I haven’t said much, but it’s been more than a month and a half since my husband and I first started having major problems with our Cable / Internet and Cellphone provider – Rogers. You’d think a company that we were buying so many services from (including a few magazine subscriptions now that I think about it) would be able to figure things out a lot quicker and maybe not cause us so much stress in the process.

It all started in early May when I happened to call Rogers about something to do with my account. I honestly can’t remember what it was now, maybe something to do with my cable tv service since that’s what most of our calls are about and the person taking care of me asked me if I wanted to save a bit of money on my wireless bill and of course I did because Canadians seem to pay pretty much the highest charges there are so saving a few dollars is always good. As it turns out I ended up with a new voice plan for a very good price and since we’d never ever had a free cellphone from the company and our current one was getting old I let the guy talk me into them sending me a Blackberry Curve. Big mistake … that’s when all the problems started or at least that’s what seems to have exposed all of the problems in my account!

To make a very very long story short – We really didn’t like the Blackberry. I didn’t want a data plan and of course the curve we were sent was the only one that you couldn’t use Wifi for free on – you had to actually buy a plan to use Wifi. I wasn’t about to pay extra to use my own Wifi in my house for my phone! Plus I disliked the tiny buttons so I sent the phone back after having it for only 6 days. The same day we sent the phone back my husband was out in a store using our old phone and he called our house and I noticed that our name came up on our home phone but the cell number wasn’t ours – it was an Ottawa number! A city five hours away! My home town in fact!

What the heck????

Rogers had given my cellphone number that I’d had for about 15 years away! Luckily the transfer must have taken place that day and we discovered the change quickly enough that we were able to get my old cellphone number back. Two weeks later we discovered that a reserved extra phone number was also tied to my account. Oh and when they finally restocked the Blackberry that we returned … three weeks later – they charged my account $400 twice for early term cancellation and for canceling my voice plan which was also apparently on a three year term … even though I never canceled the voice plan and I returned the phone with the 15 day and or under 30 minutes of use quota.

We had the charges reversed, but by this time every time we spoke with someone at Rogers they’d find something else wrong with our account. All I wanted to do was get all the problems resolved, make sure I didn’t have some nasty bill coming to me get that I didn’t deserve and then maybe get the free promotional hardware upgrade (ie cellphone) that I was offered back at the beginning of May .. seeing as I’ve had an account with Rogers since oh … 1985 and I’ve never ever had a free cellphone from them it’s probably about time I got one right? Oh and I had a nice one picked out too seeing as they seem to be the only cellphone provider in the Toronto area that has the Nokia N8 – this phone blows other cameras, camcorders and cellphones away!

My account wasn’t cooperating, no matter what anyone tried they couldn’t do a hardware upgrade after that initial Blackberry Curve went out to me. I have no idea what happened but it took more than a month to fix. They finally fixed it on Friday June 17th. Yep, that’s when I got the call that I was finally approved for promotional hardware upgrades to my Rogers account. Only one big month and a half long sob story later! I get so stressed out when I see a Rogers sign, logo or even one or their Red vans in my neighborhood now. That’s how bad this whole situation made me feel. I think my husband and I spoke with just about every department at Rogers trying to get things resolved. It finally went to the office of the President (whatever that really means) and the person handling our case had to escalate our account issue with the IT department twice over a weeks time before it was finally resolved.

So … the man taking care of our case at Rogers had them send out the Nokia N8 that we wanted. It arrived on Monday. I didn’t get around to setting it up until last night and I really experimented with it by taking some pictures and a video earlier today. I think we’re going to enjoy this phone. It sounds great, it’s sleek, loaded and the camera on it is amazing – 12 megapixels – that’s better than my main camera! Oh Boy! Now if I can just keep the darn phone out of my husbands hands I’ll be happy. It’s mine, I fought for it, it’s mine.