Canadian Phone Prices

The prices for phone service in Canada are a fucking joke.

I'm with Freedom/WIND, and have been for almost 10 years. It will evidently be 10 years, in a month..

They aren't great, but bearable, since I'm on a $30/month plan, and would pay about $35/month for my account/SIM card, or I would, if they didn't keep putting bullshit "pay per use" charges on my bill, like $22.30 this month, for 358MB of roaming data, which I used because I was 300km away from home, camping for the weekend a couple of weeks ago.

Great security there. Prompt me for the same phone number that is displayed in full on the screen next to the field you want filled in?

I've been using the same SIM card since about 2010, which I just cut down from mini to micro, with a pair of scissors, when I changed to using my OnePlus One, since I refused to pay $10 or whatever they were trying charge me for a new micro SIM card, which is the same SIM card just pre-cut down by them. Ridiculous. Anyway..

I have been thinking about using one of the 4G/LTE modem/routers I have, as a backup Internet connection, and maybe for routing my DNS/IP phone other low latency/low use stuff through.

(Or maybe I could even take it with me when I go travelling, since it might be cheaper than Freedom's ripoff roaming fees?)

So I figured I would look around to just find a cheap (LOL!) prepaid, data only SIM.

Surely there's something like T-Mobile had in the US 15 years ago when I started travelling, where I could just chuck $20 credit on there, and it would last for 6 months or so, and/or until you used it all up, and you just bought more to recharge it, and extend the validity by another 6 months.

Here it is 2020, in Canada, I can find NO SUCH SIMILAR THING.

Everything is a fucking monthly subscription, a minimum of $10/month (plus taxes and bullshit, because you can never include the taxes and bullshit in the price of anything in Canada), and it will get you something piss poor like 250MB of 3G data. WTF?

There's absolutely no prepaid options with an expiry of longer than one month, that I can find at least, and some of them are even worse, with only 15 days.

Meanwhile I still have my Australian phone number, on a postpaid, no contract plan, with Vodafone, so I only pay when I use anything, and therefore don't pay anything when I don't use anything, and after almost 13 years living in Canada, it just works whenever I put it in a phone, and then I pay for whatever I used, at the end of that month.

If it didn't cost about $20/MB for roaming in Canada, then I would just use that.

Here's a guy who travels full time, and he did the research a few months ago to do things as cheap and reasonable as possible: https://www.traveltomtom.net/destinations/north-america/canada/best-prepaid-canada-sim-card

Look what he came up with:

First of all, 3 NON CANADIAN companies, absolutely no fucking surprise there. Second of all, the prices?!

$40 for 2 weeks of fucking data? So only $80/month.
Or $70 for 2 weeks, or $140/month, with less data.
Or $80/month..

What in the actual fuck? How are these the "best" options for data in Canada, unless you want a contract, which is another complete load of horseshit.

Let's look at "local" providers, vs exploiting using some international roaming agreement..

$35, for one fucking gig of data, for a month?

Telus? I'll Telu something, you're a fucking rip off.

Only $45 for 2 gig of data for a month..

Only $55 for 2 gig for a month on fucking Smell, err, Bell. Almost twice what they charge via Virgin, on their own / the same fucking network! (We'll get to that..)

Robbers, err, fucking Rogers. $30/250MB?! I can't even.

Or only $65/month for one lousy fucking gig.

Over $2/day, for only 32MB data/day.

What a crock of shit.

What a complete and utter fucking joke this all is.

Canada has by far the worst phone prices IN THE ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD.

I have been to Egypt, Kenya, Argentina, Uruguay, the UK, Ireland, through Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and of course the US, and have/had SIM cards in all these places, and/or with acceptable roaming fees/agreements from neighbouring countries.

OK, just calm the fuck down buddy.

Apparently the CRTC tried to "fix" this..

Let's look at this article from a year and a half ago: https://mobilesyrup.com/2019/03/09/carriers-offer-low-cost-data-only-plans-crtc/

Here's Crapr, err, Chatr. Or perhaps Shartr? For only $15/month, on Rogers' network, except called Chatr instead of Rogers, you can have zero meg of data, unless you signup for auto pay and give them $15 every month, and they'll give you a huge 250MB of data.

