Recently I got my renewal notice for our Sirius Radio. Almost $200 to renew our service for another year. $200? Are you flipping kidding me! I had no intentions of paying this, but while I was on vacation they took the liberty of charging my credit card for the full years renewal. Tonight I called explaining I have no interest in paying that much for a radio service and I want to completely cancel. After a bit of fancy footwork the customer service rep offered me a full year for $75. That’s $125 savings, not bad. I hmmned and hawwed for a moment then agreed to the rate drop.
Sometimes it’s worth calling to cancel to see what offers a company has to keep your business. Have you scored by doing so? What incentives were you offered? I know when we left Bell they offered us a ton of incentives. But… Bell is Bell and we still cancelled lol.
I called to cancel Shaw in favour of Telus (I’m a triple-play customer) given that Telus were offering TV, Internet and Phone for $50/month for a year and I was paying $160 for the same thing.
I got all-you-can-eat TV with all HD channels, “Extreme” internet and phone with free North American long distance for $75/month for a year.
Thought that was fair and I saved more than $1000 over the year for the sake of a 5 minute phone call…
This happened to me when I called to cancel my Star Phoenix newspaper subscription. They offered me a special ‘cancellation’ rate that would never expire if I didn’t cancel my subscription. This actually made me quite angry – as a long-time customer (nine years) it felt as though they had been taking advantage of my loyalty by overcharging me.
I ended up not taking their offer (getting my news online for free is still the best deal!), but I have told everyone that I know that still has a subscription to call to cancel and get the better price.
I also had this happen with the onstar in my vehicle!
I called to cancel my cable at Rogers and ended up with a free PVR for a year (worth $20/month).
We got a great offer when we went to cancel onstar too, our free year was over and we weren’t interested to pay their rates. My husband scored free minutes and a huge discount rate.
Rogers has an entire department (retention) to keep customers never renew a contract without talking to them, they have amazing deals sales cannot offer you, i currently have 40$ in credits on my wireless. I save over 100 bucks a month thanks to what I learned there about plans and negotiation.
Ya, for sure I think that pretty much all cellular companies have retention plans, but theres so many other companies out there that have offers too!
Oooohh….that is a good deal. Right now I am paying monthly, and I hate it. I want to sign a full year, but refuse to pay what they want. In fact, it is all such a waste of money…but for $75…I could see it a little easier!!!
Has anyone ever got this with bell canada?
The Calgary herald is the same I called to cancel for my Mom knowing full well they would give me z much better deal!!
If you threaten to cancel Rogers, here’s what they’ll offer you — note YMMV, and people in Toronto have the most negotiating power.
– Rogers cable: 30% off for one year + free digital box, +++ (depending on rep) with one year agreement. Must be customer for 6 mos or more in most cases. If you’re currently on a contract, you’ll get nowhere.
– Fido/Rogers wireless: These tend to wax and wane because the management loosens and tightens them each month depending on several factors. Responses will depend on the rep, your attitude, and solar flares. Call UP TO three times to get retention plans, preferably during business hours. Don’t call retentions more than three times in rapid succession or you get starred, which may sound good, but it is bad. You can almost always negotiate for flex data plan ($10/100MB), free call display, free 1000 Canadian LD, free VM, and unlimited incoming calls (Telcos always make money on incoming calls — they’re paid by the telco sending minutes into their network). Your mileage *will* vary based on your negotiation skills and your history with them. Don’t admit that you really want an iPhone — that means they don’t have to compete with Wind and Mobilicity. People in 416 have the most negotiating power by far. 905 it depends on where you are. Don’t admit you have a cottage if you have one, but they can tell where you make most of your calls from, so if it’s from outside of the new entrants’ networks, you have less negotiating power.
– Rogers Internet: 30% off. You can sometimes get a free modem, too. One year agreement. You cannot negotiate additional bandwidth (MBs) so don’t even try. It has to do with the way the system is set up — they really can’t do it.
Clever folks have already left Rogers, Bell, and Telus for both internet and phone. Really clever folks have left them for TV, too (but they have to be comfortable with the limited selection from Netflix + antenna OR be willing to pirate TV)
Internet: Competitors offer more bandwidth, and better prices — (although with the 30% off, Rogers is actually cheaper). Who are these competitors? The answer my friend is blowing in the Wind and Savvy internet users already know. I’d strongly recommend staying away from 3WEB/CIA (who are so incredibly crappy, I can’t believe they even have a business to speak of).
Phone: Go VoIP, hook it up to your home phone wiring and you can keep your old analogue phones and you’ll never know the difference. Get a UPS (in case you need it in an emergency). I pay $50 per *year* for a 416 number + unlimited local calling, voicemail, call waiting, and call display. You can too. In fact, if you have technical knowledge, you can get it even lower than $50/year, but for me, I was happy enough with that price that I chose not to dig any deeper. Sound quality is perfect. LD is about a penny and a half a minute for North America.
TV: Lots of options. Some legit. Some not so legit. The antenna has come a long way, and in Toronto you can get quite a few channels. Add on Netflix to get some cool shows. Between Netflix and antenna, most people should be pretty happy. But if that doesn’t work for you, you can stream off the internet for free (although not so legit, has the best service and selecton you could ask for).
In my case (numbers approx):
BEFORE:
~~~~~~~
Home phone: ~50/month
Internet: 45/month
TV: 80/month
Cell: 65/month
Total: $240/mo + Tax
AFTER:
~~~~~~
Home phone: 4/month
Internet: 31/month
TV: 0/month
Cell: 31/month
Total: $66.00/mo
———————————–
Total yearly savings: $2088 + HST
———————————–
Unfortunately, where I live most of those options are not available. I live north of Guelph and we don’t even have widespread high speed service of any kind.
