While I was at a Rogers Video store today receiving really crappy service (more on that in a minute), I picked up a piece of valuable information. Apparently LNP will finally be a reality starting March 1, 2007.
Now, about the crappy service. I am trying to switch my cell phone plan to a Nortel corporate plan because Nortel is picking up the tab anyways so I figured I’d try to save them some money. I was told by one Rogers employee (by email) that I needed to call a 800 number and give them a few pieces of info and then I could be switched over. When I called, I was told that I’d have to go into a store so that they could verify that I actually worked for Nortel. I guess my @nortel.com email address wasn’t enough. They could have also just called the main switchboard and asked for me – but I guess that’s not good enough either. At any rate, I decided to stop in on my way home. I talked to the ‘assistant manager’ and he seemed slightly confused when I told him why I was there. He picked up the phone and made a call. I waited. He went out back to get his jacket and bag while he waited on the phone. After about 15 minutes or so (during which time I heard about LNP) he hung up the phone and informed me that they couldn’t change me over because it was too close to my billing date. WTF?! He then told me that I’d have to go into a store again in three days. Again, WTF?! I asked him why they couldn’t just put a note on my file saying that I went into a store to verify that I worked where I said I did and he just kept talking about being too close to my billing date. It was painfully obvious that he just didn’t want to spend any time sorting this out because it was the end of his shift. I’ll be calling Rogers again tomorrow to see what the hell is going on.
Before I left for the day yesterday, I had sent an email off to the guy who I had originally been in contact with. The guy who told me to call the 800 number to switch my plan. I told him what I had been told when I called. I didn’t expect him to be able to do anything, but wanted to let him know that his information was wrong.
When I got in this moring there were a couple of emails waiting for me, one from him to another Rogers employee (which I was copied on) asking for her help to sort this out. The second was as a reply from the second person saying that everything was all fixed up. Sweet!
When you get the right people involved – things happen, otherwise, you get the run around.
I feel your pain my brother… I once spent 2.5 hours on the phone trying to sort out the long distance deal I had with them. I was transfered to so many people that I had two pages with names, nobody knew how to handle my file. In the end I was not able to keep the plan we had ($5 for 1000min) because we we moving and needed a new phone number. Ahhh… to be one of the little people.
I have a digital one rate plan with Rogers. The funny thing is that I had to fight to get it… the first time I called, they told me that my phone wasn’t “digital” (I have a GSM phone) and so I wasn’t eligible!
Naturally, yours truly doesn’t get phased by anything these days. I thanked the lady for her “help”, hung up the phone, and hit redial. 10 minutes later I was talking to someone who went right ahead and set me up for the plan. I didn’t bother to mention that her colleague had rejected me a mere 10 minutes later… what’s the point?