Rogers has come under fire for unexpectedly increasing the price of its TV boxes.
In a new CBC News feature, Sidney, B.C. resident Cathy Cooper said she now has to pay $7/month more for multiple TV boxes in her home. However, Cooper said a sales representative told her when she signed up four months ago that the monthly price was guaranteed for two years. Toronto’s Paul Greenberg, another Rogers customer, said his monthly fee also went up by $7 despite being told he had a fixed two-year rate.
When she called to inquire about the price hike, she said TV boxes are considered rentals, per Rogers’ contract, allowing it to make changes to fees. Speaking to CBC News, Vass Bednar, executive director of McMaster University’s master of public policy in the Digital Society program, called such a business tactic a “bait and switch.”
It should be noted that Rogers did notify customers of a price increase in the summer, noting that it would come in mid-September due to “rising costs to deliver the latest technology.” However, Cooper and other customers who spoke to CBC News note that they’re still using the same old Shaw boxes from years ago and question how the tech has actually been updated.
In a statement to CBC News, Rogers spokesperson Zac Carreiro didn’t elaborate on these upgrades, either, simply stating that the company is set to spend $4 billion on capital investments this year that include technical upgrades for hundreds of thousands of TV customers.
Bednar, for his part, speculated the price hike is a “lazy” move from Rogers to get more money from customers following its merger with Shaw last year. The Toronto-based telecom giant controversially acquired Shaw in April 2023 for $26 billion. Meanwhile, Rogers brought in a record-breaking $19.3 billion in revenue last year — an increase of 25 percent from 2022.
As CBC News notes, the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS) also reports that Rogers is the most complained-about service provider, accounting for more than 25 percent of all complaints. In the second half of last year alone, complaints about Rogers rose 118 percent year-over-year, according to CCTS.
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Source: CBC News
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