New Pay As You Go Maximum Balance

[lmcjipo]

Had my prepaid phone off during the holidays and just turned it on today to receive the following text from Rogers:

Rogers service msg: Starting at the end of 2018, our prepaid services will have a maximum allowed balance of $150. Any balance above $150 will no longer be available as of end of 2018. We will be in touch with more information on how you can use your balance soon, but in the meantime you can continue to use your balance as normal. Questions? http://rogers.com/contactus

What are the options? The option that I think that they will do is to force those high balance users to go to postpaid. Unless they give me the option to get a new phone, there is no way that I would be able to use my balance or reduce it to under $150 before the end of 2018. The only other thing which would reduce my balance is for me to take options/services that I don't need (like data/SMS/addon services) that I don't need for the sake of just reducing my balance.

This seems ridiculous.

***EDITED LABELS***

[wleadie1]

Rogers offered me "use $100 of that balance to pay for the next year" in Nov 2013, but have not offered it since then!

[barndoor]

@wleadie1 said  "Rogers offered me "use $100 of that balance to pay for the next year" in Nov 2013, but have not offered it since then!"

LOL ... this is Rogers ....not all CSR's are as customer oriented as they could be .... you have to know what is available to you and ask for it . 

Call in and ask  about it . 

[OLDYELLR]

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@wleadie1 wrote:
Rogers offered me "use $100 of that balance to pay for the next year" in Nov 2013, but have not offered it since then!

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That was not a special one-time offer. You can always use $100 from your balance by calling in.

[barndoor]

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@OLDYELLR wrote:

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That was not a special one-time offer. 

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Just how was the offer worded  then ? Hind sight is always 20/20  and  if the wording is abiguous  only the outgoing person is going to call in and ask without a second invitation . 

[57]

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@barndoor wrote:

Just how was the offer worded  then ? Hind sight is always 20/20  and  if the wording is abiguous  only the outgoing person is going to call in and ask without a second invitation . 

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The wording (in 2012) was as follows:

Did you know that as of 08/04/2012, you had a Pay As You Go™ airtime balance of $250 (not the exact amount)? Here's a great way to put it to good use and stop worrying about top-ups for a whole year!
We're offering you the chance to exchange $100 of your existing balance for a one-year extension of your remaining airtime balance.
For example, if you have a current airtime balance of $300 that ends on November 20, 2012, with this offer your new airtime balance would be $200 with an end date of November 20, 2013.
It's easy to do. Simply:

• Call our dedicated line at 1 866 566-8343
• Use $100 of your existing airtime balance to extend your current expiry date by one year – to 2013¹
This is a limited time offer!
Please call us at 1 866 566-8343 by December 31, 2012. Our dedicated customer service representatives are available to assist you and answer your questions Mondays to Fridays from 9am to 9pm, Saturdays from 9am to 6pm and Sundays 11am to 5pm.
Thank you for choosing Pay As You Go™ from Rogers. We look forward to hearing from you.

As for the outgoing person, I would call it initiative and if people don't have it, they won't get deals or negotiate prices on anything. That is up to them.  I'm not sure if that dedicated phone number still works - I've always used the PAYGo number with options 4, 4, 1)

The offer was extended in a text to me in 2013, as follows - I no longer have the exact wording:

I just received a message on my phone that I can extend this offer into 2014 for another year. "Pay" $100 out of my existing balance to avoid paying the $10/mo auto top-up charges in 2014. Since I have enough balance, I'll probably do it. That'll mean that I'll have my "emergency" phone, which I only use occasionally, basically free for 2 years....

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I have done it again since then, so the offer seems to a very long "limited time offer".  I believe they add the "limited time" portion so that they can stop it at any time.

Edit:  I just looked back in my e-mails and found another e-mail on the topic, so I've received at least two e-mails and one text on the topic  This may be because I did have a "high" balance at that time (2012, 2013)

[OLDYELLR]

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@barndoor wrote:

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@OLDYELLR wrote:

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That was not a special one-time offer. 

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Just how was the offer worded  then ? Hind sight is always 20/20  and  if the wording is abiguous  only the outgoing person is going to call in and ask without a second invitation . 

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You are right. The customer would not know it wasn't a one-time courtesy offer.  When I received that letter from Rogers years ago that I had a balance over $200 and could apply some of it towards renewing, I did not need to renew and forgot about it. Months later, when I needed to renew I called to ask if the offer was still good and was told yes. From that time on I always used $100 from my balance to renew, if I had enough. First by going to the Rogers store and later by phoning after they said they don't do that in the store anymore. The ability to do that has not been publicized on the website, only here and by word-of-mouth.  It's too bad because it's resulted in a lot of irate customers.

