Rogers Communications said on Friday that roughly 300,000 current and former subscribers didn’t receive the full amount of discounts they were due after signing up for the company’s Better Choice Bundles program.
Rogers cited administrative errors and system-related issues for the over-billing. As a result, Rogers will refund approximately $30 million in total, including interest and taxes, to 300,000 customers. Another 200,000 subscribers received bigger discounts than they were eligible for, but Rogers said the under-payments would be waived and the correct discounts will be applied going forward.
“Once we identified the issue, we initiated a comprehensive review of current and former customer accounts to identify those that were not correctly billed,” said Phil Hartling, senior vice president of the consumer segment at Rogers Communications. “We have been working around the clock to make this right, and we apologize to our affected customers.”
Subscribers who were incorrectly billed for the Better Choices Bundles don’t have to do anything; starting tomorrow, Rogers will notify them by letter and apply the correct discounts within the next two billing cycles.
Existing under-discounted customers will receive a credit on their account, while former under-discounted customers will receive a check. Any unclaimed funds by former customers will be donated to charity.
Rogers said it had briefed the commissioner for complaints for telecommunications services to ensure customers have an informed third party to approach should they remain dissatisfied with the steps taken by the company. The company has also hired PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP to provide an independent analysis of the relevant billing data.
In order to remedy the problems, Rogers said it had enhanced its processes and is implementing safeguards to help prevent a recurrence, including the rollout of an employee retraining program, the introduction of a daily audit to review new customers joining the program and implementing recommendations identified by PwC.
Rogers introduced the Better Choice Bundles program to offer subscribers a discount when they purchase two or more eligible communications services with a two-year contract term.
