yet again and rambled my number (starting with the area code, always starting with the area code), name, postal code and birth date. I was connected to a woman in the customer service department. She had a moderately thick Spanish accent but she seemed to be understanding what I was telling her. I explained my saga and how it led me to have a refurbished phone. I explained about the ringing troubles and how it led me to discover my truncated warranty. She told me that I should talk to technical support but that they were not open as this was on the weekend. I explained again to her that I was not really calling about the technical problem, I was calling her because I wanted a brand new phone which is what I had paid for and I wanted my full 1 year warranty. Again she told me that I needed to talk to technical support. Again I explained to her why this was not a technical issue. I told her I wanted a brand new phone. At this point something new happened. Something which had not happened to me in my dealings with Roger’s. She started yelling at me.

I’m sure that she now realizes that this was a mistake. She started yelling into the phone that I had already had my upgrade and I could not get another one for a year. Surprisingly, I remained calm. Once again I tried to explain the situation to her – that I had paid for a brand new phone with a 1 year warranty and that was what I wanted to be provided with. She continued to be very loud and very rude to me. I believe it was at this point that Lindsay set her Facebook status to, “Listening to my husband tear someone at Roger’s a new one”. I ripped into her. I really let her have it. I unleashed all of my pent-up frustration at Roger’s and at being on the phone with one of their mindless fools for the umpteenth time. I ended my tirade with a demand for a supervisor. I am not sure how it actually sounded, but to me, hearing myself raging into the phone it was the voice of a god demanding obedience. It probably wasn’t anything that dramatic, but she told me to hold and went away.

Were it not for the accent I would have thought it was another woman who came back on the line. The essential gist is that she could not send me a new phone (I am guessing that her supervisor listened to a recording of the conversation and explained it to her properly), but that the customer relations department sometimes sent out new phones as replacements so that they might be able to help me. She apologized several times and I just got the hell off the phone. The customer relations department was also closed on the weekend.

Monday morning I called back in. A peon in customer service asked for my details and I said not to bother, just transfer me to the customer relations department. He said he needed the information to pull up my account. I asked him why he needed my account when he was just going to transfer me away? He had no answer and transferred me to Zed. Zed was a very smooth operator. I spoke to Zed for a while, telling him my whole long story and he hummed and hawed at the right times, murmured “that’s not right” a couple of times and then, when it was all done, told me that I couldn’t get a new phone through him, but maybe technical support could send a new one to replace the one I had if it was broken. He said he was going to transfer me to the Technical Support department, but I stopped him.

“Zed”, I said, “you’ve just listened to my whole sordid tale and I’ve been through a lot. The woman I spoke to on the weekend was the rudest, least helpful person I have encountered in a tortuous saga of poor customer service. I have been given many account credits to compensate me for much less than the abuse she sent my way this weekend and I want to know what you’re going to do about it.”. He sounded genuinely confused and asked me what I meant. I told him flat out that she had treated my horribly and I wanted him to put some “goodwill” credits on my account to atone. Unhelpfully, he told me that I had gotten too many credits already and he couldn’t give me any more. I told him that was fine…someone else would if he wouldn’t. He then transferred me to the technical support department.

As expected they told me that they could not swap out my phone. They did give me some ideas on what I could do if the phone continued to behave badly. Then they attempted to transfer me to the customer relations department, as they could most likely help me. Unfortunately there appeared to be a technical issue with the technical support department and my call was dropped.

I was really tired of the automated phone system at this point. I called back in and all I would say to it when it asked me what I wanted was “VINDICATION”. Three “VINDICATION”s gets you to the customer relations department, in case you were wondering. I don’t recall the name of the woman I then spoke to, because it was far less memorable than Zed. She did, however, seem to care about strengthening the relations between Roger’s and this particular customer far more than Zed, despite lacking all of his slick talking ability. She explained to me that the reason I could not get a new phone was because the UPS investigation was not completed yet. Since that had not been resolved, the system thought that I had already received a phone through the hardware upgrade process and would not allow me to get another new one for a full year. She told me that I needed to followup with UPS on the investigation and once it was done I should notify Roger’s and they could then clear my account and send me out a new phone. I told her that it was not my responsibility to contact UPS as that was between Roger’s and UPS and had nothing to do with me. She agreed and said she’d make some notes and send some emails to get things moving on their end. That pleased me.