That's like 8 whole fucking meg per day. WOW! Don't blink or you'll miss it!

This blog post is probably going to be about 6MB, once I put all these fucking screenshots in it, and rant and swear sufficiently. Holy fuck.

Koodo, or should be called Doodoo? for only $30/month will give you 1 whole fucking gig of data. Oh, and don't forget the $35 signup fee if you want to go into a store to get it.

Or there's Pubic, err, Public Mobile, who for only $20/month will give you a whopping 250MB of data, or for only $30/month, a huge 1 fucking gig.

And just to clarify, 1GB/month works out to about 32MB/day.

The last time I went to the UK, a few years ago (3?), I blew through 20MB in about 5 minutes, on the Tube on my way from Gatwick (or Heathrow?) to London, just looking on Google Maps, so I could work out how to get from the Tube station near the hostel I was going to stay in to the nearest O2 shop..

It crapped out at 20MB of usage, because at $5/MB roaming that I was paying, that was $100 in excess usage fees. In 5 minutes.

The CRTC put this limit in place, making you acknowledge and confirm, via text or other, that you will keep paying excess fees, to save the idiots who are on Rogers and Bell and Telus who were going to Mexico or wherever, and watching a 15 minute video on YouTube on their phone, and getting a bill for twenty eight thousand fucking dollars.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/dad-gets-22-000-data-roaming-shock-from-fido-1.1333067

Sure, it says $22k.. But I'll be that's excluding the tax and bullshit isn't it, so it was more like $24 860.

Fucking criminal.

When I got to London, I somehow found my way from the Tube station to the O2 shop, since I had no data left, and I picked up an O2 prepaid SIM card for free, and paid 15 pound..

Even back in 2012, when I was in the UK before that, I paid like 8 pound for a SIM card with 10 pound of credit for data/minutes/texts on it, and that included 500MB of data then..

Thanks Google for archiving everything, ever..

So 500MB was barely enough for 3 weeks of usage, on whatever crap phone I had, back in 2012.

I am just looking now.. https://www.o2.co.uk/shop/sim-cards/pay-as-you-go

Let's look at what they offer here..

For all of the huge price of, nothing, you get a SIM card, with free delivery. When you put 10 pound on it, you'll get 6 gig of data, for 30 days, and renewing at the end of those 30 days will rollover whatever is left of that 6 gig, for up to 3 months.

Unlimited minutes, and texts, because who gives a shit about that anyway, and that comes free from just having the towers there, for data, which is what people actually want and care about.

And LTE phone calls are all "VoLTE" (Voice over LTE) anyway, so they are just more data. Voice/minutes don't even exist any more.

So, coming back to Canada, with prices that I can't even compare to a third world "shithole" country as Drumpf would call it, because that would be insulting to the shithole country..

So far our best options are.. $80/month (plus tax and bullshit, 13%? for a total of $90.40/month), for 6 gig of data, or on the cheap end of the scale, $15/month will get us 250MB/data, but only if we sign up to automatically give them $15 every month.

Or here we have some "tablet plans": https://www.cellphones.ca/cell-plans/tablet/

However it's probably against federal law, or provincial law, or some local bylaw, for me to put that SIM card in a 4G modem, and not a tablet, and I'll get put in jail or deported or something.

Looking at the low price end of these..

Wow! 4GB for only $15! Oh, it's with Freedom, who I am already with for my phone (maybe now we see why..).

The problem with this is that they run their 4G services on the weird fucking AWS frequencies that hardly any devices support, including the 4G/LTE modem/router I want to use for this purpose, which I know doesn't work, because I tried putting my SIM card in it, and that's why we've had to embark on this incredibly painful and frustrating fucking endeavour.

Ooh, 100MB for only $15/month with Virgin, or only $10/month with Bell, on the SAME FUCKING NETWORK. Why are they called "flex" plans? Shouldn't they be called "bend over" plans?!

So what are our options here. $10 for 1 gig on Telus.. except.. of course..

Sigh.

Oh, fucking LOL. It's only a 2 year contract isn't it. With a $40 activation fee (so actually $45.20?). But at least the SIM card is "free".

And I'm sure it still has the condition that it can only be used in a tablet, and no other device, and that tablet is probably not allowed to have any more than 64MB of storage space in it.

