Enjoy the read!
Jan 4, 2021: Received email from Fido saying I will be receiving a call shortly for a win-back offer
- Waited for days but no phone call.
Jan 8: Received the first call from Fido’s Winback team.
- Every time I answered, it hung up immediately. This went on for days.
- I tried calling back, but they don’t accept incoming calls.
- Eventually I found way to leave a voicemail, which stated I would receive a call from them within 24 hours.
Jan 15: One week later I received the callback.
- I inquired about the offer that I saw online ($300 bill credit for a new device), and they informed me that the offer expired just one day prior to our conversation
- The offer was now $200.
- I made the case that I had been trying to sign up for more than a week already and would have been granted that offer if they didn’t hang up on me repeatedly, but they didn’t want to hear it.
- Reluctantly I signed up for a plan, with an iPhone 12 Pro Max
- I was told I would receive the device likely within the next week
Jan 19: I received a notification of a package for me at Purolator.
- Opened the package from Fido. To my surprise there was only a SIM card
- I then called Fido customer support who said that the device was never actually ordered. Something about an error in their system and I was defaulted to a month-to-month BYOD plan.
- If I hadn’t called I would have been waiting indefinitely for this device. They made no attempt to contact me.
- Naturally, I asked them to add the device to my account. They said they were unable to do so.
- Since I signed up through Winback I would have to wait 2 days to be contacted by them so they could change my plan and order the device.
- Not only that, but between the time that I signed up and called in, the device went out of stock and was now backordered with a 2-3 week delay.
Jan 20: Received a call from the back end department.
- They said that Winback had submitted the request for the device and requested the down payment.
- I made the payment and received the confirmation email.
Jan 25: Contacted customer support for an update on my order.
- They informed me that if I didn’t want to wait and could find the phone at a local Fido store, I could go there, get them to call CS who could then cancel the backordered device on their end, and walk out with the device that day.
- Just to ensure I didn’t waste any time I asked the agent to add notes to my file providing the details for the transaction and requested a reference number.
- He laughed when I confirmed once more that the transaction would go through without issue, stating that it’s a very common transaction.
- I called around to a few fido stores, and the ones closest to me didn’t have the phone I needed.
- 11:00 AM: I found one at a Fido store that was about 30km from me and decided to make the drive.
- After waiting for 30 minutes at this location, they told me they were a dealer location and couldn’t do that sort of transaction, but if I went to a corporate location, they could definitely do it without a doubt.
- I then drove to the nearest corporate location (15km) that had the device in stock, according to the dealer location.
- After waiting again, the person at the corporate location said they didn’t have the phone I needed in any color, but the transaction would not be an issue.
- He then searched the inventory of the stores closer to my home and found that the Lougheed Mall location had the exact device I needed (despite them saying otherwise only a couple hours earlier)
- I then drove 45km to this location. After waiting another 15 or so minutes for an employee to get the device from Rogers, they came back empty handed as it was on hold. But, once again this employee stated that the transaction would not be a problem.
- He then added that he found one locally and that he was having it delivered to the store for me. I was told to await his call to pick it up in the next day or two (weeks later I still have not received this call).
- In a last ditch effort I called one last fido store. The Rogers store at that mall had the device and reserved it for me. The Fido rep said the transaction would not be an issue.
- 6:00pm: I drove another 20km to the store.
- After 20 minutes of waiting, they brought the phone to me. They called customer service after seeing the notes on my account. Finally I had the phone, or so I thought.
- The customer service rep said the transaction was not possible. The rep called another customer service line only to be given the same conclusion.
- Despite the fact that I had notes on my file from a CS agent, and confirmation from representatives at 3 different Fido stores that the transaction was doable, I was leaving empty handed.
Jan 26 (AM): Called Fido to cancel the device entirely as I was going to just buy it out right.
- CS agent apologized and offered me $10/month for 24 months if I didn’t cancel
- I accepted
Jan 26 (PM): Received a call from the Winback department.
- She said that her supervisor gave her my information and insisted she contact me immediately.
- “Good news, we have your phone. It’s in stock right now and we’re going to get it shipped today”
- She then said that in order for this to happen, I had to call the regular customer service line and ask for a device upgrade, which I thought was strange. She said that if that didn’t work there was another way they could process the order that involved her supervisor, but that it would take more work.
- So she told me to hang up, call customer service, and that she would call me back in one hour either way.
