Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
We finally cancelled our Rogers Canada Home Phone, and it feels good for two reasons, saving money and wasting time.
Discover why we cancelled our Rogers Canada home phone and said goodbye to frustrating scammers and unwanted calls.
After being a Rogers Canada customer since 1999, Mrs. CBB finally gave in after the retention department failed to offer her a deal.
You would think long-standing Rogers Canada customers would get the best deal, but that’s not often the case.
We were at our wits end with scammers calling us and wanted to eliminate the 5 am phone calls.
Even if you block the number or add it to the No Call List, you still get scammers ringing at all times of the day.
If you’ve ever wanted to meet someone face to face, it’s a phone scammer, but they’re safely hidden just as they are online.
Today, I discuss a few important topics:
- Why we cancelled our Rogers Canada home phone
- How To Get Rid Of Scammers Who Call You
- Ways you can help family members understand how scammers work
- Why you have the power to change your fixed expenses to fit your monthly budget
If you’ve had enough of the high costs of technology and scammers, do what we did- cancel.
Happiness Is Being In Control Of Your Fixed Expenses
We have, in the past, scored some great deals, but that only happens if promotions are available at the time of renewal.
If you are a new homeowner, business owner, or setting up services for the first time, you will get Rogers promotions pricing.
Although they only last a year, you must call back to try and get a better Rogers promo.
As many know, getting a deal with any telecommunications company is a pain. I’ll say it because it’s true.
Not only are you on the phone for a minimum of one hour up to two hours, but you don’t get the price point that fits your budget.
That’s the name of the game when it comes to getting deals.
Will the costs allow you to keep a balanced monthly budget?
If the answer is no, try another company or get rid of a service as we did.
How To Cancel Your Rogers Canada Home Phone
How can I cancel my Rogers Home Phone?
Mrs. CBB and I have been talking over the past two years about getting rid of our Rogers Canada home phone.
The problem was that I didn’t own a cell phone, but now I have received a fantastic deal through Freedom Mobile at $21.99 monthly with 11 gigs of data.
So, now that we both have cell phones, it made no sense to continue with the Rogers home phone.
Last year, the Rogers Canada promo offered by their retention department allowed us to keep the home phone.
Magically, they moved numbers around so we could keep the same payment each month.
I think the Rogers retentions department has more pull than they say.
After one year of paying a bill, you can get used to a promo price, and then, bam, you forget to call, and your account goes back to the regular prices.
That’s often how Rogers Canada customers find out their promos have ended.
Read Your Rogers Bill
I am guilty of not reading our Rogers bill if I notice the price is the same each month.
The only time I take a good look is when the price increases, which is horrible to admit.
I’ve always told CBB followers to make sure they read their receipts, including your bills.
Please don’t do what I did; read your bill every month.
I feared this when we changed from paper bill to online billing.
Before I would read the bill when it came in the mail, but I became a slacker.
I missed this below; I would have seen it if I logged on.
INT Equipment Offer and Internet Offer for Internet – (our address) will end on March 19, 2021. Review your plan
Lesson learned.
Even so, the scammers turned us off from having a home phone.
Rogers Canada Customers Get Daily Calls From Scammers
Likely all telecommunications companies in Canada have customers who complain about scam callers.
I’d say for the past year, the only phone calls we’d get on our Rogers Home Phone were scams for :
- Air Duct Cleaning Services ( I don’t know if this is a scam, but they call ALL.THE.TIME.
- Visa Department Alerts (someone is using your credit card to get your credit card information)
- Amazon Scam Phone Call Canada – Problem With Account (they walk you through a process online so they can get a hold of your Amazon account and credit card information)
- Revenue Canada (the police want to speak to the homeowner (haha) because they owe income tax. If they don’t pay, they will come and arrest the homeowner. Insert Yawn!
- Microsoft Computer Virus (they walk you through a process on your computer until they gain remote access to everything)
How To Handle Telephone Scammers In Canada
I’m sure there are plenty more home phone scams, but what irks me is that no one seems to be doing anything about it.
Canadians often read online about people getting scammed over the telephone, and it’s heartbreaking.
Canadians who recognize these calls as scams must understand that they target everyone.
It’s easy to understand how intimidating scammers can be on the phone, but you must take control.