Going back to our second list..

So Bell, err, Virgin, will sell you a whole 1 gig of data for only $28/month ($31.64?). On the SAME FUCKING NETWORK that they will sell it to you for $55/month ($62.15?), if you want it called Bell instead of Virgin.

Well, there's no Virgins around here, because anyone paying for phone service in Canada is getting royally fucked.

This whole thing is why people were getting French SIM cards, and using them via international roaming in Canada, because it is/was cheaper than using a local plan/provider. I shit you not.

https://www.narcity.com/news/some-canadians-are-buying-dirt-cheap-phone-plans-from-france-to-save-money-heres-how-that-works

A hundred fucking gig of data, with unlimited calls and texting, for $30!

No Canadian provider even has a 100GB plan!

Ok, so maybe it's only 25GB of data for $30..

Even so, 20GB for $85 ($96.05?)/month, on Telus, is the biggest plan I can find.

What a fucking joke.

Ok, so until I can get to France to pickup a SIM card, or maybe I can just pop over to St Pierre and Miquelon? I could do that while I'm picking up the rear window for my car?..

Hmm. Ok, so with Fucky, err Lucky Mobile, for only $16.95/month, we can have a huge 500MB of crappy 3G data. That's almost the same price as I paid in the UK. 8 fucking years ago.

The removal of him? I can think of some better things. Like maybe charging him $1000/15 days for 3MB of data. Which he can use while he's in jail for being an incompetent fucking waste of space.

Evidently I'm not the only person so pissed off by this.. https://www.iphoneincanada.ca/carriers/wind-mobile-financier-regrets-entering-protected-canadian-mobile-market/

So, fuck. What are we going to do here?

Let's look some more at this crappy $17/month 500MB data only plan, from Fucky, err, Lucky Mobile. 

Whoever the fuck is lucky, cause it sure as shit ain't me.

https://www.luckymobile.ca/shop/plans/prepaid

What's this "amazing bonus"?

They'll give us an extra 250MB of data if we sign up to give them $15 every month. So, the same as that shitty Chatr plan, except we start with 500MB of data, instead of none. But it's only 3G.

OK, so 750MB of data, or 25MB/day, but only 3G. Then unusable, err, unlimited continuing data at less than dial up speeds. "up to 128 Kbps" means it's going to be more like 28 Kbps, if that, which I know from experience.

I got throttled when I was on Rogers, 11/12 years ago, and/or in the early days I was on WIND, and it was so unusably slow I couldn't even open a fucking email.

Just another one of the false advertising claims which are for some reason allowed in Canada, just like use of the word "unlimited", when shit is anything but unlimited.

"Calling and texting is not available". Awesome! Can I have that on my normal phone plan please?!

"Data add ons not available", "If you want more data you need a service pass". Err, what the fuck is the difference between an "add on", and a "service pass"? The wanky terms you've come up with for the same fucking thing?

But.. didn't you just tell me these aren't available?

OK, so "they", all one of them, isn't available. What the fuck is this "service pass" shit?

So somehow you'll send me a text, on my plan that calling and texting is not available on, for me to pay for a "service pass", for either $3 or $5, which includes, what exactly?

Something that'll be explained by clicking on a link that you won't send me, until I've used all my data, and I need to pay for more?

Who the fuck came up with this crap?

And then I can somehow pay for this service pass, via this "link", meaning I'm going to need to have some interface to be able to receive the text messages, on a data only SIM card, which is in a modem device, in order to know what this link goes to.

Holy fucking shit.

I don't want to give anyone, any money at all, for this complete load of shit.

So now I don't know what to do..

Oh. Holy. Fuck.

I almost gave in and spent $10, plus the rest, on a Fucky Mobile SIM card..

Then I decided just just check something..

So it's fucking AWS? It's probably hanging off Freedom's network, since I don't know that anyone else is running AWS any more, since Public Mobile got bought out..

The 700MHz and 850/1900 may save me..

Device says..

Oh, LOL. It's just Bell/Virgin by yet another name. With a crippled service.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM_frequency_bands

So maybe this is going to work?

Go see techblog for that perhaps..

This shit is almost as bad as banking in Canada. Having to pay to electronically transfer money to people.. using cheques.. like it's nineteen eighty fucking four. Ugh.

