CBC: The family of a 91-year-old woman is outraged Rogers had demanded she pay hundreds of dollars for failing to return phone and internet equipment while her Ottawa long-term care home was under lockdown.

The family cancelled those services for Joan Davis in early May after noticing her dementia was worsening and she was struggling to use them.

They kept basic cable to help her pass the time. Her daughter, Lori Davis, says Rogers told the family technician would pick up the equipment, but never showed.

What did show up was a bill for the unreturned equipment — more than $450 which, by this month, had grown to almost $565.

“Rogers had no room for consideration or compassion,” Lori, who lives in Kingston, Ont., told Go Public. “It’s not about people, it’s only about profits.” 

Lori says no matter how many times she tried to explain the situation to Rogers, she was given the same answer: return the equipment or pay the penalty; even though the a long-term care facility was locked down — with 30 COVID-19 cases including Joan. 

“I went for six months before I could touch my mom with a rubber glove on my hand, not knowing if she was going to actually make it or be like the other residents that had passed away,” she said.

Rogers lacked “humanity,” she said. 

After hearing from Go Public, Rogers took steps to address the situation, including waiving the charge. 

But Lori is just one of about a dozen telco customers who contacted Go Public with complaints about Rogers and Bell charging penalties for situations brought on by COVID-19 that are out of customers’ control — most dealing with financial hardship brought on by the pandemic. 

Though their financial reports don’t specify how their internet, cable and phone divisions did, Rogers Communications and Bell Canada Enterprises both made more than a billion dollars in the first nine months of the pandemic. Rogers netted $1.24 billion and Bell $1.9 billion between March and December 2020, according to their reports. 

That’s nice.

Rogers just paid 26 billion to purchase SHAW Communications, and they seem to be raising money for the merger by boning 90-year-old grandmas $500 at a time.

The telecom giant is also worth an impressive 30 billion dollars yet they can’t seem to apply common sense to really important areas of business.  Like not fucking over old ladies for pandemic bills they had no way of paying during the greatest plague known to humanity.

Everyone dumps on phone/internet companies and as much as I try not to, it’s hard not to tag them with a shit post when you read stories like Joan’s.  Rogers’ decision to chase this 91-year-old woman down for a few hundred dollars reps a complete lack of understanding of humanity where doing good business is concerned.  There are probably thousands of stories like Joan’s.

To add insult to injury, Canadians pay more for cell phone service than any other country in the world and it’s not even close.

Source: United States and Canada have the most expensive cellphone plans in the world. As you can see in the chart above, that takes into account voice, text and data rates, which added up to a minimum $67.70 and $59.99 per month for a “complete” postpaid cellphone package in Canada and the US, respectively. That’s as opposed to just $13.50 and $12.90 per month in Hong Kong and India, which are considerably cheaper in large part because they either rely on a pay-per-use business model or a combination of pay-per-use and a small preset limit.

The buggery by cell phone companies in Canada has been something no one talks about because it’s the same corporations who own most of Canada’s media outlets, so there’s no way they’ll report on how unfair Canadian cellular and data rates are.

That’s why you won’t read Joan’s story on CP24 or CTV.  They are owned by Rogers and Bell, respectively, and they’re not going to sewer themselves.

The least they can do is help Joan out so she doesn’t feel so fucking alone on a fixed income.

DB