This new woman was also far more sympathetic when it came to the woman I had dealt with on the weekend. Instead of promising me that the woman would get a “coaching session” to learn from the experience, she put a $50 credit on my account. That was more like it. Finally some results. They were going to chase down the UPS investigation and I’d get a new phone when it was done. My phone in the meantime was now ringing when it should and I had another credit on my account. I thought that I might be able to see this horrid saga drawing to a close. If only that had been true. If only there had been more Star Wars movies from which I could draw titular inspiration. The next episode will see more billing shenanigans, more UPS investigation fail, more account credits and something new with my titles!

Update 07/06/2009: Episode 7: Seeing Red has been released.

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

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

I look back on those first few days with my iPhone the way I look back on a beautiful summer day from the dead of winter. I finally had my new phone and it was awesome. There was nothing I needed to call Roger’s about, nothing I was waiting for. I was downloading apps, checking email, surfing the web, tweeting…it seemed like it had all been worth it. Those days came to a quick end when my next bill arrived.

Now, I was not expecting my bill to be perfect. I knew that there were going to be some issues as the credits which had been applied to my account had been done so after my bill was printed and placed in the mail. What I wasn’t expecting, however, was it to be so very wrong. The main issue was that the charges for the hardware upgrades on both phones were significantly higher than they should have been. It looked like the credits which were supposed to go on my account when I added data plans were not actually added. So, the charge for my iPhone was $50 more than it should have been and the BlackBerry was $250 more than it should have been. It was time for yet another call to Roger’s.

Eleven digits, some one-word answers to the automated assistant, phone number, name, postal code and birthdate. The whole sordid story recounted for yet another front-line Roger’s grunt on the phone. I explain that I was missing the credits on each phone that should have been applied when I added my data plans. Some humming and hawing on the other end of the line assured me that there was, indeed, someone listening to what I was saying. I was expecting a quick resolution. After all, the prices for the phones were listed all over the Roger’s website, how could they argue? I finished my tale and politely asked the man I was speaking to to fix things for me.

“I’m sorry, but you aren’t eligible for those credits. Those credits must be applied at the time the phones were purchased. You need to order the data plans when you order the phones to get those credits.”

Now, before I explode here, a little flashback. Way back in Episode 1 the very first Roger’s employee I spoke to advised me (in fact, completely refused to discuss data plans with me) to not order my data plan until I had the phones in my hand. Otherwise, he said, I would be paying for my plan without having access to the service. It sort of made sense, in a way, but I figured that they must have some way of putting a plan on my account but only activating it when the phones were activated. That was the reason for my call back a few minutes later, starting this whole saga on its way. Over the course of the weeks that followed, this same advice was given to me by several more Roger’s employees, including one Supervisor who went through the trouble of putting all of the details of what I wanted into the memo of my account…details that were magically unavailable when it came time to really order the data plans. I’m digressing into past episodes, but the important message is that they repeatedly told me to not order my data plans until I had both phones in hand and being activated.

I exploded. I raged. I ranted. I informed the guy I was speaking to that I had been trying to order a data plan from the very first moment this whole deal began and I was told again and again to wait. So I waited. Then I had the phones in my hand, and I called in and activated them. I ordered my data plans. Now, I wanted my credits. There was no way I was going to pay more for these phones than every other Roger’s customer because I had actually followed their instructions. Once again it was time to speak to a supervisor.