Update:

I just found this: https://www.whistleout.ca/CellPhones/Guides/best-data-only-plans-canada

I can't win. There's this anti-competitive shit going on where they screw you unless you are already a customer of one of the "big 3" rip off merchants.

$15 for 4GB data on Fido? (Robbers).. Sure, but..

"Sadly you need to be an existing Fido postpaid customer to get 4GB for $15/month. If you have a plan with Virgin, they'll offer 4GB on a plan with a free tablet like Fido, but is five bucks more at $20/month. Koodo also offers a 4GB for $20/month tablet plan and is only available to existing Koodo customers.

Other Options: Don't switch to Fido if you already have a plan with Rogers, Telus or Bell. Call them to get your tablet on a Data Sharing plan for as little as $10/month."

How the fuck is any of this even legal?

Update 2:

Ok, so I put on my still soggy boots, and jump on my motorcycle, and ride up to the street a couple of minutes to the supermarket, because "The Mobile Store" is inside "The Stupidstore", err, "Superstore", and I tell the guy that I want to sign up for the Lucky Mobile 250/500/750MB data only plan.

Mohamed tells me that he's got a better plan for me than the Lucky Mobile one.. I say sure, and I see him start pulling out his paper for the Freedom 4GB plan..

"Haha, yeah, no, that won't work.. it's not compatible with my device." I tell him. Also that I'm already on Freedom, with my phone, and that's part of the reason I'm here to sign up with not Freedom, because I need a SIM card on a different network.

He goes back to the Lucky one, and then he says "hangon, I do have this other, Fido 4 gig data only, for $10/month.. but it doesn't have any calls or texting on it". I said that was fine, as I didn't need or want anything other than data.

I told him that I also had looked at that plan, but apparently I needed to already be a Fido postpaid customer in order to get it. He asked me who told me that, since it's not the case. "OK, let's do that one instead".

We go through the whole process of getting it all setup and sorted, he prints out the contract/agreement etc, tells me that he's tried putting a code on for an extra 2GB of data, which may not work, but he always tries it anyway. OK, all good.

While he's doing all that, we briefly discuss my Freedom phone, I complain about how I'm tired of big roaming fees when I go outside the city, and he says we can look and see what plan I'm on, and if there's a better one etc, but that we'll look at that after we get the SIM card sorted out.

Once we've gone through everything for the SIM card, he says "Oh, and by the way, there's this one time $45 activation fee.."

"Uhh, yeah, I don't really want to pay that much. I'd rather pay the $10 to just buy the other SIM card then.."

"Oh, I have this code that will waive the connection fee. But it doesn't seem to be working. Here, I'll write it down for you, and you can call the support, and give it to them, and they'll be able to apply it to the account for you."

"OK, sure." and I complete the transaction, which is just signing the agreement. I don't pay anything.

He gives me the SIM, stapled to a page showing that it's the:

• 4GB data only plan,
• bring your own device,
• has a 2GB extra data addon (maybe),
• the monthly fee is $10 (plus bullshit),
• there's a one time Setup Service Fee of $45 (plus bullshit).

The connection fee waiving code "TAGSRA4DT" is hand written in the corner.

I fold that up and put it in my pocket.

We move on to discussing my Freedom phone. He does something which sends my phone via text a one time code, so he can login to look at my account. We look, and he tells me that instead of the $30 plan I'm on, with 5GB of data, there's a $40 1GB plan, but that he has a code to discount it by $5/month, back down to $35, and there's a promo to add on an extra 10GB of data, so I will end up with 11GB, instead of the 5 I have now, for only $5 more per month than I'm paying now. OK, sure. I don't really need it, since I don't use a ton of mobile data, but whatever.

I'm also eligible for a new phone, on a tab, and by changing to the $40 ($35) plan, the new phone is free. It's the Samsung A21, and the tab will reduce by $13/month, until whatever is left after 24 months will just go away. I went through this process a long time ago, when I had a Samsung Nexus S which had a 3 year tab. OK, sure.

It's probably not the best phone, but I've been on Freedom for I don't know how many years now since my Nexus S tab cleared, maybe 4, during which time I could have got one or two phones and unlocked them and just given them away or sold them, and they would have just disappeared off my tab after 2 years anyway..

