Rogers (and Fido) Pre-paid Phone Service Ending December 16, 2024

[57]

I saw a few recent posts "hinting" at this, however, I received a text today confirming the following:  I've therefore started this thread on the topic.

1. Rogers (and Fido) Prepaid services will no longer be available after December 16, 2024.

2. I can switch to Rogers (or Fido) (assume Post-paid service) and keep my number

3. I can switch to Chatr Prepaid and keep my number.

They provided a phone number 1-844-235-3766, or say to visit a Rogers retail location...

I just finished pre-paying until July 25, 2025 (so 9 months still to go, value approximately $75).  I also have a balance on my grandfathered anytime plan of about $95.

I guess I'll need to do some research and decide what I'll do and also find out what Rogers will do regarding the $170 or so in "value" that I still have in my Prepaid account.

***Edited Labels***

[fiona59]

How did you pay for your top up?  Credit card?  If yes, dispute it as you were sold a service that they had no intention of honouring.

There was a mass text sent on October 23 telling us we were toast as of Dec 16.

Read above.

Do the CRTC route, Rogers will then be notified and you'll get most of your money applied to a new account.

Complain to Rogers Office of the President.

I managed to get AMEX to refund my $100.  Wound up with a $10/month talk/text/1GB and my balance from paygo is funding it.

[57]

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@OLDYELLR wrote:

1. Not one word from Rogers.

2. Will I still be able to make and receive calls after December 16? 

3. If not, how will Rogers make good on my balance if not a refund? Stealing hundreds of dollars from customers by discontinuing a service without reimbursing the balance is criminal. If Rogers messes with me on this, there is no way I will use any other Rogers service.

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1. You may have missed it, but a text was sent to everyone with Rogers Prepaid around October 22.  Go back and look at your texts around that time.  If your phone was switched off (or unavailable) for several days, the text is not kept in the cloud indefinitely and I believe only stays there for a few days.

2. Not on Rogers Prepaid - you need to migrate to Rogers or Fido postpaid, Chatr prepaid, or to a different provider.  The contents of that text are outlined in post 1 of this thread and yes, Rogers Prepaid is ending on December 16.

3. Please read previous posts in this thread. Anyone getting a credit for their balance has had to fight for it, typically with Rogers office of the president (share a concern), or via CCTS.

[57]

Update on my Prepaid balance (see post 1).  As mentioned previously in this thread, I and others tried all the "normal" channels to get our prepaid balances credited to us in some way.  None of the normal channels worked for me.

I contacted The Office of the President (OOTP) several times and finally got a response today.  I was offered several options, but I chose to receive an "electronic gift card" in four months time, which I can use towards TSC or any Rogers "invoices", like my TV/Internet/Home Phone bill.  I consider the case closed, provided I get my "credit" in March or earlier.  You can use the following link to contact OOTP.  I do not like to use this, unless I've explored all other normal avenues.

https://www.rogers.com/contact/share-a-concern/

I requested and received a confirmation email from OOTP shortly after the conversation.

I would like also to thank @RogersCorey for his role in this.  I have always found the forum mods to be very helpful to me.

I'm disappointed that so much time and effort was required for what should have been a relatively straight-forward transaction.  At least I didn't have to contact CCTS.

I'll tag @OLDYELLR since he asked in a post above.

[OLDYELLR]

Ever since I switched to an iPhone I'm not seeing any texts but I am being charged. I have data turned off, if that matters. Most of the texts according to my call history are spam. On October 21 I see I was charged for 4 $0.70 texts, all at the same time, which I didn't see,with no indication they were from Rogers, just  "10/21/2024 10:38 $0.70 Incoming SMS". I just marked the charges as spam. I would always go to my PayGp Balance bookmark to check my balance. It would show my discontinued cable account and I'd choose my cellphone number from the dropdown. The last time was October 27. Now when In go to my bookmark I don't see that anymore, just my profile information and how to change my password. Looks like Rogers took my $100 and screwed me.

[dj2015]

It will be VERY interesting if the actually allow you to apply the gift cards to “rogers invoices”. First time that’s been “said”. 

[OLDYELLR]

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@OLDYELLR wrote:

Ever since I switched to an iPhone I'm not seeing any texts but I am being charged.

OOps, I did get the text(s). I just didn't read all the way down because there was a lot of promotional stuff.

10/24/2024 13:02 $0.00 Incoming SMS
10/24/2024 13:02 $0.00 Incoming SMS
10/24/2024 13:02 $0.00 Incoming SMS
10/24/2024 13:02 $0.00 Incoming SMS
10/24/2024 13:02 $0.00 Incoming SMS

[OLDYELLR]

Now when I go to my call history bookmark I get the Rogers Maintenance screen. Both Firefox and Chrome. Maybe I'll try again later.

[57]

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@dj2015 wrote:

It will be VERY interesting if the actually allow you to apply the gift cards to “rogers invoices”. First time that’s been “said”. 

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I asked for and received an email from OOTP.  Here's the text with personal information redacted, "Rogers Invoices" highlighted in bold:

Hello 57,

Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today, it was a pleasure. 

I am writing to confirm that as per our interaction today - Reference #XXXX
you will receive $XX in Today's Shopping Channel gift cards to email address XX in 4 months time.

The gift cards can be used for purchases on tsc.ca or towards paying your Rogers invoices.

Wishing you a wonderful day and thank you for your continued loyalty with Rogers.

