The Great iPhone Disaster – And Rogers tries to screw me one last time – is it time to switch to Bell, lock, stock and barrel?

Disaster Part 1 – The Fumble

Took it out of my pocket to check the time, my grip was not firm enough and it squirted through my fingers like a bar of soap. Was 6 feet from me and arching down before I realized what was happening. And when it hit, I heard the crunch.

Disaster Part 2 – The Attempted Robbery

Stopped by the Rogers store after dinner and asked if I was eligible for a hardware upgrade. He said yes, it looks like I can get any phone I want. I asked about the cheapest iPhone 4 model and he said that all they had was the 32GB model. Kaching! Their hands are wiggling into my pockets already.

I say how much? He says $269. I’m surprised, that rather a reasonable price for an iPhone with that capacity. And then says. But you need to put data on that phone for that price. I told him that I already have a data plan. And he says “It looks like you have the wrong data plan, because it is coming up $469.” Kaching! The rip-off machine in full swing.

So I say “How about the Android phones?” And those turned out to be even more expensive at $499 … apparently again because I have the wrong data plan.

Disaster Part 3 – The Realization and the Consequences

Canadians apparently continue to pay the highest fees for media (phone, data, cable etc.) in the western world. We do this because our governing body (that’s not meant as a joke), the CRTC, allows such monopolistic pricing.

Bell is no better. However, there always comes a time when you can get a great price break on all sorts of things by switching carriers, and I think the time has arrived. Rogers always has all sorts of promotions for newcomers and so does Bell. And neither gives their long term customers the same breaks without a lot of begging, which I find truly patronizing and insulting.

So I think it’s time to switch to cross the aisle, as it were. This is way overdue, Rogers has been milking a great customer for far too long. And when I switch, it’s always the whole nine yards … the savings per month will quickly have me way ahead of all the penalties.

The penalties by the way are another rip-off as they are not capped at any reasonable amount. You can get out of a mortgage for 3 months’ interest, but heaven forbid that you try to cancel a cell phone. There you have to pay for any and all time you chose not to use. Not a whole lot of competition with predatory rules like that.

Update Saturday, 19 March

Bought a new touch screen on eBay for under 11 bucks with free shipping. Bought a battery from a different seller for the same price. When they both get here I will dive into the phone repair business. Note: I’ve successfully ripped apart several iPods of different generations and revived them. Also a few Razor phones. So this is no big deal for me … I just had not realized how easy it was, assuming that the iPhone was somehow sophisticated :-)