I’ve been a big fan of Toronto Star consumer finance expert Ellen Roseman for ages, so when she posted a story about Rogers Rewards and customers who sign up for it losing discounts, it got my attention. Here’s the core issue as described in this article in today’s Toronto Star by consumer David Balcon:
“My latest bill was higher than it had been for all of this year. After downloading the detailed statement, I discovered that my eight per cent monthly discount for having three Rogers services was not applied,” he said.
With the rewards plan, every dollar spent on Rogers services was giving him two points to use for upgrades requiring hundreds of points to redeem. Meanwhile, he was spending an extra $9 a month – or $108 a year – to earn these points.
He didn’t realize that by signing up for the rewards plan, he would be giving up his Better Choice Bundles discount for tying several services together.
Apparently, the devil was in the details located in the usual fine print. Something that Mr. Balcon missed. But it gets worse:
When he called the company, a customer service representative said he had made an irreversible decision. However, he could get a one-time credit for losing the discount on his November bill.
Lovely. Now when Ms. Roseman got involved, Rogers was able to make things right. Here’s what the telco had to say on this via spokeswoman Patricia Trott:
“Clearly, we’re not doing a good job of explaining the program to our customers and we need to make some changes,”
You can bet that whatever those changes are, they’re about to be accelerated because of this story. Take home message? People need to read the fine print before signing up for anything. And companies can make all the terms and conditions easier to read.
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This entry was posted on December 30, 2013 at 12:06 pm and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Rogers Rewards – Read The Fine Print: Toronto Star
I’ve been a big fan of Toronto Star consumer finance expert Ellen Roseman for ages, so when she posted a story about Rogers Rewards and customers who sign up for it losing discounts, it got my attention. Here’s the core issue as described in this article in today’s Toronto Star by consumer David Balcon:
“My latest bill was higher than it had been for all of this year. After downloading the detailed statement, I discovered that my eight per cent monthly discount for having three Rogers services was not applied,” he said.
With the rewards plan, every dollar spent on Rogers services was giving him two points to use for upgrades requiring hundreds of points to redeem. Meanwhile, he was spending an extra $9 a month – or $108 a year – to earn these points.
He didn’t realize that by signing up for the rewards plan, he would be giving up his Better Choice Bundles discount for tying several services together.
Apparently, the devil was in the details located in the usual fine print. Something that Mr. Balcon missed. But it gets worse:
When he called the company, a customer service representative said he had made an irreversible decision. However, he could get a one-time credit for losing the discount on his November bill.
Lovely. Now when Ms. Roseman got involved, Rogers was able to make things right. Here’s what the telco had to say on this via spokeswoman Patricia Trott:
“Clearly, we’re not doing a good job of explaining the program to our customers and we need to make some changes,”
You can bet that whatever those changes are, they’re about to be accelerated because of this story. Take home message? People need to read the fine print before signing up for anything. And companies can make all the terms and conditions easier to read.
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This entry was posted on December 30, 2013 at 12:06 pm and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.