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***

[OLDYELLR]

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@patdrummond wrote:
Please explain - what plan are you on that is $10/mo. How can you pay $100/year plus $10/month and end up paying $7/month?

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Those are 2 different plans. The $100/year plan is the old talk anytime plan that charges for each call and text and runs a balance. If you want to keep that plan you have to tell Rogers when you call to renew. The plan is no longer offered, only grandfathered. New PayGo customers can only get the $10/month plan and other more expensive prepaid plans.

[patdrummond]

Thanks.  Topup paid from a balance is nice (Bell doesn't allow this).  I probably would have chosen $10/mo if they hadn't decided to skim off unused minutes and force customers to 'opt-out' rather than 'op-in'. (I thought this type of making customers 'opt out' was illegal.)

July 19 they switched "By The Minute Talk All Day"  plans to "Talk & Text" $10/month - my account said $10.00 Talk & Text plan. On July 20 it said $10.00 Recharge card  To their credit Rogers changed it back without a fuss July 30.  I checked my credit card and Rogers charge it $11.30 ($10+tax) on July 21 and credited on Aug. 1. Online I saw a negative balance adjustment of $10 July 19 There's no balance column in the online table to guess - very unhelpful.  And a credit Voice of $10 on July 20.  A bit confusing.

[57]

Interestingly, I got a text yesterday from Rogers regarding this.  They encourage me to use $100 to eliminate payments for the next year on my grandfathered Anytime plan.  My balance is currently above the $150 year-end limit (about $230 this month). I had been planning to call them soon anyway because I had been tracking this limitation, but wanted to wait to be just under $150 at year-end after using $100 from my balance.  Since I use it so little, this means I could use $100 again late next year keeping my emergency phone close to no cost for the next two years. 

Wow, some proactive work from Rogers. Good for you. 

[OLDYELLR]

That is indeed encouraging. Pessimistically, I was assuming Rogers wished to move customer over to the $10/month plan rather than keeping them grandfathered. I too use my phone very little, just when I leave the house. Ironically, just this week I had an exchange of texts to buy some mayonnaise I already had on my list and where it was on sale, which I knew. Cost for 3 texts $0.90. 

I just renewed for another year about 3 weeks ago using $100 from my balance, which is now $154 and at the end of the year I could be below the $150 max.  In fact I expect to be able to take another $100 from my balance next year.

[barndoor]

LOL .... it's so nice of you guys to extoll the benefits  of your plans  now that they are no longer available to new customers at Rogers !!    

@57 did Rogers send you notice  a while back that you can use $50 of account balance for  a 6 month term the same  as the $100 for a one year term ?    That would help keep the balance down and maybe keep that $100 invested in the markets and making you money .   Well...... maybe not the last couple days .  

[57]

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@barndoor wrote:

1. ...it's so nice of you guys to extoll the benefits  of your plans  now that they are no longer available to new customers at Rogers

2.  @57 did Rogers send you notice  a while back that you can use $50 of account balance for  a 6 month term the same  as the $100 for a one year term ?   

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1. Sorry about that, but this thread is on the topic of the grandfathered plan.  😉

2. Never.  It's always been $100, either originally by e-mail 5-6 years ago, or most recently by text.

[barndoor]

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@57 wrote:

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2. Never.  It's always been $100, either originally by e-mail 5-6 years ago, or most recently by text.

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Weird  .... we got our first email about it last February  and had a couple reminders since .  

That's Rogers I guess .  

[57]

The $50 may have been sent to people who have lower balances and not able to easily use the $100 option...  (Just conjecture on my part)

[barndoor]

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@57 wrote:

The $50 may have been sent to people who have lower balances and not able to easily use the $100 option...  (Just conjecture on my part)

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That could easily be taken as an insult  but I will assume  that you mean  not able to easily stay under the $150 cap  using the $100 option .  

We received the first  offer with $65  left in our account and  two  months to  go to renewal . Since we have for years, had  a texting package that costs a minimum of $ 5  a month  it seemed rather ridiculous to  use the $50 option  and then have to turn around and top up the account the next month . Sometimes the mighty Rogers computer just doesn't think  even though it has all that account info at its key tips ! 

[57]

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@barndoor wrote:

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@57 wrote:

The $50 may have been sent to people who have lower balances and not able to easily use the $100 option...  (Just conjecture on my part)

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That could easily be taken as an insult  but I will assume  that you mean  not able to easily stay under the $150 cap using the $100 option .  

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No, I meant exactly the opposite - having a balance of around $100 or less.  (I did say "lower balances"). The Rogers algorithm probably doesn't take add-ons into account.