[OLDYELLR]

@57 Thank you for posting the wording of that letter. It seems to be similar to what I received and maybe it did have a deadline.  I came across my letter later, when I needed to renew and called and asked if the offer was still good.

[fiona59]

OK, I've never had a letter from Rogers in all the years I've dalt with them.

My plan is long gone and I got no notice.  it was 35cents a minute during the day and 1cent a minute after 8pm and on weekends and the $3 text add on (so I could get free incoming)

Now, my questions are:

1.  The $10 month plan, if I select it will my $250+ balance be used for 25 months to cover it or does it self destruct on the one year anniversary?

2.  What March deadline are people talking about?  March 2018 or 2019?

[barndoor]

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@fiona59 wrote:

OK, I've never had a letter from Rogers in all the years I've dalt with them.

My plan is long gone and I got no notice.  it was 35cents a minute during the day and 1cent a minute after 8pm and on weekends and the $3 text add on (so I could get free incoming)

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Hang on a sec .... what do you mean your plan is long gone?

[barndoor]

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fiona59 wrote: 

Now, my questions are:

1.  The $10 month plan, if I select it will my $250+ balance be used for 25 months to cover it or does it self destruct on the one year anniversary?

2.  What March deadline are people talking about?  March 2018 or 2019?

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As I understand it, that is what is happening in march 2018 , everyone  on the old "Talk   Anytime"  plan  is automatically being moved to the new $10/ month plan unless you call in before that to say the you want to stay on the old plan .   Regarding your balance you should likely  call them   and  confirm  that you will be able to use your balance to pay rather than having to add money like you have in the past  to extend your airtime expiry date.

Note that there is  a big difference between the old $10 /month Talk Anytime  plan and the new $10 a month plan .

[Sarcee]

If you ask to stay on the old PAYG plan, will your grandfathered status continue on after 2018?

[barndoor]

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@Sarcee wrote:

If you ask to stay on the old PAYG plan, will your grandfathered status continue on after 2018?

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I think that is a question only Rogers  management can answer with any degree of certainty . 

I would guess they will give it a couple years before they try to take it away  but that is only a guess. It likely depends a bit on what the competition does.  These plans are still available at some of the smaller providers so I would think they will likely grandfather them until there is less risk of people  leaving .

[OLDYELLR]

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@Sarcee wrote:

If you ask to stay on the old PAYG plan, will your grandfathered status continue on after 2018?

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That is what the CSR told me when I called to ensure I would stay on the plan instead of being automatically switched to a $10/month plan with no balance in March. But you never know.

[lmcjipo]

Looks like the $150 maximum prepaid balance has been on the news:

https://www.thestar.com/business/personal_finance/advice/2018/01/16/rogers-prepaid-balance-change-sp...

It is too late for me since I switched to an unadvertised Rogers postpaid plan (where all my balance gets carried to postpaid) BUT for those of you who have high prepaid balances, you can try to get what was offered to the individuals above.

[57]

So, although there is a $150 maximum allowed by the end of 2018, if you call Rogers, most customers appear to be "happy/made whole" with the options provided.  Either a switch to another plan, or an extension, or credit to other Rogers services, etc.

From the article - I wonder what the following person was planning to do with his $850???    Was he just going to keep adding to it forever if Rogers didn't institute this limit?

Frank Roelofsen has a substantial balance of $850, which will be hard to use up in one year since he uses his prepaid phone only for emergencies.

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[barndoor]

@lmcjipo  if you found a post paid plan that suits your needs well enough that you feel reasonably good  about it  i'd say you have done as well or better than either of the people in the  article .  

I find it interesting that it was not mentioned  that  you could renew the plan using your balance for a number of years now  . It really would be interesting to know if either of those people had been informed of that.   

[OLDYELLR]

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@lmcjipo wrote:

Looks like the $150 maximum prepaid balance has been on the news:

https://www.thestar.com/business/personal_finance/advice/2018/01/16/rogers-prepaid-balance-change-sp...

It is too late for me since I switched to an unadvertised Rogers postpaid plan (where all my balance gets carried to postpaid) BUT for those of you who have high prepaid balances, you can try to get what was offered to the individuals above.

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What a stupid article by someone who has obviously not done any research on Rogers' PayGo plans. Somebody who would build up a balance of $850 on their plan must either be happy to pay $100/year for a plan they seldom use or else be too stupid to question what they can do with their balance. It's unfortunate that Rogers let things get to this state without informing customers of their high balances. But maybe they did and customers ignored the letters or emails.