They know what they are doing, and many don’t want to, but that’s how they feed their family.
I don’t believe for one minute that employees of scam call centers don’t know they are ripping people off.
Of course, they do for one reason: to earn an income for themselves and their boss.
I’ve got into deep discussions with all of the above situations to see how they earn money.
As you will see in the two videos below, the scammer knows he is scamming, and Canadians get hit just as hard as Americans.
Could you imagine that? It blows my mind but saddens me at the same time.
Poverty holds people prisoner and takes people to dark places they never imagined.
Where Do Scam Phone Calls Come From?
Realistically, scam phone calls can come from anywhere worldwide, but many have been traced back to Indian call centers.
These scam call centers in India earn hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.
Indian call center scammers targeting foreigners around the world with the IRS and Microsoft Tech Support scams have reached an epidemic level.
They’re destroying India’s reputation around the world with every single scam call.
So, I’m taking you to a scam call center in India to show you exactly how these call centers are scamming foreigners for hundreds of millions of dollars every year.
Even a small scam call center like this one can make over USD 500,000 a year. Usually, they scam elderly computer-illiterate people out of between $400 – $1600.
They do this by placing pop-up windows on websites that trick the person into phoning them to “get rid of a virus.”
It’s all a scam and a lie and the person’s computer has no virus at all. These scammers prey on our naivety and people who are less savvy with computers.
-Karl Rock YouTube
Scam phone numbers come from using international or local numbers that were once canceled are used.
My senior mother-in-law often got these scam phone calls, and we instructed her to hang up.
If you know someone who may fall prey to telephone scammers, help them understand the consequences of giving in to their demands.
However, telephone scammers can get into your mind faster than a speeding bullet.
Things To Avoid When You Get A Scam Phone Call
They are trained to be efficient and make the caller on the other end scared and intimidated.
First, if you have a call display and don’t recognize a number, let the answering machine pick it up.
Here’s what won’t happen if you ignore the scam phone call;
- You will not go to jail even if the caller is convincing.
- If the answering machine picks up, don’t bother calling back. Nothing will happen
- It’s all LIES. Get on with your day and be happy you’re not one of their scam victims.
What you should avoid doing when a scammer calls;
- Do not send anyone money, wire transfers, bitcoin, or gift cards
- If anyone asks for information about your computer, hang up.
- Never give out personal information over the phone.
- Don’t let the caller bully you, hang up.
Rogers Canada Promotion Fail
So, we received our monthly Rogers Canada bill via email and noticed that our account had gone up to $170.75.
We were paying $146.22 a month, which included the following:
- Home phone with no long-distance waived, so you pay the total price (this didn’t bother us since Mrs. CBB had free Canada-wide long-distance calling on her cell phone.
- The cell phone was $20 per month with no data plan since she doesn’t work and is home daily. She didn’t need to have data with unlimited internet at home.
- Rogers Internet Ignite Internet 500-Unlimited, Gigabit Wi-Fi.
On the bill, it stated that our new monthly charges would be $170.75
The new price was $24.53 a month or $294.36 a year.
Talking To Rogers Canada Retentions Department Fail
After one hour on the telephone with a guy who told me he was a retention department employee and could help me, I was transferred to Nova Scotia.
The best deal the first Rogers employee gave us was $163.70, an extra $17.70 a month, and $7.05 less than the new bill.
This is where the Rogers Canada retentions department lives.
The gentleman on the phone was happy and talked about how beautiful it was to live there.
Of course, the idea is to put the customer in a good mood before he dishes out the promotion.
The retentions department that cost me 30 minutes of my life has the same price as the first guy.
So, after all, I was able to get a $7.05 promotional difference from the regular price monthly charges.
I was still not near the $146.22 we paid in 2020, so we cut the phone chord.
During the 2020 promotional deal, Rogers Canada charged us $121.14 for unlimited internet.
It seemed very high, but they were moving around numbers to make magic happen and to make us happy.
It worked as we kept the home phone for one additional year in 2020 because of it.
Gone are those days, I guess.
However, when we cancelled the home phone, the internet price dropped to $67.99 plus $20 for the cell phone for a new monthly total of $87.99.
You work it out.