[patdrummond]

"..use $50 of account balance for a 6 month term" This is news to me... FYI I have never received any info regarding using a balance to pay for paygo renewal. I found out talking to Rogers by phone. (Bell does not offer this)

[57]

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@patdrummond wrote:
FYI I have never received any info regarding using a balance to pay for paygo renewal. 

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It's not actually a "renewal", it's a suspension of payments option.  This option first came up around 2012 by e-mail and has been discussed in this and other forums.  You're right though, the option is not widely known and now that most PAYGo customers are on talk/text instead of the grandfathered "Anytime" plan, there probably won't be much more discussion on the topic since it will apply to fewer and fewer people.

(I got my first e-mail on the $100 option in July 2012, probably because I had already amassed a $300 balance since 2009.)

https://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/199-rogers-fido-chatr-wireless/90285-rogers-paygo-discussions-5.htm...

[OLDYELLR]

Yes, Rogers giving more than the standard 30 days for PayGo renewal for anything other than $100 is unusual.  I've always presumed that they wanted to eliminate inexpensive PayGo and get customers to migrate to the more costly wireless plans. But in view of the competition, keeping a customer is important.

[barny]

 These ongoing balances show as a liability on Rogers' books.  Not only that, but this new policy was put into place to encourage you to buy a plan.  They are basically stealing money form their pay-as-you-go customers.  "Sign up for a plan and we'll credit you your ongoing balance.  Don't sign up for a plan wand we'll steal your unpaid balance."  I agree with the earlier poster.  Complain to the CRTC.  Even if it doesn't help you personally, it is still a complaint against Rogers and shows as part of the aggregate of complaints against Rogers, and hurts their brand in the long run.  I'm sure the suits at the board table were aware of this when they dreamed up this ripoff strategy, but decided that, on balance, the extra profit generated by this new tactic would outweigh the negative publicity.  Show them they're wrong by doing what you can by generating your little bit of negative publicity.  Complain to the CRTC. And when your unused balance is gone (which of course is their goal) switch providers.  I think Telus allows a $300 carry-over, although that is likely to change too.  When you switch, write a letter explaining that you switched because Rogers ripped you off.  The only thing that gets the attention of the suits at the board table is loss of revenue.  They already know that what they are doing is unethical.  If these kinds of unethical tactics lose more revenue for Rogers than they generate, they will stop doing this sort of thing, or at least think twice before ripping off their customers.  It only takes a minute of two to make the complaint:  https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/contact/#mobile

[OLDYELLR]

@barnyI agree that carrying a balance is technically a liability for Rogers, but it's nothing monetary, just an obligation to provide air time (which costs them nothing) and they can increase the price of that air time anytime they want, which they do periodically. Sure, the option to use a large balance to subsidize migrating to a more expensive post-paid plan is an incentive, but nobody's twisting your arm. Chances are if you've amassed a $300 or higher balance, you never knew you could draw from your balance to renew for another year.  In that respect I do fault Rogers for not publicizing that ability enough.

[barny]

If there was no monetary incentive for Rogers, they wouldn't be doing it.  It's that simple.  Why would they do that to their customers, creating all that ill will, unless they made money by doing it?  I was born at night, but not last night!

[barny]

The problem is that people are so used to Telcos doing this sort of thing "from time to time" as you aptly put it, that they tend to shrug it off, and the Telcos know that. Can you imagine a retail business treating a customer like that? I don't think so. Can you imagine having , say, a gift card balance and the retailer decided that they would only honour it up to $150, even though the balance was $300? I actually think there is a law against that in Canada, if my memory serves me right. That's exactly what Rogers is doing to my wife. Of course they do that "from time to time" don't they?

[OLDYELLR]

Gift cards actually did have expiry dates, which upset a lot of people who mislaid them or forgot to use them in the allowed time. That's when companies were forced to do away with expiry dates. Unfortunately, prepaid phone users are a small minority with no voice. 😞

[Unusual_Glark]

Hello, I have a pay as you go $10 a month plan. I already have $155 dollars and can't add another $100 for the year  like I usually do. Got an email saying I could exchange my balance for the plan for this year. I called and the guy on the phone said they could do that and extend the expiry date for a year. Though the date hasn't changed at all.  Had to get a $10 pay as you go so my $155 dollar balance doesn't expire. What do I do now? How long does this take to be able to use the balance I already have?

[pdqweb]

When i called to renew using $100 of my $117 balance i was offered renewal for 6 months for $50 instead, leaving a $67 balance. All good.

[OLDYELLR]

@Unusual_GlarkExactly which PayGo plan do you have? If it's a grandfathered Talk Anytime plan with a $155 balance, you can use $100 of it to renew for a year, leaving a balance of $55. As I understand it, the $10/month plan is something that people who let their Talk Anytime plan lapse and didn't request to be grandfathered, and carries no balance. Or do you have the Talk Anytime plan for 365 days and were topping it up with $10 each month?