- Customer service had no idea what she was talking about, but said that my device had now changed to in stock and that it was about to be shipped out if not that day then the next.
- An hour went by, then 2, and still no callback from the Winback lady.
- I wasn’t too bothered by it though as the CS agent said my phone was shipping now anyway.
Jan 27: (still no call from Winback) I went onto the support chat (pm) to
check the status of the device; at this point I know better than to take their word for it.
- The agent said the device was now backordered again…with an additional 3-4 week delay.
- Not only was my device not shipping that day, the 2-3 weeks I was expecting became 3-4 as of this day.
Jan 28: Contacted customer phone support to verify.
- They confirmed that the device was indeed backordered. Again.
- The CS agent stated that she is unable to add any sort of credit since I signed up through Winback and any credit they add in addition to winback’s would be rejected.
- I found this strange since the customer service rep I spoke to on Jan 26 offered me a $10/month discount for my troubles
- She confirmed that this was likely not going to be applied to the account.
- She then submitted a request for the Winback team to call me once again.
Jan 29: Received a call from the Winback team
- Agent apparently had no idea what was going on and did not have the same message from his supervisor that the agent who promised me the device on the 26thhad.
- I sighed and explained the whole story again. Everything above, I shared again. After giving him 15 minutes of backstory, he hung up on me.
- And of course, since it’s the winback department, I could not call him back.
- I waited for some time, but he made no attempt to call back
- Shortly thereafter I contacted fido CS yet again
- Since there were so many reference numbers and notes on the account, the rep struggled to understand the issue precisely.
- I shared the whole experience. Again. He was kind enough to take somewhat detailed notes of the experience to consolidate the issue into one file.
- After talking to this rep for 45 minutes, he was determined to see what he could do for me, though admitted there wasn’t much that could be done given the conflict between their dept. and the winback department.
- He then put me on hold for 20-30 minutes only to conclude that there was nothing that could be done, other than to submit another callback request to the Winback department.
- He assured me that I would receive a call within 24-48 hours, but no more than that.
- 4 days go by (96hrs) and no call from the winback team.
Feb 2: I call CS, again.
- She submits another request for a winback team callback. I asked what happens if they just keep ignoring the requests or hanging up when they do call?
- She offered to connect me to her supervisor to see if he could do anything more.
- After waiting another 20-30 minutes I got through and mentioned that at this point, if there’s nothing that can be done, I think it’s time I cancel the device and plan. I am at my wits end
- The supervisor of the retention department told me there was nothing he could do.
- Nothing.
- He read the notes on the reference number, I updated him on everything that happened after that and he simply said he couldn’t do anything. His hands were tied.
- He just kept reminding me how good my plan was and encouraged me to wait for the call from the winback department one last time to ask for credits since they are the only ones that can do that.
Feb 3 (AM): Received another call from the Winback team
- I gave her the reference number, she apologized and told me my device was now not even just backordered, but that it was simply out of stock.
- She said the phone was in stock in a different colour and that if I wanted to switch to that colour, then she could ensure the device would ship out that very same day.
- I accepted and then asked about any sort of credit for the inconvenience, as the supervisor of the retention department recommended.
- She stated that there was nothing she could do either. Only her supervisor was able to process transactions of that sort and that I will have to wait 24-48hrs for a callback from the Winback supervisor.
Feb 3 (PM): Not trusting anything at this point, I decided to go onto customer chat one last time to check the status of the order.
- Backordered. Once again.
- I promptly called customer support as this just didn’t seem possible. I couldn’t believe it.
- After speaking with the agent for 30 minutes he told me that the request submitted by the winback team to change the color of the device was denied by the back end team.
- He then said that the original device I ordered was now in stock again and that it would 100% definitely ship out either Monday or Tuesday next week (Feb 8-9) and is guaranteed to arrive next week.
Feb 5: Today. At the time of writing this, it has now been more than 48 hours from the time of the winback call and I still have not received a call from a winback supervisor.
- Maybe my phone arrives next week, and maybe in another 3 - who knows. I’ve been told that it’s about to ship and then becomes backordered so many times that its impossible to say.
- I suppose I could hop on customer support chat again and request another call from the Winback department, wait another two days for them to call (assuming they do), then get them to submit a request for a supervisor to call and wait another two days for that to happen (assuming it does) and then likely repeat this wonderful cycle all over again.
