Dec 13, 2008

Rogers Digital TV rip off warning!!

Recently my husband and I THOUGHT our old TV finally kicked the bucket and went out determined to buy a brand spanking new High Definition TV set. Of course, I hate to spend the money, especially these days but sometimes you have to do it. The problem with our old set was the sound slowly started to get lower and lower until one day it was gone completely. Watching TV with no sound is not an easy thing, you see the show, you imagine whats going on but unless you are a master at lip reading (or subscribe to closed caption) you might as well forget it!

So…out we went to Best Buy to find ourselves a new TV. My husband had decided it should be flat, 37″ LCD with High Definition (he gets excited when we’re allowed to make a new purchase). These tv’s themselves are such big rip offs. Not many High Def channels unless you pay extra for them. 37″ TV always ends up with 2 grey bars down the side since….well most TV shows are not taped in HD so the wide screen is…well a waste of space. But Buy it we did! After all our old TV had no SOUND, what choice did we have?

Best buy and Rogers have some “love affair” going on. Best Buy gives you a coupon for a free rogers HD box for a year (free actually means they charge you 1cent) Rogers gives you sometime like 10 free HD channels too. (of course at the end of the year if you do not cancel and return the box they charge you an extra $30 something a month- on top of your present service of course). This may sound like the Rip off warning but it’s not! Keep reading.

After purchasing our New HD tv, and the “special” cables you “need” to buy for the best viewing experience and the warranty and empty pockets we set off home.

It was at home we discovered the true rip off. We had not yet picked up our “free HD box” from rogers, but we still had our old rogers “regular” digital cable box to hook up to the new TV. So hook it up we did! Guess what….no sound. WHAT??!! NO SOUND on the new TV what the heck is going on? Did we plug it in wrong? Did we cross cables or buy the wrong ones? Was something wrong with the damn TV? No No No No!

My husband and I tried to figure what was going on and finally my husband suggested we phone Rogers, maybe they can help. I phoned customer service, pondering how I was going to ask help with the new TV set when really they probably wont care. After being on hold for who knows how long a techie comes on line and asks me the problem.

“My TV has no sound I said, I’m not sure what the problem is but maybe you can help me out somehow.” I asked hopefully.

“Is your TV on?” he asks me as if that may be the problem!

“Yes it is on, it’s plugged in, I’m watching it now with no sound” I replied

“one second M-am, I’ll see what I can do” (one second passes) “Can you try it now?”

“sure” I said and tried to turn it up and voila SOUND!!!

“What did you do?” I asked amazed, thinking this tech guy was some sort of wizard.

“I just reset you box, that must have been the problem”

RE-SET MY BOX??!! Rogers had the “power” to make my volume go down by “fiddling” with the service signals!! Slowly, over time, Rogers had weakened the signal going to our digital box but only the sound not the picture. Why? How could this occur? Did they make it appear our TV was losing sound so we’d be forced to go buy a new one? And if they offered a free year service could they get us to buy the HD tv- adding us next year to their billable customers for yet MORE services we didn’t want in the first place? When I return the box will the picture be so crappy that I am forced to get it anyways? I miss my old TV!

When I told the techie I was forced to go buy a new TV because there was no sound I actually heard him chuckle. When I told the Rogers customer service when I went to pick up my free 1 yr HD box I actually SAW them chuckle.

The warning is to be aware Rogers digital services can be “tinkered” with. The signal can be changed, lowered or blocked when they see fit. Before you go buy a new TV phone ROGERS first and ask them to fix your signal. Lets hope Rogers never reads this as I use them for high speed internet. I’d hate for them to play with my bandwidth too!!!

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