So he goes through all clickity click and changes my account, adds the discount, adds the extra data. Gets to signing me up for the phone, but it has a $20 connection fee.. "Oh, don't worry, I have a code to waive that.."

He then proceeds to try at least 15 codes, in the format of "CFXXXXXXXX", all of which say they have already been used. He's scrolling through chats on his phone finding and trying them. He calls his rep, and asks for more codes. Some other guy might have one, so he's going to try calling him. And his rep is going to try calling someone else.

He gets and tries a couple more codes, they don't work. He says he can get some more.

I tell him that I need to get some groceries (since we're inside the supermarket..), so that will waste some time while he tries to get some more codes.

I go do that, it takes me 15 - 20 minutes, and I'm back. He'd got some more codes, but they didn't work.

We agree that I can just call up the support, and based on the fact that I've been a customer for almost 10 years, they should just waive it.. So I agree to deal with that, and we complete putting the phone on the tab, because he said he waited until I could confirm I'd be ok with sorting out the connection fee before he did that.

So we finish that up. I've now got a SIM card with a $45 activation fee I have to call up Fido's support and deal with, and a new phone, with a $20 connection fee, that I have to call up Freedom's support and deal with. Sigh.

This whole process has taken a bit over an hour.

I get home, and I call up Fido's support. I navigate the menu system, and after a few minutes on hold, get to speak to a human, and explain that I need to apply a code to waive the $45 connection fee. He tells me that I need to speak to someone else, in customer service, and transfers my call.

I wait almost half an hour on hold, listening to crappy music. At least I now have my e-waste Polycom phone working, so that can just sit there and I don't have to worry about holding my phone etc.

While I wait, I open up my new phone. Plug it in, it boots up, says "Let's go!" with a blue arrow button. I don't care much about setting it up, because the first thing I'm going to do is unlock the bootloader so I can replace the recovery image, and this will force wipe the phone anyway.

I tap the blue arrow. It tells me that I need to "insert SIM card to use setup wizard".

I pop out the SIM tray using the paperclip, err, "SIM card tray removal tool" included in the box.

The tray looks interesting, it's long, like it has spots for 2 SIM cards. Apparently this phone does have a model which accepts 2 SIMs, as Mohamed and I had briefly discussed it while he was getting the tab sorted out, but he told me that model isn't sold in Canada.. probably to stop dodgy people like me from putting 2 SIM cards in it and avoiding ridiculous roaming fees.

Instead I can just use the Fido SIM card in the 4G/LTE modem router, and take that with me when I go outside the city, and avoid Freedom's stupid roaming fees, like charging me $20 for 300MB of data. 

Then I can just use my own WiFi to the 4 gig of 4G data, for my own "roaming".

Looking closer at the tray, I realise that one of the spots is for a MicroSD card. Neat, I though they had killed off SD card slots in phones..

I use the paperclip to eject my SIM card from my OnePlus One. Hmm. This SIM card isn't going to fit, is it?

Now I'm evidently going to need to hack my 10 year old SIM card down even smaller, since I took it from mini to micro before, and now it needs to go from micro to nano.. And then how is it going to go back in the OPO if it needs to?

I guess I'm going to need to find the adapters I have somewhere. Or just make a new one. Perhaps the new "multi SIM" I picked up could help, since it's all 3 sizes, and you just pop it out to whatever size you need, however I need it in the larger "mini" size, in order to fit in the 4G modem..

Ugh, forget this, I'll deal with it later..

Finally "Sarah in Nova Scotia" comes on the line. We have some brief chat, and I explain that I've just gone and picked up a new "multi SIM card" and am in the process of attempting to sign up for their 4GB data only plan. Before we can do anything, she needs to ask me some questions to confirm that I'm me. My account number, my name, date of birth, postal code, inside leg measurement..

Once that's all done, I tell her that I have a hand written code to waive the $45 activation fee, and I tell her the code, TAGSRA4DT. We go through and confirm it using the NATO phonetic alphabet; Tango, Alpha, Golf, Sierra, Romeo, Alpha, four, Delta, Tango..

She says she's trying it, but it's not working. We go over it and check that's what it says. Or maybe the code is 4D4?, or 4T4? no, it definitely looks like 4DT. Could be 40T I guess..