This was one of the bad offices I was on the line with. When you call the Roger’s 888 number you get routed to one of their call centres. There really isn’t any way to tell them apart or tell where exactly they are. You can, however, tell that there are multiple centres by the on-hold music they play. There’s one that plays a short snippet of classical-esque music on a constant loop. Another plays a loop of some pseudo-rock music. The worst plays a loop of a Michael Bolton album. Specifically, Time, Love & Tenderness, released in 1991. Before you even think it, no, I am not a Michael Bolton fan. Far from it. However, I have heard that album enough times on hold with Roger’s to track it down on Amazon. Sad. Infuriating.

After between ten and fifteen minutes of music which was probably intended to sooth angry people, I was beyond angry. I was so tired of dealing with Roger’s and so very tired of Michael Bolton. The supervisor came on the line and, of course, they had not used any of the time I had spent waiting to pass along any details of the situation. Once again I had to explain everything that had gone on and was going on now. Thankfully, this time the person on the other end of the line understood and realized that the current situation was their fault and not mine. Credits were placed on my account to bring both phones down the the advertised prices. I didn’t even need to ask and a $25 “goodwill” credit was placed on my account as well, for “all of the trouble”.

I wish that this was the end of my billing problems with Roger’s but it wasn’t. That’s another story for another episode. Not the next episode, however.

Update 02/10/2009: Episode 6: Return of the Mad Guy has been released.

Update 07/06/2009: Episode 7: Seeing Red has been released.

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

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

It was almost noon when the text message arrived. It was from my wife. All it said was “Happy new phone day, honey!”. Finally, FINALLY! After nearly a month I finally had an iPhone! It had been a little over a week since I was promised a phone through the “lost and stolen” program and someone at Rogers had finally delivered on a promise and UPS had finally delivered a box full of iPhone. It had been a long, long month. I think I spent as much time talking to Rogers as I spent talking to my wife. It was finally done, my ordeal was over!

Okay, yeah, reality check. The ordeal was far from over. At the time, however, I thought it was over. I’m going to keep that delusion going for a moment now and talk about the iPhone. I love my iPhone. This is 100% to the credit of Apple. They have made a great phone and I couldn’t be happier with it. Well, I would be a little happier if Rogers’ G3 network wasn’t complete and utter shit, but I’m taking a break from talking about Rogers. Ever since I started working at VendAsta I have been a complete Apple fanboy. I was uncertain about whether or not I would like working on a MacBook Pro, but I have to admit that I love it. I am fully aware that some of my iPhone enthusiasm is a side effect of my new fanboy status. Nevertheless, I have found the iPhone to be a very well designed and implemented device. There are lots of reviews on the web for the iPhone, so I won’t go any further into that but I definitely recommend the iPhone. Just try and get it through anyone other than Rogers. And Michael, I have had absolutely zero troubles using the iPhone out in the cold. It works like a charm inside or out in -40C.

With my iPhone in-hand, all I had to do was make one final call to Rogers to get it and the BlackBerry activated. I dialed the hateful toll-free number for what I hoped to be the last time. I belched out my phone number, name, postal code and date of birth to what had to be the last time. I was connected to a young-sounding gentleman who sounded really eager to help me. We went through the activation and everything seemed to be good to go. He even managed to reassign the SIM cards in the phones so that I could put the SIM card that shipped with each phone into the phone it came from. Everything seemed to be going swimmingly!

With the activation complete we began to discuss my compensation for all of the trouble I had gone through so far. I told him that I had been given 3 months of unlimited local calling for four days worth of inconvenience so what could he do for the two weeks that followed? What he said next was a pleasant surprise. It appears that my raging had really made an impression on the last guy I had talked to. He had placed a $10 / month / phone credit on my account through 2011 – for the full 36 months of my contract! I was very pleased. I said to the guy, “Well then, everything is all taken care of. I got this credit for the past two weeks and the 3 months of unlimited calling for the original four days.”. “Well…”, he said. Oh shit. So it turns out, the three months of unlimited local calling that I was told was only available to new customers is actually something that everyone gets – upgrades and new customers. Sigh. So then, I asked the guy what he was going to do for me? I was now compensated for the past two weeks of trouble but now I needed to be compensated for the original four days of hell. Three months of unlimited data usage ought to do it. My rage compensated, my phone activated, I happily ended the call. It felt good to have it all behind me.

