Saving Money While Still Under Contract with Rogers Wireless
Since cell phones are practically something that we all have now, I thought I would share the method that I used to get my Rogers Wireless Plan from over $54.00 per month to $14.39 per month without losing anything I previously had on my plan and even added more features and benefits at the same time as lowering the bill!!!! I would assume that this can be done with Bell or anyone else that you have a wireless "contract" with. My phone is with Rogers, so this is what I did with them:
1. Call the Rogers phone number and keep hitting 0 until you get to an agent..
2. When you finally get a human on the phone, first and foremost, get their employee name and ID number and WRITE IT DOWN! You may need it later.... Here is the way I do things, you may not have the guts to do it this way, so adapt to suit your personality.....
3. The first thing they usually do when they get you on the line is to ask for your personal info etc to “verify you”. I always refuse to give them even the time of day, I simply ask for the cancellation department. Of course, they will try to get your info again. Again I politely tell them I will provide all of that to the person in charge of cancelling my contract. Keep it up till they finally realize that you are not giving up any information... If they also ask you why you are wanting to cancel, again depending on your personality, you can either a) say you will explain to the cancellation department or b) tell them that you have all these charges on your bill and no one at Rogers cares about you, the customer, and won’t help. At this point, the agent will no doubt apologize and try to explain the third party calls etc. Etc. This would be a good time to say to him/her, “Can you at least get them to stop or take the charges off for me?” Of course they are going to say no they cannot do that, so that is when you come back with “Well them I am going to cancel and go to someone who does care, transfer me now please.” If they transfer you, well hold the line (maybe!), if they don’t, keep repeating above... if they do not transfer you on the second (for me) or how many times you are willing to put up with the “abuse”, instead of asking for cancellations, say in a louder voice, “Since YOU (insert their name) will not transfer me to the cancellation department when I have asked X number of times, I now want your MANAGER instead. Now they are really sweating... chances are high that you will not get a manager, at least not yet, but they will transfer you over to cancellations (they don’t want to get in poo poo with the boss!)...
4. If they cut you off during the transfer, use this step, if not, move to step 5. If you are cut off, immediately note how long your call was if you have a timer on your phone.. then call back but get tech support on the line instead of billing and payments. When someone answers and asks how they may assist you, tell them “I was just on the line for XXX (amount of time) with (name and ID # of agent who just cut you off), telling them I want to cancel my phone and they were rude and would not transfer me! When I first called I was about 95% sure that I was cancelling but thought I would give Rogers one more chance things right. Well now that (name) hung up on me, I am now 110% sure that I am never using this company again! Transfer me to the cancellation department now. **Again, do not give any information to them if they ask for it, I personally think that once they are connected to you on the phone, all your information is already on the screen in front of them anyways! Sometimes, I even ask THEM to read it back to me so “I can tell if I am really talking to someone who knows anything about my account.” They will never give you a bit of information because they can get fired on the spot for doing that, but I like to try anyhow! So once again, do not give out any information and keep asking for the transfer. **FORGOT SOMETHING!** Make sure you get that agents name and # too and write that down too.. Hold your ground if they don’t transfer you to cancellations because, in reality, they are just giving you a ton of more ammunition to use when you do get to cancellations department (I think it is also “loyalty” dept, whatever it is, this is who you want to talk to and you want that person now!
5. Finally when you reach that person in loyalty or cancellations or whatever.. First thing you do??? RIGHT, get that name and ID# then it is a good time to recap all you have gone through... that you told (agent # 1) about these third party charges and he won’t help (if you got cut off by #1, make sure that when you FIRST reach this person in loyalty or cancellation, that you have some more “attitude”... Tell that agent that you have been trying to get someone at Rogers to help you with these charges and that no one cares about you, the customer, who did nothing wrong but is being made out to be the bad guy in all of this. Tell them of your frustrations for how long that you have been on the phone by now (if it has not been at least 30 minutes including being on hold, you are either lucky or something didn’t go right. Either way, you are in the cancellations department now, so it is officially GAME on time!). Find out if this person can help you with your third party billing problems “Just check my bill.. Look at all of them, hey can you check like my last two bills (or three or four, whatever you want!), you will see that I NEVER use those types of things, this is fraud and Rogers is allowing this continue and keeps charging me for charges I never authorized? What kind of company is this? Just keep laying it on the person as long as they are speechless and allowing you to talk. When you think you have vented enough, ask them how much it is to cancel your contract. At this point, you can verify anything they ask of you, you are in the right department now (that was the whole point of this!).
