Adventures in Moving: The Race to the Bottom

This week's adventures in moving concerns the inevitable attempts to get Ma Bell and Pa Rogers to transfer services from our current address to our new home. Ma and Pa, as every Canadian knows, are great when they're working and you don't have to deal with them. In those rare instances when you actually need to talk to them to make changes, it's scary race to underperform each other and thoroughly frustrate you.


Before getting to the tales of incompetence, just a note that I updated Here's Jonny: The Webpage so that it includes a countdown to possession, flooring and moving days.

My wife had done some pre-research and discovered that both Ma and Pa allowed for online moves. As the primary account holder, i.e. the one with the internet logins, I was delegated to inform Ma and Pa that we will be moving in a month.

I started with Pa Rogers. I signed in and clicked on the link to move. I started filling out the form. I entered my address and picked our move-out date from the drop-down menu. Then I went to pick our move-in date from the next drop-down menu. It was all too easy until then, because this was when the problems began. The drop-down menu wouldn't let me pick the same day, the next day or even the day after. There was a mandatory service blackout of 7 days. Trust me, I tried clicking a lot of different options for move-out. I tried every possible order of picking dates to try and outsmart the system. The system won.

I immediately Googled to see if Pa simply had a mandatory one-week service black-out ... or if they assume that everyone takes a full week to move. I vaguely remember going without service the last time I moved, but I'm pretty sure it was because I left it until the week before to arrange the move and they simply didn't have a technician available. This time I was filling out the form a month in advance, so that shouldn't be the problem. Google didn't provide any useful answers, just thousands and thousands of frustrated customers and former customers.

Then I went to the moving support page on Pa's website. It was helpfully blank. Great. A dead help site, a glitchy online form, and thousands of posts online about people complaining about Pa without a single one having this particular problem.

I finally caved and steeled my soul for my final recourse. I called the dedicated Rogers moving line. I sat in my zen chair, with my pen ready to take notes and a glass of water handy (note to self - consider having vodka instead of water next time).

My first problem with the moving line: instead of going directly to the Rogers move representatives it funnels you back into the main Rogers line and forces you to navigate the menus. Why even have a dedicated line? Seriously.

I got to speak to a service rep. She was confused. She put me on hold and spoke to someone else. She came back and said she would transfer me to billing. Billing guy comes on and sounds like he's talking to me from a street corner and there's someone else beside him having a loud conversation. He doesn't understand my problem and says he thinks he should transfer me to moves and transfers. Great, back to where I started. I fear I'm going to get the same girl again, but I'm in luck, I get a different one. This one sounds like she's in the break room as I can hear conversations in the background that are clearly not customer service related. She puts me on hold and tries to find an answer. Her suggestion - online chat agent who should be able to work past the glitch and make sure that I get the $30 credit for doing this online.

So, off I go, back to the Rogers website, the place with the glitchy form and the blank support page, in search of help. I click links and Pa demands that I download software so that he can take screenshots if necessary. I've even lost the will to find this disturbing, I just want to move. Chat opens, helpful assistant gives me a link to a different customer chat where I should find the answers to my questions. Apparently I was in technical support rather than ummm website support. It seems that Pa needs a support line for figuring out what support line you need ...

I open the new online-based chat. I notice it is conveniently called "The Incident" and that Pa's rep has "signed in to the incident." This sounds about as promising as crossing the street (see previous post).

20 minutes of online chatter later, I'd forgotten how to do that, since the last time I used online chats was when my wife and I were dating and living apart. Apparently online chats are like bicycles. Anyway, 20 minutes later and I have a confirmation code that my services from Pa will be cut at my old place in the morning and reconnected by a technician between 2pm and 5pm.

It only took two hours and there is another three-hour service window in my future. Total time invested, five hours. I had to "speak" to five different agents, and fill out three sets of forms online. Remember the old days when all you had to do was call, the sales representative was actually happy for your business, the phone call was short and the service schedule fit yours?

Me either, and I remember party lines (the kind you shared with your neighbours), so my memory is pretty good and I'm pretty old (and from a rural-enough part of Canada to have stopped upgrading telephone-technology after the 1930s).

Empowered by surviving the experience with Pa, I decided to tell Ma that I was moving. You know how sentimental Ma is about moving and letting her little boy grow up? You can imagine why I wasn't looking forward to this.