I brought my wife her BlackBerry and we started playing with our new toys. Even with two email and Internet-enabled smartphones, we were eager to try out text messaging on the new devices. Lindsay and I have been texting each other incessantly almost since the moment we met…but that’s another story for another saga. I entered her phone number and the profound message “hi” into my iPhone and hit send. Just like in iChat there was the little woosh noise of a sent message and the other woosh of an arriving message. I had sent the message to my wife’s number and it had been delivered to my phone. Sigh.

I figured that the magical reassigning of SIM cards had not actually happened but I wanted to be sure – the guy had said something about the reassignment ensuring that the right data plan was on the right phone so I wanted to make sure that we would both have what we needed. I dialed again. I spouted again. Phone number. Name. Postal Code. Date of birth. I explained the situation. I was told that a SIM card cannot be reassigned to another number. I was further told that the data plans are assigned to the phone numbers, not SIM cards. I was told to swap the SIM cards back and try things again. I did. I texted. Messages arrived where they were supposed to be. The new guy asked if there was anything else he could do for me. I said nope, unless he wants to give me more free stuff. He said sure and put a $50 credit on my account.

So, I had my phone and a few credits on my account. Unlimited data usage for three months to get a feel for my data usage requirements. It seemed like things were finally coming together and now all I had to do was enjoy my phone, right?

Update 01/21/2009: Episode 5: The Empire Bills Back has been released.

Update 02/10/2009: Episode 6: Return of the Mad Guy has been released.

Update 07/06/2009: Episode 7: Seeing Red has been released.

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

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

Episode 2 of this saga ended with me being told that the only way I would see my iPhone before the new year was to go into a local Roger’s dealer and get the phone there. This was exactly the situation I had hoped to avoid. You see, my previous phone was a Motorola Razr and I got it when they were relatively new and still selling out. After exploratory trips to several local vendors I ended up calling Roger’s directly and I had the new phone in my hands a few days later. Considering that iPhones are still quite popular I went right to Roger’s to save myself the trouble of searching locally.

This time around I had better luck than when I was trying to get a Razr. I had some holiday related shopping to do on a Saturday morning which would be taking me to my local FutureShop. FutureShop is a Roger’s vendor. It looked like things were finally starting to go my way. I walked up to the cell phone counter and asked if they had any stock in iPhones. Much to my surprise, I was told that they had plenty of phones in stock. Happily I followed the friendly FutureShop employee (distinguishing himself from the average FutureShop employee by actually being helpful) to a desk with a laptop on it. He had an iPhone in hand and I could see the end of my long struggle in sight.

My conversation with the young gentleman started in the same manner as most of my dealings with Roger’s: phone number including the area code, first and last name, postal code and date of birth. He typed away, clicked his mouse a few times, and then said “hmmm”. “Hmmm?”, I asked. “Well, it appears that you are not eligible for a hardware upgrade on that line until November 2009.” I didn’t panic. I took a deep breath and suggested that he check the other line, my wife’s number, as the iPhone had actually been ordered on her line and my line was probably flagged because of the BlackBerry we had received already. Type, type, type. Click, click, click. “Hmmm, I’m going to have to call them.” Was it just me or was it starting to get warm in the store?

His call to Roger’s did not go very well. Apparently, they had no idea why someone would have told me to go to a local store. It was quite obvious to them that there was nothing I could do at a store. The dealer support representative on the line told the FutureShop guy that the best thing for me to do was to call Roger’s customer service myself to get things sorted out. Apparently, the segmentation at Roger’s is such that staff who take calls to support dealers cannot do anything to help actual customers. I thanked the FutureShop guy for his help and pulled out my Razr to dial Roger’s yet again.