She says she'll have to go investigate something, and it'll take a few minutes.

I start typing this up.

After a couple of minutes she comes back. "Ok, yeah, that's a $45 activation fee waiving code.. but.. it's not valid on the data only SIM cards".

Ugh. FFS.

"Sorry, I can't do anything. My system doesn't let me apply it, and I don't have any other things I can do. What you'll have to do is go back to the store, and talk to the guy there, and see if he has someone he can call, and they can try to get some other code, or sort it out somehow.."

I look and see that I'm been on the phone for almost 45 minutes by this point.

I politely explain that it's been a pretty lousy first experience as a customer.

After it taking the guy at the store about half an hour to manage to sell me the SIM card in the first place, and that he convinced me to sign up for this service, vs the Bell one I could have had for $10 for the SIM card, and that there was a $45 connection fee, but that I could waive it.. but that I'd need to call up to do that, and I've now wasted 45 minutes on the phone trying to do that..

I acknowledge that I understand that it's not her fault, and that I accept that she can't do anything, but I just want her to know that's been a lousy first experience, and why should I bother continuing to try to sort this out?

If I just have to go back to the store, then I might as well just sign up with Bell and get their SIM card for $10 and be done with it. Even though I would like the extra data. And I hate Robbers ever so slightly less than Bell.

What a giant waste of my time.

We end the call. I find the number for The Mobile Store, and I call them. Mohamed answers. I explain that the code was no good, that while it's a connection fee waiving code, they won't accept or apply it on data only SIMs.

He tells me that he can get in contact with his rep, but that he'll have to send an email, and it may take a couple of business days. Also that he's not back in until Saturday, so I'll have to wait until then.

So that shits me, because the reason I went in person to get the SIM was so that I could have it today, because I'm trying to test a 4G/LTE modem/router, so that I can make sure it works, before I mail it to a mate in Australia, which I was trying to do almost 6 weeks ago, before all the bullshit with my car happened.

Sigh. So now I've written this all up, and I'm about to get on hold with WIND, err, Freedom, for the next hour or so i guess, while I try to get the $20 activation fee on my new phone waived..

What a fucking ballache. How about just give me the prices we agreed upon, without all this wanking around with fucking stupid codes that don't work?

Stay tuned to this fucking channel to find out if I can manage to get the $20 connection fee waived..

Update 3:

OK, well that was slightly less painful than trying to deal with Fido. I was on the phone for just over 5 minutes, and I think about 4 minutes of that was navigating the horrible menu system.

When I finally go to speak to a human, I explained that the guy at the store had tried 20 something codes to waive the $20 connection fee when I got my new phone, but he couldn't find one that worked.

The agent checked, and told me that unfortunately he didn't have any way to waive the fee.. however he did have a different code that he could apply, which would give me a $5 discount on my bill, for the next 4 months..

So they're going to charge me a $20 connection fee, and then refund it back to me via a discount for the next 4 months..

OK, you know what? Sure. Fine. I'm just not going to bother trying to make sense of anything anymore.

Update 4:

So, on Sunday, after waiting until Saturday for the guy to call me back, with a new code or whatever, and hearing nothing, I went back to see if he was there.. He was. He said he'd tried to call me, possibly, I didn't recall seeing a missed call from him, nor was there a voicemail, but I was also trying to use 2 phones..

Anyway, he said that he'd tried to get an answer on a code, couldn't get another one, didn't know they weren't waiving the connection fee on data only SIMs/plans then waffled on about how I should just pay the extra $45. I said that I really wasn't interested in paying $45 for nothing, so how about we cancel it, and just sign me up for the 250/500/750MB whatever it is with Bell instead..

"Oh, that will be fine, I'm still in the cancellation period".. Not sure how/why it would even need a cancellation period.. it's a prepaid SIM card, which I haven't even connected/activated. I should just be able to do nothing at this point.

Anyway, we're about to go back to the Bell one, and he tries to sell me the Freedom one again.. "that's not compatible..", "Oh, yeah, right", then he says, "Wait, let me just call them before we cancel the plan. I'll tell them that it's my fault, I didn't know they weren't waiving the fee". ie, the truth?

