Mobile Internet Flex Rate Billing/Proration

[falkenjeff]

The plan:

$60 up to 5 GB

$75 up to 10 GB

$90 up to 20 GB

$110 up to 50 GB

$145 up to 100 GB

Hypothetical example: I am 15 days into a 30 day billing cycle, and use 22 GB. Rogers and Bell customer service reps will both tell me their service is pro-rated.

What Rogers will do: Rogers will put me into the 50 GB tier, and charge me $110, the full amount, even though they told me it was pro-rated. When I call or chat in to complain, they will say "with flex plans you are charged for what you used, and you used 22 GB so you were charged $110 for the 'up to 50 GB' tier. It is pro-rated because if the billing cycle was longer you would have used more." (Despite the fact that I most definitely would NOT have used enough to get bumped up another tier)

What Bell will do: since I am using 15 out of 30 days, they will pro-rate both the data AND the price. So 15/30 = 0.5 (50%). The 5 GB tier becomes (5*0.5=2.5) a 2.5 GB tier for (60*0.5=30) $30. The 10 GB tier becomes (10*0.5=5) a 5 GB tier for (75*0.5=37.5) $37.50. etc. So the tiers become:

$30 up to 2.5 GB

$37.50 up to 5 GB

$45 up to 10 GB

$55 up to 25 GB

$72.50 up to 50 GB

So Bell would actually pro-rate their plan and charge me $55 for "up to 25 GB" which is a pro-rated 50 GB tier.

So Rogers says they pro-rate their plan, DOESN'T pro-rate it, and charges me $110 for 22 GB while Bell DOES pro-rate it and charges me $55 for the same usage. Why does Rogers think this is okay? When I signed up almost 2 years ago I was told it was pro-rated, and it was not. The store gave me a small credit, but I still paid more than I should have even after the credit. When I cancelled a couple months ago (end of August), I was told it would be pro-rated (again). It was not. And I had no reason to cancel early, because like in the hypothetical example, I was just a bit over 20 GB at the time. And when I tried to reactivate my account just 30 minutes ago, I was AGAIN told it would be pro-rated. It would NOT have been pro-rated.

How has it been almost 2 years and they have not changed this policy? How have they been allowed to lie to their customers for almost 2 years?

They should either:

1) Pro-rate their plan properly like Bell does, since this is a SEVERE lack of competitiveness in the billing department. Speaking of being "competitive" - rocket hubs are free on a Bell contract, but not on a Rogers one.

2) Retrain their customer service reps to stop saying flex plans are pro-rated. ie: retrain their reps so that they are no longer lying to people. Lying to people isn't good for retention. Case and point: I didn't reactivate my service because the rep lied to me, so Rogers is probably going at least one more month without getting my money. (The only exception to this would be that I might reactivate at a store if they waive the connection fee). I also would have cancelled almost 2 years ago and got my full refund if the store didn't credit me (which still wasn't even as large of a credit as it should have been).

But they still haven't done either of those 2 things.

And they cancelled Shomi and TV is dying, so wireless/internet is kind of the only thing they have left... So what are they doing treating people like this?

(At least they don't throttle like Bell does, I guess... But most people will get turned off long before they even manage to figure that out)

***Edited Labels***

[RogersZia]

Hello @falkenjeff,

Welcome to the Rogers Community Forums and thank you for your post.

I absolutely agree with you, as a consumer I wouldn't appreciate being misled or misinformed either.

You will only see prorated charges on a bill if there's been changes made to a the plan in the middle of a billing cycle.

Our Mobile Internet Flex Rate Plans are adjustable with your usage needs, allowing you to pay the best possible rate each month.  Each level is allocated a specific data amount and a dollar amount. Once you pass a threshold you are automatically moved up to the next level. You do have the option to use up all the data allocated to the next level if you want to or stop half way.

Hope this helps ~

RogersZia

[BS]

The concept of proration is not consistently applied to service streams on Rogers, so it is imperative that one, we as customers do as @falkenjeff has done and provide to the reps up front examples of how proration is applied (that is if we know how to do that - it is Rogers job to explain well and totally inform us)

I appreciate a clarification of how proration is not applied to this product line, but question remains, have CSR's been educated that a customer was misinformed.

