Early cancellation fees...

[jing]

My gf wanted to port over from Rogers to Fido, and knew that her contract was due to expire soon, but couldn't find online when it was up so she called in and spoke to a rep, who had told her that it was up on January 13, 2014. I can confirm that this is indeed what the rep had told her as I heard the entire conversation over speaker-phone.

On Dec 18, we opened a new account with Fido and ported our numbers over from Fido. This was done early, as I was told by a friend who is a Fido rep that there will be no additional charges for porting, as long as it's within 30 days of the contract expiring.

I'm looking at her final invoice with Rogers now though, and am disturbed to see this...

Dec 18 Early Cancellation Fee Data Usage - Flex Rate $25.00
Dec 18 Early Cancellation Fee Talk Text & Internet 1GB $100.00

I am guessing that these charges have arisen as
1. What my friend told me is wrong, OR...
2. What the Rogers rep told us is wrong, and the contract does NOT end on the 13th, but on a later day...

I am leaning towards the 2nd situation, as I just looked up her past invoices, and have noticed that all the invoices have been posted on 21st of each month.

Can we fight these early cancellation fees, since we acted on good faith based on wrong info given to us by one of their employees? Or are we SOL?

[FerrariEnzo]

read carefully what your TOS is about early cancellation fees when you signed up and go from there...

[vafanculo]

Hold on. Do you mean you ported to Fido on Jan 18 (December being a typo)?

If not, and you really did port on December 18..then you did end the contract early
Posted via RS Mobile

[jing]

Can't find the original TOS, nor can I find the online copy lulz

And yes, port was done on the 18th. That was done under the pretension that there would be no fees as it's within 30 days before the contract is up.

[vafanculo]

Originally Posted by jing

Can't find the original TOS, nor can I find the online copy lulz

And yes, port was done on the 18th. That was done under the pretension that there would be no fees as it's within 30 days before the contract is up.

Sorry, but your in the wrong. A port is effective right away. Your contract is completed on January 14.
Posted via RS Mobile

[jing]

I'm aware that a port is effective right away. What I'm wondering is the legitimacy of the claim that there are no ECF's as long as a port is done within 30 days of the contract expiring.

[aznkev03]

Actually, you should have gotten charged for 30 days from the date of the port over to fido on your last Rogers bill meaning you would have paid up until January 17, 2014 which is after your contract end date. Therefore, there should be no charges. This is the reason why your friend had told you there shouldn't be any charges. However, because ports happen immediately, the system automatically creates the charge and they need to be manually reversed. Just call them and tell them what happened.
Posted via RS Mobile

[terkan]

hmm.. there never was a 30 day grace period for porting.. at least that was last year when i still work in cell industry unless they changed it which i doubt.. what you were suppose to do was tell roger was you'll be cancelling your phone on jan 14th.. and then port out on the 13th when your contract officially ended.. so you don't get charge an extra month of service.. there never was a 30 day grace period for porting inter company before and i doubt there is a port grace period now... i can see them possibly saying they'll waive it if it's fido to rogers since rogers plan usually more expensive.. but i don't see why they would let you port out early from rogers (more expensive) to fido (cheaper) 30 days before your contract ends.

as for fighting it.. you are SOL if there's not really a grace period thing.. since it's your friend that works for "FIDO" that told you and it's ROGERS that's charging you.. technically your friend doesn't and shouldn't tell you what ROGERS will do since he/she has no access to your rogers account and i'm assuming you had this done at a Fido corporate store and not a multi carrier where they can at least look at your account, and even then.. store reps have no power/say in what will be credited/waived on your account.. it's only the retention department that have that power to say waive your fee and it must be documented on your account to begin with.

what i would do instead is get your friend to pay the $125 since seems like he/she gave you wrong info just to get the commission off your sale lol.. or get them to call rogers to fix it if he/she works in a multi carrier.. or go make a big fuss and get he/she to call the Roger regional sales manager/rep that's in charge of that store (each store has one) to fix it

[aznkev03]

Originally Posted by terkan

hmm.. there never was a 30 day grace period for porting.. at least that was last year when i still work in cell industry unless they changed it which i doubt.. what you were suppose to do was tell roger was you'll be cancelling your phone on jan 14th.. and then port out on the 13th when your contract officially ended.. so you don't get charge an extra month of service.. there never was a 30 day grace period for porting inter company before and i doubt there is a port grace period now... i can see them possibly saying they'll waive it if it's fido to rogers since rogers plan usually more expensive.. but i don't see why they would let you port out early from rogers (more expensive) to fido (cheaper) 30 days before your contract ends.

I too had been in the industry for many years up until around March 2013. The entire time I had been there (and seemingly for many many years before I got there), a 30-day notice to deactivate was required to be given by the customer as part of the terms of service. This was not really a "grace period," but rather an extra charge of 30 days, regardless of whether your number would still be functional or not. Because the customers are billed a month in advance, this also reduces/eliminates the need to credit every single line that is deactivated within a bill cycle. Up until the time I had left the industry, the way things had worked (at least for the company I was employed with) was the way I had described. I had personally done these credits on a regular basis.

I have heard (unconfirmed as this was after I left) there is now a tag of some sort that may now be added onto the account when it is determined that the customer is going to be porting out early but within the final 30 days of the commitment. The function of this tag was to avoid the automatic creation of the ECFs.

Although I can no longer fully confirm this as you may be correct, I can say that if the OP was charged up to a date that exceeded the original contract end date on his/her last invoice, those charges will not stick.
Posted via RS Mobile

[jing]

Btw, my friend is not a sales rep, so he had nothing to gain. He tried explaining to me about why the charges showed up but it's all jargon to me, and the gist of it is that the charges show up because of the billing cycle cut off etc. He looked up the account and saw that the $100 was credited back to the account after the invoice had already been posted, and will apparently show up in next month's invoice or something along those lines. Don't think we can do anything about that extra $25 ECF. Oh well.

[aznkev03]

Originally Posted by jing

Btw, my friend is not a sales rep, so he had nothing to gain. He tried explaining to me about why the charges showed up but it's all jargon to me, and the gist of it is that the charges show up because of the billing cycle cut off etc. He looked up the account and saw that the $100 was credited back to the account after the invoice had already been posted, and will apparently show up in next month's invoice or something along those lines. Don't think we can do anything about that extra $25 ECF. Oh well.

No, the $25 should be gone too. If it isn't, just call in and it will be credited
Posted via RS Mobile

[jing]

I will check next month's invoice to see if it's there. Hopefully you're right!