Right, I tell him to including saying that I'm just going to cancel it and sign up with another provider, so maybe they should consider waiving the fee if they want to get any money out of me..

He calls up and mumbles on the phone for a few minutes. I just sit in the corner and fiddle on my phone while I wait. Then he comes over, and hands me a little slip of paper he's just printed out and ripped down small. It looks like this:

I'm looking at it, thinking, "oh, that upside down exclamation mark is cool, I wonder how I'd enter/use that?"

Before I have a chance to ask, he says "this is the 'interaction number'", Oh! that's the letter i!

Hmm, lucky I didn't say anything. I was thinking it was maybe a new code, then he continued and said "you shouldn't need to do anything, that's just in case. When you login next, it will update and show that you owe $11.60". (Or maybe it was $11.30, which $10 plus bullshit tax should be.. Maybe I can't remember exactly).

Anyway, indeed, when I logged in later, that was the case. It showed that I owed $11.66 (? not sure how $10 + 13% tax equals $11.66, and not $11.30..)

I also got this email, and the timestamp is around the time I was standing in the store..

I just tried to get a screenshot showing the amount owed, but right now the portal doesn't seem to work, and it's just spinning at the login screen.. Though, I did change the email address associated with my account, so maybe that's corrupted the whole account, because they don't expect you to do something unusual like updating your email address..

Aha, no.. I am using Brave browser, and their "Shields Up" privacy/blocking thing seems to break the site..

Sigh, logging in to get this now, I see..

So, it's fucked up, again, or still?

Ugh. How many hours am I going to need to waste on the phone to fix this?

So far I have tried tweeting at them, since I have had reasonable luck publicly blasting companies on Twitter before..

I tried using their chat, after giving up going around and around through the self help pages on their site which provide no way contact them via email, that worked awesomely..

Update 5:

The Saga Continues..

I manage to get a response via twitter..

But, it's still showing that I owe $62 by November 17th, and where is the credit?

I wanted to send back this.. 

Especially since it would bypass their highly entertaining list of banned words I found, here: https://chat.rogers.com/assets/bannedWords.json

I just give up for a while, since I can't handle dealing with this any more.

Then my cable internet provider has an outage for 30 hours. It's lucky I got this plan all sorted out as a backup, right.. Oh, yeah, still haven't got an LTE modem working properly..

I finally manage to get the SIM card connected and working.. apparently. Speed tests are showing me about 200kbit/s, or about 25kBytes/sec. Painfully, unusably slow.

Let's contact support again?

Ok, since they claim they aren't throttling it, I will potentially waste my time trying to get it to work..

So I put the SIM card in my new phone, which I haven't setup or switched to yet, even though my OnePlus One has become pretty much unusable, and has a smashed screen, because I haven't worked out how to unlock the bootloader yet..

It connected, using LTE, and I run a speedtest, and it shows 36Mbit down, and 35 or 37 up.. OK, so it's not the SIM/plan/network, it's the crappy D-Link LTE modem.

I go back to banging on it a bit, forcing it to LTE mode, scanning the networks, forcing it to register, but it just won't connect, without falling back to GSM mode, and then being dead slow.. But this is my problem obviously, and not something that support can help me with..

I send the chat with Van to him..

This is just painful.

Going back to dealing with my connection speed issues, I have since moved the SIM card from the crappy D-Link LTE modem, which will only connect via GSM, into a BEC modem I have, which I was thankfully able to get working, only because I documented my attempts to break into it in order to attempt to port OpenWRT to it, a couple of years ago, here: https://forum.openwrt.org/t/bec-6300-ridgewave-4g-lte-router/27643 as the admin password printed on the label wasn't working, nor would any other password I could think of..

There's more about this on techblog.squigley.net..

So, using the backdoor admin password I had previously found in the firmware, the same firmware I luckily had backed up from a couple of years ago, since BEC don't release them publicly either compiled, or the source, something I got the FSF to launch legal action against BEC for, after they ignored my requests for the sources to their firmware, multiple times, which they are required by law, and the GPL, to provide..

So I was able to reflash the firmware, and reset it to factory defaults, and was then able to get it to connect, but I'm only getting about 7Mbit up and down, at best, and usually about 5. At this point I'm not sure if it's crappy devices/radios or reception/signal quality issues.