When my call reached the automated phone system I wasn’t completely sure which department I needed so I just kept saying “talk to a representative”. I eventually reached a woman who was there to ask me a few questions and then direct my call. I explained the situation and she told me that I needed customer service. She told me there was no one in the queue so I shouldn’t have to wait long. Fifteen minutes later a man came on the line. Phone number. First name. Last name. Postal code. Date of birth. I recounted my whole story yet again. He then dropped a bombshell on me: “There is nothing in the account notes about you being told to go into a store and I don’t know why they would have done that. There is already a hardware upgrade on that line and there is no exception form for your account.”

Up until this point I have still managed to keep my cool when dealing with Roger’s. I’ve gotten a few odd and pitying looks from some of my office mates but I have never really made a public spectacle of myself. Up until this point. At this point I started yelling into my phone in the middle of a FutureShop. I asked him if he was telling me that the past week had not happened. I asked him why I had three people, two grunts and a supervisor tell me that yes, the exception form had been processed. I asked him why that same supervisor explicitly told me to go to a local vendor to get my phone sooner. His answer only managed to make things much worse. “I don’t know why any of that would have happened, sir. I work in the dealer support department and we only handle these calls when there is overflow.” More lies! The last woman’s empty queue was so full that I ended up in overflow. The person on the phone with the helpful FutureShop guy, you know, the one from the dealer support department couldn’t help an actual customer…unless that customer had sat on hold for a certain amount of time?!?!? I was really starting to think that someone had it out for me at this point. I took a deep breath and asked to speak to a supervisor. I went back on hold.

I was on hold long enough to finish shopping at FutureShop and drive most of the way across town to where I needed to pick up some holiday photos. Once, during the drive, the man came back on the line to, helpfully, tell me that he had emailed a supervisor and was awaiting a reply. He further told me that he wasn’t sure what a supervisor could do, there was not a lot that anyone could do about the situation. I told him quite forcefully that I wanted my phone. That was all. I was trying to spend money with his company and they kept trying to stop me. Every single time I talked to them something got terribly screwed up. I just wanted my phone.

By now I was pulling up to the photo place and I was certainly not going to go in there while yelling into my phone. Thankfully, I didn’t need to. The man came back on the line and told me that he and his supervisor had found a solution. They were going to send me a phone through their lost / stolen phone program. I’d be billed $550 for the “replacement phone” but he’d place a credit of $200 on my account to get the price down to the regular $250. I sighed and told him to check his math on that. He repeated the numbers and said, “yes, that’s right”. I just barely managed to not scream into the phone that $550 minus $200 is $350, not $250. He realized his mistake and told me that he would place a $300 credit on my account to get things right.

With that seemingly solved and a solution in place to get me a phone, I again asked to speak to a supervisor. He wanted to know why. I told him that I wanted someone to explain to me why I had been lied to repeatedly over the course of the past week. I was lied to about this mythical “exception form” and I had been lied to about going into a local store. I wanted some answers and I wanted some compensation. He didn’t understand what I meant. I gave up.

I ended my call by telling him that I would most definitely be getting some answers when I my phone in hand and called back to activate the data plans. I also told him that I would be demanding compensation for my time and my inconvenience and that a little free local calling would not cut it this time…

Update 01/12/2009: Episode 4: A New Phone has been released.

Update 01/21/2009: Episode 5: The Empire Bills Back has been released.

Update 02/10/2009: Episode 6: Return of the Mad Guy has been released.

Update 07/06/2009: Episode 7: Seeing Red has been released.

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

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

At the end of Episode 1, I had finally managed to get the order for my iPhone and my wife’s BlackBerry placed and now I had only to wait for them to arrive. The iPhone was sent prior to the BlackBerry as it was the phone that was ordered in my very first call to Roger’s. Approximately a week after that first call I returned home from work to find a note stuck on the front door telling me that UPS had attempted to deliver my phone. Similar notes were left the next two days in a row. Normally, UPS will only try to deliver a package on three consecutive days and then will leave a note detailing how someone can pick their package up. However, the next day there was a new package to be delivered to my address: the BlackBerry. So, a fourth day they tried to deliver the phones and left another note.