This is the clarification that needs to have been done in the first time - I know how I view proration - service is prorated based upon something (for example days), and we get a rate or amount per day.

Unfortunate that Rogers loses a customer because it didn't communicate well in the first place.

Bruce

[falkenjeff]

@RogersZia I am aware prorated charges only happen if changes happen in the middle of a billing cycle. This has happened 2 times, where I made changes in the middle of my billing cycle, was told it would be prorated and it was not. Once, when I started my plan and was charged like $90-ish for like 5 days of usage. I was told it would be prorated. It was not. Then again when I cancelled my plan in the middle of my billing cycle (there were 7 days left in my billing cycle, and was told over the phone it would be prorated, so I cancelled and it was NOT prorated and I was charged the full amount).

And then, again, a 3rd time, I was going to reactivate my service in the middle of my billing cycle. I was told it was prorated. It is not. I know it is not because I have already experienced this twice. So because the representative lied to me again (and because of the $25 connection fee) I decided not to reactivate my service.

I explained all this in the original post.

If I was on Bell and my billing cycle was 5 days long, the most I would be charged is $23.38. (5/31*145 = 23.38). Rogers charges the full amount for this. They do not prorate their bill. And they don't even warn you. Instead of telling you to wait a few days before activating, they lie to you and tell you it's prorated and then charge you the full amount. The same thing when cancelling: why would I cancel early if I'm going to be charged the full amount? What's the point? The only reason I cancelled early is because the customer service representative lied to me.

This needs to change. Your company is lying to thousands and thousands of people, and this isn't legal.

[BS]

Although you have left, you can still use the escalation process to the management team, to the office of president and to CCTC.  Maybe someone along the way will side on your behalf and some financial restitution may occur.

Jus a suggestion - 

Your message is appreciated as a warning to all of us, question, question, question what does every description they give, like "prorating" mean in terms of actual service usage and real dollars - make them define it in real life examples.

I won't go as far as the use of the word "lie", but I would emphasize misleading, miscommunication, lack of clarification, and possible poor training. Just makes the conversation less defensive on their part.

Bruce

[falkenjeff]

I signed up again. Looks like Rogers fixed half the issue: the billing cycle starts on the day you signed up now. This still doesn't solve the "cancelling" issue (being told it's pro-rated).

.....But they also still managed to screw up, and charged me full price from Nov 9 - Nov 9. So even though they "fixed" it, I'm still going to have to contact customer service to "fix" it for real.

[therrol]

Hey guys, bit of a tricky question for you. I have a rockethub with the flex heavy plan. This is a tiered data plan starting at $60 for 5gb and going up to $145 for 100gb.

I won't be needing it for the next couple months, so I was planning to change it onto some base-level $10 data plan to save a few bucks. However, I will be making this change 5 days into my next billing cycle.

how are my data caps and prices calculated on a partial billing cycle?

My hope is that since 5 / 30 days is 15% of a month, each tier will have 15% of the data allowance at 15% of the price. So my 100gb/$145 tier would actually be around 15gb for $21.75. Does that make sense?

[RogersMaude]

Good day @therrol,

Welcome to the Rogers Community & Thank you for your post!

I totally understand the logic behind lowering your price plan, if you're not going to be using your Rocket hub for a certain amount of time.

Unfortunately, I need to make you aware that, while you're calculations would have been beneficial, it is not how it works within our billing system, for Flexible Data Plans.

We recommend you to change your plan on your billing cycle date. If you don't, you'll be charged the corresponding tier for each part of the billing cycle. There is no such thing as proration for Flexible Plans.

I hope you can understand that it is not at the discretion of the agent who performs the changes, it is really due to a system limitation.

Therefore, I'd strongly suggest you to wait those 5 days, before changing the plan, to prevent being charged extra for the time frame in question.

Hope this helps!

RogersMaude