You sold out. First this, then that ‘Eastern European’ comment a few weeks ago. I’m starting to have my doubts about this site!
But….. Bell is Bell and we still cancelled…. Lol …. “Love It!”….”Because so did we!”
My paper boy was the one told me that: Once your special rate (usually 3/6 months) comes to an end, call them to cancel. They will keep prolonging your special rate.
I have a Sirius radio, you can do a lifetime subscription for about $500. Its a hefty fee at first, but it should pay for itself within 3 – 4 years. Just hope it doesn’t go belly up. I’ve had mine for 2 years and love it.
@ Patrick, that’s what we did 2.5 years ago too! I figured I’d much rather pay it up front and have it for as long as the company’s in business and it’s almost paid for itself now! My sister and her husband have had sirius for 5-6 years and are still paying monthly…so silly!
i called Rogers in March to cancel cable and got it lower to $15/mth for the next two years. So for the next two years i’m with rogers.
I called Bell Canada and said their programing + internet is too much, they not only gave me $55 off my bill, but also gave me my PVR box if i agreed to stay with them for 2 years.. Since the box I have is $500 and they will charge me $200 if I cancel in the first 24months, $100 in the last 12 months, either or, I can get more for the box selling it! So now I pay less and own the PVR box!
I started up an online ticket with the EA Store and told the agent I wanted to download a game they offer, but didn’t want to pay the full price of $29.99. He asked his supervisor and came back with a $20 coupon code I could use at the checkout. I was super polite and gave him an excellent rating in my customer service survey afterwards.
The retention departments can offer amazing deals. When I cancelled my Bell cell phone I was amazed at what they tried to offer me to keep my plan with them, I would go from paying over $50/month to barely $15/month for double the services that I had before. But I still cancelled…because it was Bell, lol, and it pissed me off that it took me being pissed off enough at the company to cancel to be offered those rates.
My hubby works for Rogers and he tells me about some of the retention plans that they can offer on their services and wow….just wow….
I just called Rogers regarding our internet and they gave us 30% off!
Is it a surprise to anyone that these deals exist, knowing that it is much easier to keep a customer than obtain a new one? It’s only when you kick and scream (i.e. threaten to cut off their revenue) that the businesses you currently pay for take notice. Keep in mind who ends up the victims of inflated prices as well: those that don’t complain (hmmned and hawwed (sic)), assuming they’re getting the regular rate. If you sign up for a company not knowing whether they will continue to bill unless you cancel, the obligation is on you. This is why I refuse to subscribe to such services or give them my credit card information.
Andrew, that was another blogger Stephania that had the blog about the gym 🙂
Ruby, “hmmed and hawwed” was a joke, I was in for the $75 immediately I just didn’t want to come across excited.
Just got off a year with a special rate with telus,when I phoned and told them that shaw was offering a special rate for a year.They said, they valued me as a customer,and would match the competitors rate for a whole year.Naturally I went for it
Farmergirl – about Bell…
I had Bell internet a few years ago and had to cancel because I was moving out of province. I was paying $50/month on a one year contract. They offered me $19.99 for that same service if I stay with them. Definately call them and cancel once your contract is up.
We told XM last November we were not interested in renewing and when our membership came due in January, we noticed there was a charge on our Visa for almost $200 for XM radio. My husband called to cancel stating that we had already told them we would not be renewing when they called in November and the fact that the charge was $20 more for the current year was definitely not winning them back in our favour. We received a full refund. Two weeks later we received an automated message on our phone stating should we wish to sign up again, we could for the low price of $4.99 a month! Why didn’t they just offer that rate up back in November and we would definitely have stayed on with them! 🙁
I called to cancel my home phone with Bell because we all have cell phones in my house. Right away they transferred me over to another department where they offered me a special deal where I kept my home phone for free and I only pay the 911 fee. We opted to keep the call display so our bill for the phone is under $10 a month where we were paying just over $30 before. The contract is up in a couple of months so I’ll be callign to cancel my home phone again and see if they offer me the same deal. We have our cable, internet and cell phones with them.
Oh yeah speaking of cell phones…..we have the Bell corporate rate through my work. Well my work no longer deals with Bell as they moved to Telus. I went in to upgrade to a new phone and I was honest and told them my employer no longer deals with Bell and the sales man told me if doesn’t matter. As long as I renew my contract and don’t let it expire then I renew for the corporate rate again. I asked him to clarify this and he called Bell and put them on speaker phone. They confirmed it and I locked in for another 3 years 🙂
I agree with being annoyed when you’ve been a long time customer and it takes threatening to cancel to get a better deal.
Telus called me a few months ago because my contract was coming up and they wanted to let me know i could ‘renew early and still get a free phone’ so that i’d sign back up. I’ve been with Telus since they were Clearnet – 1998. When i said i was just waiting for my contract to expire to go somewhere else because i was overpaying she actually said ‘well, have you called to talk to us about it” i said, yes, a few times. she looked it up and said ‘well, it’s been almost a year since you called..” (like i should be calling all the time or something.)
anyway, she had a look and came back and said ‘oh, you are overpaying, i can offer you….’. so, while i was happy to get a much much better deal (almost 50% less!), i was still pissed off that i was clearly overpaying for a long time.
Found out I have a great corporate cell phone plan with my work, so I called Rogers to switch to bell, then they said ‘oh we have a corporate plan and offered me there plan, which was $15/month + access fee… Included early evening, unlimited eve/weekend, all calling features and 25oo texts.
Try calling your cell company and asking about their corporate plan and then say your work has a deal with another company – can they offer you a comparable plan.
To see my works corporate plan check out this link: https://www.baka.ca/index.php
It will give you idea of a good comparable corporate offer.