The following day, the fifth day of attempted deliveries, I was sick. I had been terribly sick for a little over a week at this point, but that day was the peak of my illness. Consequently, I was at home when the UPS delivery van arrived at my home for the final time. One box was handed to me. It looked very typical of courier-delivered packages and had a nice heft to it. The second box weighed very little. It was quite obviously empty and it took very minimal powers of observation to realize that it had been opened. “We have a bit of a problem with this one”, the delivery guy said, being terribly helpful. I asked him what I should do with the empty box. He suggested that I sign for it and then file a damage claim for it to get a new phone. Apparently, he informed me, several iPhones had gone missing in recent weeks from the Winnipeg depot. I expressed my complete and utter unwillingness to sign for an empty box and told him to take it back as a refused delivery. He told me that they would file a loss/damage claim with Roger’s and Roger’s would send me a new phone. I asked if I should call Roger’s and he told me that there was no need.

It was only after the delivery guy had left that I was able to fully digest that had happened. UPS had come to my home five times to deliver an empty box. Why didn’t they call me, tell me that the box had been opened and the contents stolen? Why hadn’t they contacted Roger’s about it? I think they were honestly hoping that I would sign for the empty box so that they could avoid the hassle of dealing with it.

After a further three or four days I decided that it might be worth giving a call to Roger’s to find out when I can expect my new phone to be sent out. I called the normal number and helpfully told them my name, postal code and date of birth without needing to be asked. At this point I found it amusing that I knew what they were going to ask for. The first woman I spoke with listed to my tale and then put me on hold so that she could get in touch with UPS to verify that the phone had been stolen. A few moments later she came on the line and told me that yes, UPS had confirmed that the phone had been stolen. Unfortunately, she would not be able to help me with a re-order, it would need to be done through another department. Helpfully, she transferred me into the holding queue of that department.

Fifteen minutes later I found myself again spewing out my phone number, name, postal code and date of birth. Again I related my tale to the woman on the other end of the line (apparently they lack the ability to do direct transfers at Roger’s and are only able to place people into queues with no information passed along as to why they were transferred). Once again I was put on hold while someone got in touch with UPS to verify that the phone had been stolen. Once again I was told that the person I was speaking to could not do anything to send me a new phone. I asked for a supervisor and was placed on hold.

This time I was on hold for closer to 20 minutes. At least this time I did not need to verify my identity again. I did, however, have to explain the situation once more and hold again while UPS was called to verify the theft of the phone. Once that was done I was informed by the supervisor that they could not send me a new phone because there was a criminal investigation going on at UPS to determine exactly where the phone had gone and they could not process a new order for my account until that was resolved. I think I lost my mind a little at this point. I was no longer concerned with being polite. “Why the hell do I have to wait for this? This has nothing to do with me. This is between you and UPS. I refused the shipment. I am not UPS. You have a problem with UPS that you need to resolve and I fail to see how that has anything whatsoever to do with me.” I’ll admit it, I was feeling a little bit angry at this point. I think the woman on the phone could sense that somehow. She told me she had a solution and that she’d transfer me back to the woman I had just been talking to and it would all be taken care of.

Surprisingly, I did not find myself back in any queue at this point. I was transferred directly back to the woman I had been talking to. She then informed me that she was going to fill out an exception form for me which would override the fact that I had already had one hardware upgrade on my phone number and that would allow me to get a new phone ordered before things were resolved with UPS. She told me that once the form was submitted the next representative who received the account would process it and get the phone ordered for me. This was a Tuesday and she told me to call back on Friday to ensure that the order had been properly placed. I should have known right there that there was more pain coming my way.