[fiona59]

I've had Rogers PAYGo since the early part of this century and have never once had a letter or email from them regarding my balance.

I remember when there was a $50 top up that was good for six months, which I loved because, I really didn't carry much of a balance with it. Then Rogers got rid of the six month and went to one year/

[OLDYELLR]

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@fiona59 wrote:
I've had Rogers PAYGo since the early part of this century and have never once had a letter or email from them regarding my balance.

I remember when there was a $50 top up that was good for six months, which I loved because, I really didn't carry much of a balance with it. Then Rogers got rid of the six month and went to one year/

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I think I remember that too. Then everything went to 30 days except the $100 voucher or top up. I originally started with the $25 for 30 days plans until someone at work told me about the $100 plan. Somewhere in between I lost my phone. Then I got a letter from Rogers that they were switching to GSM and would get a new phone.

[lmcjipo]

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@OLDYELLR wrote:

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@lmcjipo wrote:

Looks like the $150 maximum prepaid balance has been on the news:

https://www.thestar.com/business/personal_finance/advice/2018/01/16/rogers-prepaid-balance-change-sp...

It is too late for me since I switched to an unadvertised Rogers postpaid plan (where all my balance gets carried to postpaid) BUT for those of you who have high prepaid balances, you can try to get what was offered to the individuals above.

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What a stupid article by someone who has obviously not done any research on Rogers' PayGo plans. Somebody who would build up a balance of $850 on their plan must either be happy to pay $100/year for a plan they seldom use or else be too stupid to question what they can do with their balance. It's unfortunate that Rogers let things get to this state without informing customers of their high balances. But maybe they did and customers ignored the letters or emails.

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The thing is that Rogers did not inform EVERYONE that they could use their existing balance to extend the expiration by 1 year without having to top up $100. Unless you called to top up and specifically spoke with a CSR, you probably didn't know. Also, Rogers only has a lifetime of ~72 hours so if a phone is off, it will never get the SMS (it isn't like the >3 day old SMS arrives to the phone the moment the person turns on his/her phone.

I personally topped up by purchasing $100 prepaid vouchers and when calling the automated Pay As You Go system, I just picked the "top up your balance" option and entered my voucher. My balance just kept increasing. This is how I'm sure it happened with other people. Nowhere in the automated system did it say that I didn't need to top up and could use part of the balance to extend my expiration by 1 year. I also never received an SMS regarding this nor did I receive an e-mail. The only SMS/e-mails I did receive from Rogers was about a yearly plan with a certain amount of minutes in the year and either unlimited evenings/weekends  at a fair price OR unlimited SMS at a fair price

I can't believe that the spokesperson for Rogers, Samantha Grant mentioned that the $150 cap would help customers use the prepaid service in a better way without carrying or building up a large balance. How will robbing customers of any excess over $150 by the end of 2018 help them use prepaid service in a better way... it might help Rogers (even though high balances generally keep customers from jumping ship as prepaid balances are not refundable) but it in no way helps customers use prepaid in a better way. It just makes customers use money for something that they would normally not use.

If they really wanted to have customers use prepaid service in a better way without building up a large balance, they wouldn't require a top up every 30 days or 365 days. They could do like 2 of my US prepaid providers and either keep an account active if the customer uses his/her phone once every 30-90 days and/or require a smaller top-up per year like $10. The 911 fees per month, etc. will automatically lower the balance and if the customer wasn't required to top up with $10/month or $100/year, the balance would go down.

[OLDYELLR]

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@lmcjipo wrote:

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The thing is that Rogers did not inform EVERYONE that they could use their existing balance to extend the expiration by 1 year without having to top up $100. Unless you called to top up and specifically spoke with a CSR, you probably didn't know. Also, Rogers only has a lifetime of ~72 hours so if a phone is off, it will never get the SMS (it isn't like the >3 day old SMS arrives to the phone the moment the person turns on his/her phone.

If they really wanted to have customers use prepaid service in a better way without building up a large balance, they wouldn't require a top up every 30 days or 365 days. They could do like 2 of my US prepaid providers and either keep an account active if the customer uses his/her phone once every 30-90 days and/or require a smaller top-up per year like $10. The 911 fees per month, etc. will automatically lower the balance and if the customer wasn't required to top up with $10/month or $100/year, the balance would go down.

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Two good points. If SMS from Rogers expire on the server if the phone isn't turned on for a number of days, important notifications should be sent by email, landline or snailmail. 

I also think that having to top up every 30 days, except for the $100 plan, is a bit ludicrous for casual users. I often thought about switching to 7-11 Speakout with 365 days for all plans.