It seems that lousy customer service has become the defacto standard with Fido in Canada. I am incensed by the increasingly bad customer service by call centers and I was reading Rick Spence's post about Business 2.0, Customers Zero - he makes a valid point about the slight of hand that magazines pull on their paying subscribers.

It really is bad business but these big businesses are so badly disorganized, using poorly conceived strategies, and providing consistently lousy experiences when you can their 'call centers' - it is really a very sad state of affairs. Buyer beware was never more appropriate.

As a small business owner I am used to 'trusting' the people I do business with and have come to expect outstanding customer service. Unfortunately, whenever I do business with a large, public company I am consistently disappointed. Every company has problems but my latest experience with Fido caused me waste five (5) hours of my time talking with more than seven different people! Yet my problem still has not been resolved.

All I was trying to do was show them that I paid them twice once by a money order (for a new phone that the idiots sent COD) plus they processed a payment on my credit card for the same amount. Nice eh!?

Finally, today I was able to get a 'customer relations' person on the phone that actually understood that I had paid twice. I have now sent them (for the second time) a copy of the money order for them to trace. We will see if it ever gets resolved. Part of me wonders if I should have just forgot about getting the credit deserved as it would have been a lot cheaper and a lot less aggravating.

Did Business 2.0 Do It To Me?

As a Business 2.0 subscriber I was shocked to learn that I had overpaid my renewal, see below:

Today I got a note informing me that they're about to renew my subscription "at the guaranteed low rate of 27% off the newsstand price" - $39.95 for 11 issues.

Hold it right there. That's four times my original rate of $10 a year.

On the newsstand this week, their current issue contains an insert card (you know, the ones that fall to the floor as soon as you pick up the issue) offering two years for $11.60 - Canadian. That's about one-seventh the "guaranteed low rate" they're offering me.

Yet on the back of my renewal notice, Business 2.0 promises me that "Your price is one of the lowest rates available to anyone, anywhere." Via Canadian Entrepreneur

I renewed Business 2.0 on my credit card about four months ago. I guess I could have subscribed using the insert card from inside the magazine. Another example, of getting the shaft by a large company out of control and who does not care about their customers - only their customers money!

So how do you feel being seen as a 'walking wallet'?