Copyright Rogers Communications Inc.

This is not an endorsement, neither is it a scam. It is simply my story of how Rogers Wireless royally screwed me over, then won back my business with a better deal then I had before.

A couple of weeks ago my iPhone started acting funny. I couldn't access wireless data at all. When I tried the browser on my iPhone, I got messages that I needed to sign up for a data plan, which is strange since I definitely signed up for data when I upgraded to the 3GS about 6 months ago.

The person on the other end of the Rogers Wireless support line left me with the impression that I indeed had no data plan.

Unwilling to accept such a case, I was transferred to an account manager. He then tells me my data plan was canceled a couple of weeks before. Searching back in my memory, I did go onto the rogers.com self-service site to add a $5 text package to my wireless account.

That seemed a bit odd as every self-service site I've been to before (Rogers, Shaw, banks and otherwise) was very happy to let you add services but not to remove them, especially when canceling a data-plan resulted in a $100 cancellation penalty.

Worse than that, I asked if my data plan could simply be reactivated to find that the $30 6GB/month plan I had was a promotion that had since expired.

At this point my inner Hulk was about to burst out of his shirt.

I asked the account manger, as polite as I can, whether I can lodge a complaint or speak to his superior. He weakly answered that there was nothing else I could do besides accept a lesser data plan for the same amount of money.

Before I hung-up in frustration or submitted to another plan, I asked him if there was a transaction number I could note to reference my problem in the future.

I immediately browsed around for any online resources I could use to resolve my problem or at least commiserate with other Rogers Wireless customers in a similar situation. I found a couple of Boycott Rogers/I hate Rogers groups on Facebook, but none of them seemed to be doing anything to help people with their problems.

One site boycottrogers.com features some half-way decent advice on getting out of Rogers contracts and other problems, but nothing related to my situation.

I eventually found a link on the Rogers site that allowed me to lodge a complaint. I knew that there had to be a place to kick up enough muck to get them to bend. The 5GB difference amounts to nothing to Rogers, but bad press and lost business resulting from me mouthing off does.

I scrolled down to the bottom of this page and choose stage 3: Contact the Office of the President.

In as civil language as I could muster, I explained my situation, my dissatisfaction and threatened to bad-mouth Rogers to everyone I knew, to spread my story on the internet and other media channels and to seek legal counsel if necessary. I made sure to enter in the transaction number from my previous support call.

I don't think anything specific I said struck fear into the heart of the President of Rogers, but within 24 hours (as promised) I did receive a reply.

The person from the office of the President apologized for my situation and offered me multiple special offers to get me to stay on Rogers.

He indicated that I only used 0.6 GB or so of data a month so far. To me the amount of data I received was not as important as having my promotional plan canceled through no action of my own.

In the end I received:
A $100 credit to cover my data plan cancelation
A $100 credit to cover my data use for the last few weeks without a data plan
1 GB with tethering for $10/month (that is down from 6GB/month for $30)
$7/month System Access Fee (what a joke) waived

By my calculation (not including the data cancellation credit) I gained:

$100 - $10 or so for the data I used in the last few weeks = $90
30 months (the remainder of my contract) multiplied by a $20 monthly savings on my data = $600
30 months multiplied by $7 monthly System Access Fee = $210

... for a total of $900.

Yes, I now have less data than I initially wanted, but paying less a month was attractive to me since they started charging for internet tethering.

This resolution left me pretty happy. Rogers listened to my complaint and I got a better deal than I had before. While I wouldn't say Rogers is the picture of corporate ethics, I will say that that was a classy resolution to my problem and I am happy to stay with them.

If you have a legitimate complaint about something Rogers Wireless did to you, give the complaint form a shot. If you keep it civil, I'm sure you will find a similarly satisfying resolution.