Do you hate Rogers as much as I hate Rogers? I’ve hated Rogers so long I can’t even remember why I started hating them in the first place.
Even though I hate them, I still get lured into using their services every now and then. It probably has something to do with my competing hatred for Bell.
Recently I enjoyed a fairly amicable run of Rogers cable TV service. When I moved into my house last year, a guy showed up at the door and offered me a deal on cable: something like 950 digital channels for $50 a month for three months, with free installation and a free box and extra connections so I could watch TV in every room if I had lots of TVs.
After the three months ended, the price soared to almost $100 a month, so I called them up and arranged for fewer channels. This left me with about 50 channels for $50. I don’t remember really, I’m guessing. But it was something like that.
And then one day I realized I didn’t watch a whole lot of TV, so I asked them to cut me back to Basic Cable. I think that left me with about 29 channels for $35.
Last week I realized I don’t watch TV at all anymore, so I called them up to cancel altogether.
First I had to talk to the boy machine that asks questions and you answer and then it repeats your answers and asks you if it heard you right. Then that machine transferred me to the girl machine that asks questions and you enter your answers on the numeric keypad. Then that machine transferred me to the human being.
The human being asked me the same questions the machines asked me, like my phone number and the purpose of my call. When I told her I wanted to cancel my service, she said “I’m very sorry to hear that, can I ask why?”
“I don’t watch TV,” I replied.
“Oh,” she said sadly, “Well then I guess there’s nothing we can do to change your mind?”
“Like what?”
“Oh, I could reduce your rates,” she said.
“Really?” I said, “By how much?”
“I could reduce your rates by 10 percent,” she said hopefully, “Would that help?”
Well, you know, that might help if I were cancelling because of the cost, but not so much if I’m cancelling because there’s never anything good on. So I declined Rogers’ very generous offer and proceeded to cancel my cable.
But for those of you who do watch TV, I think you should take this opportunity to call Rogers and tell them you want to cancel. I’m going to call Bell next to cancel my phone and Internet access – I could save $108 a year if they offered me a 10% rate cut. (But if you don’t see me for awhile, you’ll know my plan backfired.)
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