Roger Varley has been in the news business almost 40 years with The Canadian Press/Broadcast News, Uxbnridge Times-Journal, Richmond Hill Liberal and Uxbridge Cosmos. Co-winner with two others of CCNA national feature writing award. In Scout movement over 30 years, almost 25 as a leader. Took Uxbridge youths to World Jamboree in Holland. Involved in community theatre for 20 years as actor, director, playwright, stage manager etc. Born in England, came to Canada at 16, lived most of life north and east of Toronto with a five-year period in B.C.
Tyranny of the big boys
I used to have a cell phone. No more.
I have abandoned it and in the four or five weeks it has been disabled, I haven't missed it once.
That's probably because I seldom used it anyway. Although it was always in my pocket, many times I would pull it out only to see I had "missed" three or four or five calls, which always puzzled me because I had my ring-tone set on loud. And despite the plan I had with Rogers, I regularly found long-distance charges on my bill because - (and here I will admit I am absolutely illiterate when it comes to technical stuff) - for some reason calls I made went through a Port Perry cell even though I was in Uxbridge.
The final straw came when one month, for the first time in about three years, I was late with my monthly payment. I caught up with the next payment, but Rogers decided to ding me for $25 to restore my service, which apparently had been cut off. As I told Rogers when I cancelled my account, I never knew I had been cut off. That's how used I was to not receiving calls.
A few months ago, after realizing that there was seldom anything I wanted to watch on television, despite having over 100 channels, I went down to Utica and cancelled all my cable stations except for basic service, which gets me Channels 2 through 28. However, since I also have my Internet connection through Compton (but now owned by Rogers), I was told that my Internet service would cost me more because I cancelled all those cable bundles. So it was a choice of paying more for stations that I didn't need and paying less for Internet, or less for cable and more for Internet. I believe it's called Hobson's Choice.
Today, I went to send an e-mail and Google informed me that my e-mail account, which I have had for years with the same e-mail address and password, was discontinued. It said something about my security. All I know is, it sent me into a tizzy because I had some important e-mails to send and no way to do it without opening up another account. Now I have to inform everyone I can think of who needs to know what my new e-mail address is. What bothers me is that my e-mail address was simple and straightforward: rogervarley@hotmail.com. Anyone receiving an e-mail from me knew at a glance who the sender was. They didn't have to ask themselves whether it was safe to open an e-mail from someone called fuzzybunny or other such silly name that I've seen out there.
So who do I complain to? Rogers? Good luck! Google? Wouldn't know how to send them a complaint anyway.
I suppose I could somehow switch to another carrier for my TV, phone (I now have a land phone) and Internet, but from what I hear all the other players in the field have reputations just as bad as those companies I have mentioned. Besides, it all gets to be just a little bit complicated and time-consuming.
Companies like Rogers, Bell, Google, etc have become such incredibly large entities that the consumer doesn't count anymore. They do whatever they want to do because they know we are trapped with nowhere else to go.
It seems to me that for companies such as these, "customer service" might just as well be a foreign language. It also seems to me that the general populace needs some kind of telecommunications bill of rights to protect us from the gouging, poor service and, in Google's case, blatant interference.
Tell me, am I wrong?