Friday morning I found myself sitting at my desk, once again dialing the number for Roger’s. I began my conversation with yet another call center woman by spewing out my phone number, name, postal code and date of birth. I then took the time to enlighten her as to the situation. I told her that an exception form had been filled out and I was calling in to verify that the order for my new phone had been entered. She confirmed that the exception had been entered and that the phone had been ordered. I was very pleased with the call up until this point. My pleasure was quickly destroyed when she uttered the word “however”. “However, the order cannot be completed because we are out of stock in iPhones for hardware upgrades.” Excuse me? Beg pardon? I was sent a phone only a few days ago and now they are out? “Hold on a minute, out of stock for upgrades, that doesn’t mean completely out of stock, does it?”. “Well no”, she said, “but we have certain stock allocated to new customers and certain stock for existing customers who are upgrading. Those are the ones we are out of, we have stock for new customers.” I kind of exploded here. I wanted to know why she couldn’t take one of the phones from the other stock and send it to me. After all, this was an extraordinary circumstance, was it not? She insisted that it could not be done. I insisted that it was time for me to meet another supervisor.

The supervisor began by giving me the same line the front-line grunt had given me. No stock for upgrades. I reiterated my position that this was a special case and that I had been dealing with their screw-ups for a couple of weeks now. She was not being convinced so I demanded a phone from the other stock. “If you only have phones for new customers then cancel my account. Everything. That makes me a new customer so you can send me a new phone, right?”. Her lack of understanding only made me more angry: “Why would you want to cancel your account when you already have one?” BECAUSE I WANT A PHONE NOW DAMNIT!!!. She told me to hold while she checked into things. After five minutes she came back on the phone to tell me that they were out of stock for new customers too. I knew this was bullshit but I could tell that she wasn’t going to give it up.

“So, how long am I going to need to wait for a new phone?” Her reply of two to three weeks sent me into new spasms of anger. She was basically telling me that I would be waiting until the new year to get a phone I had ordered in mid-November. The only way I could get one sooner would be to go to a local Roger’s store, see if they have stock and if so, get it there. I raged! I was sitting at my desk just shy of yelling into my phone. I told her to call all of the local Roger’s stores, find one with stock and have them call me. She said she could not do that, that they were not allowed to make outbound calls. I growled into the phone. She said she was sorry but the only way I could get my phone in the near future was to go to a local store.

At this point I unhappily decided that I would have to bite the bullet and go to a local store. It was a pain in the ass, but at least it would get me my phone quickly, right? Right?

The saga will be continued in part three…

Update 12/30/2008: Episode 3: Revenge of the Pissed has been released.

Update 01/12/2009: Episode 4: A New Phone has been released.

Update 01/21/2009: Episode 5: The Empire Bills Back has been released.

Update 02/10/2009: Episode 6: Return of the Mad Guy has been released.

Update 07/06/2009: Episode 7: Seeing Red has been released.

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

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

One of the many cool things about working for VendAsta is the fact that all developers can get themselves a smartphone and be reimbursed for the cost. While this does qualify as an awesome perk of the job, it makes very good sense for a company working to develop advanced web applications: if all developers have smartphones, then no one has an excuse for not testing any work targeted towards the mobile platform. While the choice of phone is left up to the developer, the vast majority of VendAstafarians carry iPhones. There are a few BlackBerries amongst the partners and a couple of Google Android phones have appeared recently, but still, the majority are iPhones. So, I was fairly pumped when I called Roger’s to order my very own iPhone on Saturday, November 15th!

Now, if you have ever dealt with Roger’s you are no doubt thinking, “it’s a mistake to call them on a Saturday – that’s when they have their newbs and retards manning the phones.” While this is technically true, I was not afraid. You see, I had done my research ahead of time. I knew exactly which phones I was ordering and which voice and data plans I wanted them on. I didn’t need any service, I needed an order entry monkey on the other end of the line. I couldn’t imagine that this could get messed up by even the worst Roger’s had to offer. As it turned out, my ability to imagine their worst was far inferior to their ability to screw up.

