There was a ton of news today about a merger happening between two telecommunications companies here in Canada consisting of Shaw and Rogers. This of course raises questions on whether or not it’s good for customers as this should theoretically mean less competition. Especially in the cell phone market.
But what actually got my attention is this article I was reading about how a Roger’s customer was forced to stay at home due to pandemic protocols while at the same time Roger’s demanded that the 91 year old women had to return equipment to them due to the cancellation of services. Because she couldn’t leave to return them the company billed her monthly fees of sort for not returning the equipment.
Apparently they were advised that a technician would pick up the equipment but never did. But regardless they were billed as per standard procedure I guess you could say. As you can imagine when a story like this goes public then the company reverses its stance where in this case all fees were dropped.
It makes you think in these cases on whether or not company policies should be inflexible or if they should be used more as general rules under regular circumstances. Like here you could argue that in its policies it’s ultimately the customer’s responsibility to return the item. But would all these factors put in I think it should just be common sense to be a little flexible where it shouldn’t take mainstream media attention to get one to do the right thing.