Thanks, XX
Advisor, Office of the President

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[dj2015]

Thanks for sharing. Wasn’t sure how l was going to use my 300+400 gift cards and they definitely never mentioned they could be applied to rogers invoices. Just the two, rogers stadium stuff

[kkr6]

you choose rogers $10 a month plan? both chatr and. rogers seems to offer them now.. and both now offer some months free based on balance (though still lose $ with theb5 or $10 plans, you make money if you go to expensive plans but i suspect that is a super small % of past pay as you go)..

but has anyone compared pros/cons or chatr $10 versus rogers $10? rogers seems faster data, but chatr they may be a bonus 500MB….
no idea which is least likely to stay the cheapest when the 3 years is up (i’m assuming chatr gives that too, i need to verify)

[kkr6]

in addition.to comparing rogers/chatr $10 both which seem special deals (so can’t see how they don’t go up in price in 3 years as chatr wild be $25!w/o the deal and rogers has nothing anywhere near even that price point)

also throw the $149 chatr prepaid into the mix to compare as it seems to be a regular offer so maybe less likely to disappoint 3 year). slightly more expensive but a bit more data.

(similar could be done for the $5/month chatr/roger and $100chatr options.. but suspect i’ll go for a plan with a bit of data)

[tony2024-10-28]

thank you for your sharing their email confirmation. I have been waiting  and following up for that confirmation  email for one and half month. I have to contact the office of the president again  

[tony2024-10-28]

there is no written confirmation for one and half month for me. I am keeping to ask the president office for he confirmation email 

[HowardL]

Yes, I choose Rogers $10 plan.

Reason: 

• I heard and saw posts some Chatr users said s/he cannot receive call/text or have poor connectivity out of Canada (and US), I need to avoid this;
• I am travelling, I don't need data in the recent months, BUT, I will return Canada early next year, then I need data;
  • when I told this situation to the representative in call and asked "how can I get data if now I choose $5 plan (without data) but later need it?", the representative answered and reminded me: if now you choose $5 plan w/o data, and you wanted to have data next year, there no such thing like "add-on", but you have to choose from a plan whichever is available at the time you want them, that could be $40, $30, $50 or whatever offers at that time.
    The representative also told me something like: because the $5 or $10 plan is special offer for prepaid migration user, so, there maybe no so low price after the migration period, so the price would be $40 something like that (not certain price, but will higher than $10: 1GB, Unlimited Text, Unlimited Call, in Canada)

That's why I choose Rogers, with $10 plan.

[OLDYELLR]

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@fiona59 wrote:

How did you pay for your top up?  Credit card?  If yes, dispute it as you were sold a service that they had no intention of honouring.

There was a mass text sent on October 23 telling us we were toast as of Dec 16.

Read above.

Do the CRTC route, Rogers will then be notified and you'll get most of your money applied to a new account.

Complain to Rogers Office of the President.

I managed to get AMEX to refund my $100.  Wound up with a $10/month talk/text/1GB and my balance from paygo is funding it.

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Yes, I paid $100 + tax ($113) with my credit card on September 19/2024. We received the text from Rogers about discontinuing the service on October 24. Curiously, when I renewed, the agent suggested I use $50 from my balance instead, as if she knew what was in the wind, but I didn't listen.  I will certainly try to get that payment refunded by Visa.  (BTW, I did contact Rogers Share A Concern about this fraud, but I'm not counting on a response.)

[fiona59]

I topped up at the end of September and the guy on the phone was saying next year to consider using my balance to pay for it!  He certainly didn't know what was happening.

Anyhoo, I visited my card company web page, filled up their dispute a charge form.  Stated that I made the purchase on September 30 (or whenever it was) and on Oct. 23 was informed service was cancelled.  That Rogers had sold me a service that they had no intention of providing.   I got a refund the next day.

[OLDYELLR]

I tried opening a dispute on my bank website yesterday. It timed out on me 3 times while I was gathering information. Today I'll try again, but have everything ready in a text file.

[OLDYELLR]

Ever since soon after the End Of Service announcement I can no longer check my balance and transaction history. I have it bookmarked and use the dropdown for my cellphone number. Now all I get is this:

 Clicking any of the pertinent questions at the bottom is useless.

[57]

@OLDYELLR : Are you talking about using the workaround for the transaction history as outlined in the following link?  Although it worked for me on October 25, when I got my last transaction history, it may not work any more.  I accessed the transaction history shortly after I received the text indicating that prepaid was ending.

https://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/Pay-as-You-Go/Why-does-rogers-hate-pay-as-you-go/m-p/500973/hi...

If you can't get to the transaction history that way any more, you can get the balance using the PAYGo (prepaid) phone number as outlined in the link below:

https://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/Pay-as-You-Go/Prepaid-account/m-p/521259/highlight/true#M3827

You can use the phone menu to get the balance (verbally from the computer) and the last few transactions, (verbally from the computer voice), or you can wait for the menu options to end and talk to a CSR as outlined in the link above (4-4-1).  I don't believe the CSRs work on Saturday and Sunday any more and with the shutdown coming in 3 weeks, who knows what's happening there now.

[OLDYELLR]

I used the bookmark that always worked (well, as well as anything a Rogers works). Now I get the screen  I posted, or a Rogers Maintenance screen,  instead of my cancelled cable account with a dropdown to my cell number. I'll try calling the PayGo number when I have time, but I don't expect a detailed line by line transaction history or a refund of my recent renewal. Meanwhile, I've submitted a dispute of the credit card charge to my bank because Rogers is ending the service.

[PAYG]

I was on the phone with Rogers for A day. The calls were transferred to one department then to another department, from representatives to supervisors, and for twice the supervisor just disappeared on the other end of phone calls. Rogers refused to refund my $290 nor transfer to their postpaid plan, and asked me to call Chatr to transfer the balance but Chatr said no balance to transfer over.

Then I called Rogers again, the supervisor told me to use up the balance $290 before Dec 16, which is just about in 20 days.

It is Rogers breach of contract and should refund or credit customers' balance.