Rogers/Shaw merger

So within months of the merger some channels (like HBO-W) disappeared and were replaced with a notice to upgrade my Shawdirect tuner.
Contacting them they said they’d replace one box free, I have 4. I pay almost $170 a month and now they want another $30 a month to ‘rent’ the other 3 decoder boxes.
Must be just a coincidence, eh?

1 Like

We had a similar occurrence. Back in the day we subscribed to Star Choice which was quite good. Over time they increased their fees and started billing us for additional receivers. Then they merged with Shaw. We ditched Shaw. Now we have City West TV which is cheaper and the reception is not as good as satellite. I’d like to ditch TV altogether, but, the wife likes certain shows.

I haven’t had cable or a landline since 2009. Don’t miss it at all :slight_smile:

For live TV (sports and cooking shows!), I use a streaming service. Everything else is Plex.

1 Like

I would love to drop our landline. We keep it for the odd time that our 20 year old visits; she has a life threatening illness. We need to always have a way to call out. Sometimes cell coverage is spotty with heavy rain and or snow.
I would be very happy with just Paramount Plus, Tubi, and Youtube. My wife must have her TV. Lol.

Edit: Added later. I’ve dropped Netflix. My 20 year old shares her Disney Plus account with us.

I had 3 friends who had the other receivers and all were listed under our account. Sorta like password sharing.
I was already thinking twice about keeping it up, but now one couple moved away. Even splitting the bill, it’s not really worth 1/3 of the price they ask.
Added to the fact we have 31 over the air channels I can pick up free with an antenna.
The wife insisted on satellite so she could see her shows working odd shifts. Now I’m guilted out as our best friend are really rural and have no OTA tv, and no Internet for streaming.

Good Lord. I told them the account was in my wife’s name and that she passed away. Told them we had different last names. Told him my 1st and last name, twice, spelled them out. Then he read it back to make sure it was right.
Picked up my new decoder yesterday at the Post Office, and they wanted to know why it was addressed to (initial of first name)(initial of my surname)(her last name)…
Then it needs 2 feeds to the dish. Everything passed OK but half the channels show Lost Satellite Signal. Tech support told me it was still setting itself up, just wait “it tested ok” (the usual BS from help desks with no way to test).
Following some of the steps he showed me, all the signals on the 2nd line show 0.
He BS’d me when I pointed that out, said just to wait it out.

It’s a bad cable to the dish… Plugged the old decoder into 2nd line and it shows a no signal idiot light.

-Why does ever simple task in this town turn into an ordeal?

-Will I ever get an ESL support person who’s first language is French?

1 Like

OMG - I called the tech support back today and got a bilingual francophone!
Told him my suspicion of a bad cable and we went thru all the steps to confirm that. It was like working with a partner rather than a nightmare.
There’s a hidden feature to enable single cable mode they don’t mention if you RTFM. 2nd feed only adds the ability to watch one channel and record another at the same time.
Seeing as how with 500 channels you can barely ever find ONE channel worth watching, the likelihood of one worth recording at that same time is about 10 to the -23rd.
Even set me up with a free service call ASAP.

Now I’m ashamed of my 50yr old High School French. Never actually met or worked with a French Cdn until I moved from the Lower Mainland. Worked with an IT guy my workers called ‘the angry frenchman’, had a summer fling with a sweet young Metis gal and one of my wife’s best friends is a bilingual woman from the Prairies.

Resolved!
Took forever, but the bill is finally in my name, they’re not charging $40 a month for the ‘free’ receiver upgrade, and I discovered I was getting billed for a pkg that was supposed to include Smithsonian, but never got it.
Like some other outfits, ask for the “Loyalty” department, all issues got resolved, and I’m now paying $15 a month less overall. All by someone who spoke English as a first language, could listen, knew how to email and change a field in a db without creating a whole new record.

1 Like

Or so I thought.
Got off the Net, went to watch TV and despite repeated assurances I would have no loss of channels at the lower price - over twenty-five channels went off. I did gain some BBC ones I never got before and a couple useless ones I’d never watch.
All the kids section went out
All the Jesus channels went off
FOX news gone (yay! they got one right, but I never asked for that one in the first place)
My car channel went off DISC VELOCITY, Turner Classics, the 600lb channel…
so I tried their abortion of a website that

  1. Showed the account due and the downloadable PDF bill with different amounts
    2.Was still listed to the wife’s last name and my initial after 4 calls with different agents.
  2. Showed the supposed 30 channels I had, 10 of which don’t work and 6 that do work in the “add as extras” area
  3. Had half the links that didn’t work or crashed the site
  4. Had the nerve to ask to do a survey they’ll toss away as I told them exactly what incompetent shitheads they were.
  5. Didn’t get the email showing exactly the revisions done to the bill or channel package,
    7, Still waiting for an email/phone call to arrange a tech visit after 2 weeks.

Don’t, just don’t under any circumstances deal with Rogers/Shaw TV.

1 Like