When they tell you how much it is, make sure you tell them how shocked you are at how much it is! Says “So it is $350 (or whatever amount they told you) to cancel plus I am still on the hook for all of these charges too?” They will probably answer that yes.... NOW you say NOTHING for a good minute or so, but make sure they know that you are still there! Give some hmmm and ahhh and ummm I don’t know... I should, well, that other place said it would only be (give an amount that is LESS then your cell bill is right now.... Then say to the person “I am sorry, just thinking things over, I am just so frustrated right now. I have called Rogers (X number of previous calls over the third party billing stuff) and no one seems to really even care less if someone is using a Rogers account to hack into and pin these stupid charges on me.” Then keep up the hmmming and ummmmm for a bit longer (provided the person is not trying to offer an explanation or something, if they are, that is good for you because they do not want to end your call with you cancelling your Rogers account at any costs... these people get bonuses by retaining customers, not losing them!
So now you finally get into the nitty gritty of why you have spent so long on the phone with Rogers... You say, “You know what (name of agent)? It is going to be such a pain to switch everything over. All my friends have my phone number memorized and I really do not want to change it (yes I know that you retain your phone number if you cancel and change carriers, but I have had some great success with this line. If you are caught on it though, no big deal, you just say “Oh, I didn’t know that! But still....” Then you say “You know what? I would really like to have (unlimited texting, a bigger data plan, more minutes, free weekends, name something that you do not have right now and want to add). How about if you give me that until the end of my contract and I will just stay with Rogers and keep trying to get this third party company off my back. This, now, is the moment of truth. I have had it go so many different ways at this point. I have had agents flat out deny they can offer it to me (more on that in a minute), some have come back with a counter offer “Well I can’t really do that but I can give you....” If they come back with that and you like what they offer, take it! If you don’t like it, select something else that you do not have, if they keep resisting, keep referring to the cancelling of your phone, that usually (but not always) gets them back on track.... Finally once you have gotten something added and you are happy with it, make sure you do two things before ending the call.
First, verify that this whatever you got is free for the rest of your contract, if they come back with “No no no, I can only give it you for six months (or whatever).” Then you say “Well one minute ago you said for the rest of my term, now it is only (whatever) time! What is it with Rogers, they do not want to help customers who are getting scammed, then they can’t even remember a deal from one minute ago? If you get them to apply it to the rest of the contract, NICE! Second thing you always do before ending a call is to get the reference number for the call. Every call gets one... That way if the next bill is wrong, you can call back with all your info and say “I called on (date) and talked to (name of agent) and was told I was getting (long distance, texting, whatever the deal was) and the call number is (number they gave you, that allows the agent you are speaking to to retrieve the notes from that call.)
Now sometimes you are going to go through all of this and be on the phone for almost an hour, only to get someone who is so stuck in the mud that they will not even give you an extra minute of free air time on e you an extra minute of free air time on your phone. What do you do??? Hang up, wait a day or two, then phone back again and start at step #1 again.... then you make your way through again and hopefully the next agent you get is someone who is looking for that bonus for not losing you and is willing to give you something so you do not cancel.
So then what do you after you got something added to your phone? Well that answer is easy! Call back the next week and go for something else on your phone that you do not have! Then rinse and repeat as needed!
It took me probably over two months to do it, but I got my Rogers phone bill down to $14.95 a month with 200 minutes of daytime, early nights and weekends, unlimited texting,voicemail and call display and Rogers to Rogers calls. All included for the lifetime of my contract, which by the way expired last February but I like it right now so I am leaving it since they cannot change a thing in it without my permission!!!
Is this easy? No it isn’t. Does it take a while? Yes usually one phone call will amount to over one hour. Is it worth it? I think it is, considering I was paying over $60 per month with no call display or voice mail or texting when I started doing this....
Just remember this all the time you are on the phone, you have absolutely ZERO intention of cancelling your contract (If you do want to, well it is up to you but you are on the hook for whatever that final bill says you owe them.) but the person at the other end does not have to know that you are not cancelling! These people get paid bonuses to retain customers, so it is worth $$ to them to offer you incentive not to cancel and stay.
It takes time, patience, a lot of acting (sometimes you gotta get PO’ed on the phone so the threat of cancelling seems much more closer to them and makes them want to do anything to keep you!) but at the end of the day or weeks or months, if you come out of it with something that you like and more then likely could never build a plan like that with any other carrier, I say it is worth time and effort!
There is an easier solution to the above, just call and cancel the contract and pay it out... sometimes if it under a year or so, it might be worth the extra if you want out and want to change carriers etc. BUT is also probably the perfect time to make them tap dance to keep you as their customer! My contract expired in February, but I am leaving it now since I am content and do not want another term started.
Hopefully some of you will find this useful. This is one way that you can dictate what is on your plan rather then them telling you what you get.
