COMPUTERS: The Countdown Begins

Well, the countdown to the expiration of my Rogers account has begun.

As outlined earlier, I'm over the download limit for my Rogers Extreme Unlimited account ... the one with limits. I then got an email informing me I was over my monthly limit ... on April 4th. That prompted me to check out the rogers.com/keepingpace url to see just what the ghost of Arthur C. Clarke they were talking about. I believe it's close to impossible to download more than 95GIGs of material in three days (since the email was sent at 12:41 AM on the 4th).

Couldn't access it. At least, not without signing up for On-Line Billing. I would then have two choices, give them my banking information and pay the bank's transaction fee, or print out their bill for them at MY cost and save them printing and mailing costs. We're talking a half-buck. This gigantic, profit-printing corporation that chortles with gleeful avarice about acquiring the SkyDome for fractions of a penny on a dollar, needs more of those fractions from me. It's negative optioning under the latest Rogers wallpapering. Heads I spend, tails I spend. The coin won't come down anyway. It's in their corporate pocket.

Let's combine this hiding of what they feel is a pretty important tool to let me be a good customer, with a policy since January at the local Rogers store. I can't pay my bill with just my phone number and a bunch of coloured paper in my hand. No, I have to have the bill. Either one hand doesn't know what the other is doing, or the hands are working all to well ... to rough me up.

The email I sent Rogers support came back canned, with NO mention of on-line billing or keepingpace. So I called tonight, at 12:32 AM and talked to Stacey. Polite and tried very hard to be accommodating, while steadfastly maintaining that it's corporate policy and there wasn't much she could do. Nothing in fact. "What exactly do you want me to do, sir?" she asked.

Nothing. Tell the bosses at Rogers that they can't promote a tool and then, without saying so, require I give Rogers money to use it. Tell them that I will be a Bell customer the first time I see a surcharge on my account, even though, as she points out, the surcharge Bell charges is close to highway robbery itself at $7.25 per gig, compared to Rogers' rather benign buck a gig. And do Bell centres take account payments anymore? No. Not the point. I'll pay at the bank, like I always do. But I've AGREED to do that. Tell them to put the date range of the 'month' they were referring to, since April means March 8th to April 7th.

Apparently, the worst of my support time on-line with my Dad and Casey will be behind me come the surcharge start period. I'll probably be under and might NEVER see a surcharge. I might never be forced by Rogers to cross the street.

But the clock is counting. The end is in sight.