I’ve been a Rogers customer since my first cell phone, which was a very long time ago. Sure, every once in a while, I get this twinge because their coverage sucks in rural areas (like where all my in-laws live), but I’ve put up with that, because when I am visiting family I mostly don’t want to be interrupted by work anyway.
I’ve also experienced the super extreme rip off of international roaming. But Telus does the same, and that’s an easily solved problem. I got a Roam Mobility SIM for my US travels ($20 SIM + $14.95/GB), and a nice little mifi device that I can load up with 3 GB of data for 30 euro when I am in the UK, the equivalent of 10 euro/GB. That’s a little better than Rogers, where I’d be spending $400/GB with one of their “special” travel packs. Ouch. So … same shit, different provider, whatever.
But the last straw came with my most recent Rogers bill. It seemed unusually high, so I double checked with my previous bill. And yup, it was almost $50 more. After digging into the details, I discovered that I was charged $48.49 for a data overage.
Now, I get that you have a limit, and you get charged to go over. What I don’t get, is the EXTREME ripoff of those overage charges. Let’s review this in detail shall we?
I get charged $35/6GB right now. This is the original iPhone data plan, that I have been using since my original iPhone. Since that first, locked, phone I got from Rogers, I’ve never “upgraded”, and I’ve always gotten my own unlocked phone from Apple. So they aren’t subsidising my phones, either. I’ll even leave out the fact that I get ripped off on my iPad data plan, since I last upgraded and the new device was “inelligible” for data sharing on that 6GB plan, so I had to get a separate plan for it.
Since I am good at the maths, let me illustrate exactly WHY I feel ripped off. On that plan, I get $35/6GB or:
$5.83 / 1 GB
I was over my 6GB (6000MB) limit by 900 MB. That would make the $48.49/0.9GB equivalent to:
$53.87 / 1 GB
Yah. That. The fuckers are charging me almost 10 times the original rate for an overage. And that is why Rogers just lost me as a customer. Not because they charge extra for going over. I would understand that. But double or triple the rate. Not 10 fucking times the rate. That’s just unconscionable price gouging.
So, screw you, too, Rogers. Next week, when I have the time, I’ll be hitting up the Telus store and they’ll have my $150/month account from now on.