I signed into the Bell system and filled out the online form. It said that I would receive a phone call the following day between 1pm and 5pm from a representative to confirm, and that I would receive an email as well. This sounds promising.

The online form even let me pick moving out and moving in on the same day. This sounds too good to be true. I just wanted to confirm with a person that I would be keeping my phone number, for which the online form provided no option.

I diligently sit beside my phone waiting for Ma to call the next day. I'm also waiting for my insurance broker to call me back about the move, which has also been an unusually long hassle (for them, which is still infinitely better than calling a telecommunications or credit card company), so I don't mind keeping one hand hovering above the phone while the other makes my mouse glide around the interwebs.

5pm comes and Bell hasn't called. I've hung up on two automatic-dialer telemarketers (don't even get me started about the Don't Call me you bastards Registry), but I assume that I should be getting a call from a real live person, so that I can confirm that we're keeping our current number, and that the online form allowing me to disconnect and reconnect in the same day isn't a cruel joke suggested by Pa.

The next day I call Ma to find out why she didn't call. I miss her. I get a representative who poses every question with incredulity. 'Didn't you get a confirmation code?' 'I apologize that no one called you back, perhaps they simply haven't processed your order. No, I can't imagine how it would be a waste of your time to wait for a call that never comes.'

She looks in the system and can't find an order. She suggests that the other people, not her, simply haven't had time to process it. I suggest that maybe it simply didn't go through. She leaves me with the option to wait until some undetermined date for them to find my order, which I've given to them soooooo far in advance, or to fill out the online form again.

I pick option number three: place my order with her now. I figure, I've either got to wait two weeks and do it again online and go through the same headache, or I can just place the order again now. I almost immediately wish I hadn't. Before we get to the basics of a move order (date, new address), she tries to sell me everything under the sun.

1. No, I don't want maintenance insurance on my phone jacks. Phone jacks cost about $2 at a hardware store, and yes, I can actually install them all by myself.
2. No, I don't want to bundle any new, additional services like TV or internet. I'm perfectly happy no more dissatisfied with Pa than I am with you. I'd rather keep my services separated so I can leverage the two of you against each other, i.e. if you don't stop annoying me, I'll cancel this move and my services with you ... and come crawling back when Pa inevitably underwhelms me.
3. No, I'm not happy that I have to pay a moving setup fee, but I'm also not willing to pay an extra $10 a month for additional phone line services to avoid paying $55 now. In fact, I'm actually thinking about cancelling my long distance package with you, because I can make long distance calls cheaper. No I don't mean you have better packages, I mean that I can use Google Calling. For free. Anywhere (in North America). Free. I can also use Skype for video conferencing. Free. Why am I paying you for long distance services???
4. No I don't have another number you can reach me at the day of the move, so you better make sure that you guys don't screw up.

 Finally, after saying 'no' more times than a cranky toddler when asked if he's tired, we finally get to the moving thing that I called about. I get to keep my phone number, and my old line will be disconnected remotely at 8am, and reconnected at the new place between 8am and 5pm. No technician. Done, finally.

Time spent dealing with Ma: just shy of five hours, some of it passively waiting. So let's call it a draw between Pa and Ma in the race for the worst service. Five hours each for Ma and Pa, with at least three hours each of sitting around waiting for them to show up or call.

What I dread now is what has happened to me many times with each of Ma and Pa, and I'd forgotten about until I Googled the one-week blackout ... they both have problems with their automated systems and have an annoying tendency to cut your services early. This would be more or less par for the course. I'm expecting the worst: they'll both cut my services weeks before the moving date, they'll forget to initialize at the new address, and they'll expect full payment for services that aren't being provided as well as extortionist moving fees.

Makes me want to:

1. never move again
2. revert to a simpler time before phones, tv and the internet (and especially dedicated customer service representatives)

I happily filled out surveys for both Pa Rogers and Ma Bell. Rogers customer chat gets rave reviews. Service reps on phone lines get abysmal reviews across the board.

Both companies were nice enough to send automatic email confirmations within the hour, and Bell even got around to automatic dialing me with a confirmation message. Good thing I already had my question about keeping this number answered by a person.

Oh, and the hassle with our insurance is that the new place has 60 amp electrical service. This is apparently high risk, even though it was done recently, and includes breakers rather than fuses. Hooray. We'll be in the high risk category of insurance policies until we upgrade the electrical. There's nothing quite like telecommunications and insurance companies when it comes to extorting money from you, and creating business for electricians and technicians.