Prologue
I wrote this right after I left Rogers because they were gouging me. I will soon be writing this again for Bell as they are now gouging me. Yes, to get a good deal in Canada, you must constantly change service providers.
As I have said before, if you threaten that you are going to leave a service provider, you must be ready to follow through. With that in mind, my association with Rogers Cable, has now concluded after 32 years of association. During that time, I have seen my monthly TV cable fee go from $18 a month to an astronomical $123.60, which is the final charge I paid this month. Farewell Rogers my old friend, but you wouldn’t give me a better deal.
Why am I Leaving ?
I have regularly called and asked for a lower rate and many times Rogers complied (I even followed my own script once or twice). The last time I asked for a cheaper rate, I was told that was as good as it gets for me, and I was going to have to continue to pay this for the foreseeable future.
Was Rogers service terrible? Not really, it had its moments when things went down for no apparent reason, and such. The cost was the reason I left this service provider.
I now have put all my eggs in one basket with Bell Fibe (and I even have my Cell Phone with Bell). This means for the next little while I will have very little leverage to get better deals (as I am locked in for a while as well). Am I confident that the Bell Services will be better than Rogers? I doubt it, although the Internet speed seems a little faster, the TV has a lag in channel changing that I forgot would be there (in an Video over IP model it is inherent), but the price is about $100 cheaper a month, so I really had no choice but to leave Rogers.
I am tired of having to beg. When I have shown that I am a loyal customer, I should not have to beg. I am tired of seeing new clients get great deals, while I continue to have to pay much more for the same darn service. The whole process makes me weary, and hope that Bell has not “horn swoggled me” in some fashion with this “great new deal” that I have.
Was this a Bluff ?
Sometimes you can’t bluff, you must follow through with your threat. In the new year, I believe it will be time to talk to my Bank again, as I am looking at Tangerine and thinking, maybe it is time to exit the TD treadmill of service fees as well, but that is for the new year.
I agree $124 is too high and I’m all for cutting the cord, but it’s not really that much more in inflation-adjusted terms than the $18 you started paying them (unless you converted that into 2015 dollars already). $18 in 1973 translates to about $96 now, so I guess the price had increased by about 30% over the years, but then that now includes internet service, which you wouldn’t have been getting back then. So the difference doesn’t seem unreasonable, even if the base cost is.
I’m no fan of Big Telecom, but this is kind of like when people complain about how house prices used to be insanely cheaper thirty-forty years ago, and when I run their example numbers through an inflation calculator, the whole thing falls flat. It’s a pet peeve of mine. 😛