Rogers forgives international data roaming charges… once
Clever friends of mine are sophisticated international travellers. They often find themselves “on the continent” and do smart things like buy SIM cards from domestic wireless providers so that they can stay wired without haeomorraging too much money.
Me, I have been to Europe twice now. So it made no sense to me to get a whole new card, phone number etc. But I found myself with some down time and chose to use my phone to post a few pictures to my flickr photostream, and keep up with Facebook. I had some vague notion that international data roaming charges were steep with Rogers but I had no idea what that meant.
Until I came back. Three cents per kilobyte. Sounds cheap, right? Well, 8MB – the equivalent of four iPhone photos – cost me $265.00. Ouch. But a Facebook friend told me that Rogers would – just once – forgive international data roaming charges if they could see it was the first time you’d encountered them.
It was, and they did. I have no idea how much it actually costs Rogers to provide the data roaming service. If it’s anything like text messaging, it’s nowhere near what they charge the customer.
And I have a feeling that even the company realizes that its fees are usurious, otherwise why would they be so quick with the waivers? But nonetheless I appreciate them cutting me some slack.
I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll never use their international data roaming service again. Of course it’s easy for me to say that – the next time I’ll be in Europe we’ll all be communicating using a Wifi antaenna connected directly to our cerebral cortex.
They do, actually, sort of put the fee information on their (needlessly complex, impenetrable) website, but not in any kind of way that would give you an appreciation of what you’re in for if you use the service.
Not exactly a social justice issue or even a consumer rights issue, but I think when a company known for its dreadful customer service, price gouging and general nastiness shows a little compassion, they should get some credit.
August 10th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
thanks for the info I was in Europe for 7 weeks with ike 11mb of data they only refunded me 150.00 bucks tho they said that the most they could do given there policies
March 20th, 2010 at 2:52 pm
I ranup $1500 and paid $150 let off !
December 21st, 2010 at 12:08 am
I know this post has been up for quite some time, but I am encountering the same problem at the moment. I just recently got back from Jamaica and got my Rogers bill in the mail and was charged a whopping $550 for data roaming! I was completely shocked! I’ve used my blackberry plenty of times while away whether in Mexico and Cuba and was never charged this much. My cousin who is with Bell was on her blackberry far more often then I was and her bill only came up to $150.
Do you mind me asking what your argument was with Rogers? What did you say in order to get them to reverse the charges?
Thanks for the post!
December 21st, 2010 at 10:25 am
I just told them the truth: it was my first time using my Rogers phone overseas and that the information about international roaming charges on their website is difficult to find and doesn’t give a reasonable idea of what real life roaming charges would actually be. I told them if I had known how much it cost, I would have used another company’s sim card, a local pay-as-you-go or just turned my phone off.