The man I spoke to in the Roger’s callcenter had a very rudimentary grasp of the English language. He was most definitely not fluent enough in the language to be doing the job he was doing. I informed him that I wanted to order an iPhone for myself on the phone number ending in 3077 and a Blackberry Pearl Flip for my wife on the number ending in 2977. I went through this a couple of times with him and had him repeat it back to me. He then told me, it was all done, the phones were ordered and started to say “Thank you for choosing Roger’s”. I stopped him. We hadn’t discussed data plans yet. He told me that he left me on my current plan for both phones. I said that would not work – we had regular cell phones and were ordering smartphones: we needed to add data plans. He then told me that I should not order the data plans until I had the phones in-hand, otherwise I would be paying for the data plans while the phones were being shipped. I accepted that and ended the call.

About 15 minutes after that first call ended, I was still feeling uneasy about what had transpired so I called Roger’s back to confirm all of the details of my order. This time I got a woman on the phone and English was obviously her first language. With zero communication barriers she proceeded to tell me all about my order: an order for an iPhone for the number ending in 2977. That was all. My iPhone was ordered on my wife’s number. My wife’s Blackberry was not ordered at all. I told the woman to cancel the order so we could do it right. She told me that the order could not be cancelled because it had already shipped. I was flabbergasted. At 7:30 on a Saturday evening my order had shipped 15 minutes after I had placed it? I thought this was bullshit and I told the woman on the phone as much. She then clarified that by “has shipped” she really meant “has progressed far enough in their system that she cannot cancel it from her department”. Okay, a little more reasonable. I asked to speak to a supervisor – I used to work in a callcenter myself and I know that the supervisors can always do more than the front-line grunts. She told me that there were no supervisors in on the weekends. I knew this was probably bullshit as well, but I was tired of fighting. I said I would call back on Monday to get things fixed and she, helpfully, gave me the number for calling the shipping department directly, as they would have the ability to cancel the order before it actually shipped.

Monday morning. I called them within ten minutes of their lines opening up for calls. Again I was told by a front-line grunt that it was too late to cancel the order – it had gone too far. I again asked to speak with a supervisor. I was told that the supervisor might be able to cancel it but it typically takes five business days to cancel an order. WHAT? I called in within 15 minutes of placing an order to cancel it and now I was being told it would take FIVE DAYS to cancel it? I demanded the supervisor on the line immediately.

This supervisor was the first person at Roger’s who was actually helpful. Again I was told that there would be a five day delay if I were to cancel the order. She had a suggestion for me, however, which would not make me wait any longer for my phone: leave the iPhone order as it is, order a Blackberry for my phone number and switch the SIM cards when they arrived. That should result in each phone having the right number and no more delays. I thought this was a great idea. She set it up and we discussed the data plans I wanted. The data plans were not ordered at that time, she also told me to wait until I had the phones in-hand to save money, but she put the full details of what I wanted into the memos on my account so that I could just call in and say “order what’s in the memo” when I had the phones.

With everything finally on the right track I was ready to be done with it all. I was told, however, to call back in a couple of days to make sure that everything was on track and that the order was actually passed along to shipping. This was annoying but after the screw up the first time I was willing to keep on top of it all. I called back on Wednesday and found out that all of the information had been placed on the account, but the order for the BlackBerry had not actually been placed. Perhaps I spoke too soon about that supervisor being helpful. I got the order placed and after all of this I was pissed off enough that I wanted to be compensated for my trouble and my time. I told the guy on the phone that this whole process had been a nightmare and I wanted to know what he was going to do to make me a happy customer again. He offered me unlimited free local calling for three months. I had seen something like that on their website and I asked, “doesn’t everyone get that?”. He told me no, only new customers get that, we never give it to existing customers upgrading their hardware. It was a small victory. A very small victory. I was nonetheless okay with it. I had been inconvenienced and I got something to try and make me feel better. If only it had ended there…

The saga will be continued in part two…

Update 12/22/2008: Episode 2: A Lack of a Phone has been released.

Update 12/30/2008: Episode 3: Revenge of the Pissed has been released.

Update 01/12/2009: Episode 4: A New Phone has been released.

Update 01/21/2009: Episode 5: The Empire Bills Back has been released.

Update 02/10/2009: Episode 6: Return of the Mad Guy has been released.

Update 07/06/2009: Episode 7: Seeing Red has been released.

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

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