Bungling bundling with Rogers Wireless

Whenever possible, I avoid dealing with Rogers employees directly. I find that, whenever I do, I have to wade through some complex sales packaging or bundling bullshit and end up with more problems than I had before I called (and usually paying them more money).

When I purchased my iPhone I didn’t do so directly through Rogers but through a third-party contact my friend Richard uses. He did a great job, even getting several iPhones for people I work with on the release date.

He was also kind enough to look over my account and noticed my wife and I were going way over our couples plan’s shared minutes (read: my wife was going way over our packaged minutes) and we were getting screwed for it. He helped me select a better plan which would cost more monthly but should cost less overall by keeping us from going over on our included minutes. As a sort of bonus (every package has to have a bonus) it also included 1500 shared text messages bundled with it.

Now, one of the features of the iPhone that I liked is visual voice-mail (VVM). It saves the hassle of phoning up your voice-mail and typing in a password by instead downloading the messages directly to the phone as audio files. I really wanted this even though it was going to cost me another $8 over my minimal $12 voicemail, caller-id, etc. bundle.

Surprisingly though, when he called Rogers he was informed that I couldn’t have the VVM _bundle _because the unlimited minutes in the VVM _bundle _conflict with the 1500 shared minutes _bundled _in my new couples plan. I figured this was just due to the typical impotence of your average rogers sales person. Nothing that a ranting, raving customer couldn’t work past after making them to break down and cry and finally pass you on to someone with some power to do something sensible, so I called myself.

I was wrong. After having two people explain the same obtuse concept I can only define as a bundling conflict I was speechless, well no I wasn’t, I ranted at them. The best option they could give me was to give up the 1500 shared messages in my bundle so that I could have my VVM with unlimited unshared messages.

Truthfully, I could probably resolve this by adding another $3 worth of text messages to my wife’s phone. However it feels like such a scam to me. I told him I wasn’t going to accept their “solution” to the problem. I can live without the VVM for now. In the meantime I am going to send at least one or two harassing e-mail or letter to Rogers. Hopefully it will make me feel better, at least enough for me to swallow that extra $3/mo on top of everything else extra I’m paying, because, lets face it, I’m not going to change Rogers Wireless illustrious history of putting the customer last.