misadventures in online billing

rogers cable’s online billing blows.

i have just spent the past 20 minutes trying in vain to view my bill online. it’s already been paid – something i did online with as much hassle and frustration a few weeks ago – but i wanted to take a look at the charges. i’m in the process of prepping my tax materials, and i noticed that my annual bill for cable services somehow went up almost $100 between my old apartment and this one. whaaa...? rogers waived my $75 installation fee because they’d screwed up my initial order, resulting in them inadvertently disconnecting my cable instead of turning it on, so that’s not the reason for the price hike. i’m interested to find out what, exactly, is, since i'd ordered and have been given the exact same package i had before.

so, i accessed my online account and attempted to “view my bill.” that didn’t work. i got a message telling me that, as a mac user, i’d have to select “download my bill” in order to see it. okay, fine, so i hit “download my bill”...and was given a completely blank window. not what i was after. so i tried again. same thing.

suspecting that perhaps my browser was to blame for the viewability problem, i switched to firefox. same deal. click here. blank screen. unviewable bill. i tried a third browser, netscape, which proved equally unsuccessful, so i started over.

“let’s try accessing my payment history...” i thought, hoping i could somehow backdoor my way into my bill. fat chance. when i tried that option i was given a brand-new message: sorry, payment history is unavailable for this account. PARDON?

by this point, i was wondering why anyone in their right mind would bother with rogers’ online billing option since it was so very clearly very poorly designed. it is not user-friendly. at all. (just TRY finding the answer(s) you need in their FAQ. i guarantee you won't.)

then i tried “account balance,” once again hoping that there might be some roundabout way to get to what i needed. this time, i did get my account balance -- $0.00 – with an option to...yes, that’s right...view my bill! i clicked on the appropriate button and presto!

nothing.

blank screen.

a small stream of expletives.

fed up, i began looking for the “unsubscribe from online billing” section which was, not surprisingly, very easy to find. i’d be willing to bet that just about everyone who’s registered for this seemingly idyllic service has promptly abandoned it out of sheer frustration. sure, it saves paper, but what’s the point if you have absolutely no access to anything useful having to do with your account, except the page that allows you to flee the service entirely????

i hate that rogers has the monopoly on TV in canada. i hate that their online “self-help” service is completely pointless and not at all helpful. and i hate that i’m paying a big chunk more per year for the pleasure of the same channels and a big heap of frustration.

[update: it's sunday night, and i just thought i should add that the mystery of the curious price increase has been solved. it seems that previous annual billing went for exactly 12 months, but the dates on my new annual bill indicate that the amount is for 12 months and three weeks. so, almost 13 months. so, an extra $60, plus taxes. of course, i only discovered this when i went to my parents' house and viewed my bill online (AT LAST!) on their PC. seems rogers hates mac users.]