All I see is Rogers Canada moving numbers around to appease their customer.
Trying To Keep Customers After They Cancel
After we cancelled our Rogers Canada home phone, we also said we would be cancelling Mrs. CBB’s cell phone once we moved her to Freedom Mobile.
Two days later, I logged on to our Rogers Canada account online to see this promo that the retentions department did NOT offer.
They are sneaky.
Exclusive offer for (insert phone number)
Get 2GB for $35 / month on this line (plus applicable discounts & taxes)
Final Thoughts About Rogers Canada Promotions
We’ve never had many problems with Rogers products, so I recommend them.
I wish they had better promotions for long-standing customers like ourselves to keep us.
Unfortunately, they lost our home phone business, but we don’t miss the scam calls.
We also realized we could live without a Rogers home phone since we both had cell phones.
So, if you want to cut your telecommunications bill, consider your options, as it is not a fixed expense.
Don’t be afraid to cut the cord on cable or a home phone if you don’t need it.
Your confidence in saying goodbye to Rogers Canada services will be worth the savings.
Have Your Say
Discussion: What made you finally cancel your home phone?
Please leave me your comments below.
We went with Ooma.
Rogers is working very hard to get people off of the legacy packages and onto the new Ignite platform. Part of this is basically gutting the promotions for people on the legacy product; which makes sense. IP based services are much more efficient and offer a much better experience. But if you’re on some crazy discount, yeah, you’re very unlikely to get that re-upped. Even retention agents are unable to add discounts beyond what is tagged on the account in most circumstances, as you discovered.
You might get a “win back” call in a few days, they sometimes have better offers, but be aware that if you don’t answer, they don’t call again.
But if you don’t need a service (like home phone), yeah, get rid of it.
We had the same thing happen! The price I was paying was equivalent to what my new Internet, TV and my home phone (needed for work) cost and all upgraded services. Rogers did not offer me any deals (with them for over 30 years) and their service is not as good as who we are using now. And yes they called me afterward like Netbug stated but by them I really don’t care because everything was switched. Ultimately Rogers needs to get their shit together!
If you want to keep your number, you can register it with a VOIP carrier, and keep it on your cell phone as a second number. I waited a long time because we wanted to have a central family phone number. I think in the past 4 months it has cost me less than $10
Wow, that’s not too shabby. I’ll have to Google that about VOIP as I’m not familiar with the process. Thanks for the tip. Do you still get all those scammer calls?
I had to keep my Telus home phone because it was connected to the house alarm. House sold, moved, no need for either. The only calls I got on the home phone were scammers and collection agents looking for my ex. If my whistle was near, I blasted out a few ear drums. If the whistle was in another room I swore at them. What I found really rude from both scammers and collection agents is that they hung up before I was done cursing them out. They called me, not the other way around. Pretty rude to hang up!
As for Rogers, I used to own a townhouse where our strata fee included cablevision. About 20 years ago I had Rogers Internet but cancelled it and switched to Telus. At the time Telus had a phone/Internet package deal. It took about another month for the Rogers tech to show up and disconnect the Internet and remove their equipment. The tech noticed we had cablevision coming to our unit but weren’t paying for it, not a Rogers client for cable. That’s because the strata was a business account. So this rogue tech disconnected our cable! We immediately phoned Rogers to complain and they didn’t really care. No urgency to immediately fix their mistake. It took 3 days for Rogers to get a tech out to hook up our cable again. I sent them a letter complaining about the whole incident and they didn’t have the decency to respond to me. So I disconnected my Rogers cell phone and went with Telus for that too! Ah, memories!
We cancelled our Bell home phone 7 years ago when the phone portion of our monthly bill had risen to $70 (that was in a bundle plan too!). I spoke the retention department and they said they could not offer a better deal.
I did not want to give up my home number that we had for over 20 years. I also needed international long distance. What I did was transfer my number to a VOIP provider. I use Ooma and I love it. I bought the Ooma device for $99 at Costco. I pay $5.41 per month and $99 a year for the premier plan (well worth it!). The premier plan provides North America wide long distance which I needed. It also has a lot of nice features including scam call blocking.
We still get letters from Bell asking us to switch back and offering fabulous deals that we were never offered by the retention department.