Frauds

It's 2:30 in the morning, so obviously I'm blogging instead of going to bed like a normal person.

The Dude and I have bought up some more deals. I think we're getting addicted. At least I am. Deals!

1. Front Door Organics: $42 for two custom boxes of organic veggies delivered to your front door.
2. Dust Busters Cleaning: $35 for three hours of home cleaning.
3. Arthur Murray Dance Studio: $29 for two private dance lessons and two group dance lessons for two.
4. Art Gallery Of Ontario: $62 for dual one-year membership to the AGO.

The veggies are awesome for obvious reasons. The cleaning will be great before we move. It'll be good to move clean furniture, and when we tromp downstairs and will take the load off us to prepare the place for the new neighbours. Getting a few lessons under our belt before our wedding will be fun, as right now we don't really have much comfort dancing together. I tend to lead. And the AGO was a pet favourite of the Dude's. He's always wanting to go to galleries and we keep finding reasons not to go.

However, not everything around here is sprinkles and sunshine (Except for Sprinkles, who is always a ball of calico sunshine). We decided to get the Dude's affairs in order so we got his credit report. Turns out Rogers has been essentially screwing him up the rump in his sleep for five years.

Allow me to explain this assholery, because it really is quite rage inducing. In 2006, the Dude moved out of London, ON, and back to our hometown. En route out of London he stopped off at the nearest Rogers, paid his final bill and delivered the Internet box back to them. He then got the hell out of dodge and shortly after moving in with his best friend, he set up a phone with Rogers.

At the end of 2007 he cancelled his service to move to Toronto with me, and we rang in the new year together. He paid his final bill and all was well. We've been on my account ever since.

So you can imagine our horror when on his credit report there was a bill for $298 from Rogers that had been sent to collections. Buzuh?! We were completely confused. So the Dude got on the phone with them and retreated to our bedroom.

About an hour and a half later he came out, frazzled as a feral cat at a show dog convention. He was on hold with the ninth person he'd spoken to. After being shuffled around to a variety of departments, he was able to piece together that he was being charged a fee for an unreturned box from 2006-- yes, the box he had returned in London. This bogus fee was something Rogers didn't bother to inform the Dude about for the year-plus he had a phone with them after the move. It never showed up on his bill. They never requested he return the box (Of course, because he had returned it).

So this is when I got on the phone. My elementary school principle told me I ought to become a lawyer. In fact, I've talked my way through and out of all sorts of issues in school and heard that a lot from other teachers. I didn't care for the thought of all that post-secondary and work hours, but I've never lost a lust for arguing. Plus I was pissed.

The Dude authorized me to speak on his behalf and I laid into the unhelpful fool on the other end. I accused Rogers of fraud for sending a bill to collections which they were not owed, damaging an innocent person's credit in the process of their negligence. I demanded a manager. I was sent to a non-manager in another department, whom I cut off in her information gathering spiel to inform her that I would require her supervisor, that she was the 10th person we've been sent to, and gave her a 30-second rundown of the issue.

So she sent me to a manager. And I was on hold for 30 godforsaken minutes.

The manager was helpful enough and really seemed like she was trying to fix our problem. She tried calling the Rogers in London where the box was dropped off. But it was late (since we were on the phone for two and a half hours) and the London store was closed. So she gave us a reference number and we had to settle for being called the next day.

There was no phone call. So we called back. Their servers were down. Try in an hour they said. So I did. Still down. But I needed answers, so I cut out more of the info-gather nonsense and asked to be transferred to the department that had the helpful manager.

Long story short, we have to wait yet another day for a resolution. Or at least the promise of a resolution.

I can tell you this: if this doesn't get solved, I will not give these clowns one more chance to stick it to us. If they want to cling to this $298 bullshit fee, I'm going to cancel my $170 a month service with them. And then I'll see what other recourse I have. There's always filing a complaint to the Better Business Bureau. This just will not stand. Collections, my ass.