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Shecat2000
join:2013-01-21
Burlington, ON

Shecat2000

Member

[INTERNET] Absurd Cogeco internet charges

Is there anyone who might help me with Cogeco.
I am a long standing customer with them and have one of the highest internet packages. I have never gone over my cap of 175g in 10 years. then starting in nov it started to creep up. then dec i went over my cap 3 times. to the amount of almost $500. when i called about an unrelated issue I was told the first week of jan 2013 i was already at 70% of my usage. and was informed at that time of my over limit for Dec.I basically have no internet to work with for the next 10 days unless i want to go over again. I am a single mom and careful about what i spend. It seems strange that in recent months i have down grated my cable and phone services to cut my bill and then this starts to happen. We have done nothing different from before nov and no red flags went up at the company, that all of a sudden i am so far over it looks like a frat house used my internet. I called them and all they would do as gesture of good faith to credit me back half for being a good customer. Half does not cut it. There is no way i can afford to pay this. I am not a tech savvy person and did not know you could go on to the cogeco site to see how much internet was used. I just know we never did anything that ever took us anywhere near the cap. After i learned about the site i went on and looked at me history and before nov we never came close. In another blog i came across the phone number of the office of the cogeco president. just wonder if i should bother to contact with out some ammo to back me up. I thinks its horrible that they would do this to some one who in the last 10 years has invested 24 grand into that company. Please some one help me get my money and internet back. I have 10 days left to the end of the month and 3 g left to work with.

JB9
Stay Gold
Premium Member
join:2009-05-14

JB9

Premium Member

Hi,

For starters, I would DISABLE your wireless unless it is absolutely necessary. Double check your computer for viruses, trojans, etc. You could start over at the security cleanup forum if you are experiencing odd behavior. Also, not going to be using your internet; just unplug the power. If you keep seeing usage while your internet is unplug, I would bring that up to cogeco and maybe ask for a new modem?

Also, you know that when you downgraded your internet, the plan comes with a smaller cap, right? What plan were you on before and what plan are you on now?

Try sending Cogeco_Aaron a message.

Cogeco_Aaron
Premium Member
join:2011-07-11

Cogeco_Aaron to Shecat2000

Premium Member

to Shecat2000
PM me your modem MAC (it'll most likely be on the bottom of your modem) and I can take a look.

If you have problems finding the modem MAC, just PM me your account information and that'll work.
dazium
join:2007-02-24
Windsor, ON

dazium to Shecat2000

Member

to Shecat2000
oops wrong thread
EdmundGerber
join:2010-01-04

EdmundGerber to Shecat2000

Member

to Shecat2000
This is sad. More and more threads like this popping up. What, if anything, is cogeco doing about this. Other than getting rich by charging huge overage fees for cheap data, that is.

You'd be well served finding a more reputable ISP, if possible, Shecat2000...
Shecat2000
join:2013-01-21
Burlington, ON

Shecat2000 to JB9

Member

to JB9
Hi JB. i did not down grade my internet only cable and phone. I did this to save money. then i get slammed with this bill.If this does not get fixed i will have to cancel my services and go with some one else.

A Lurker
that's Ms Lurker btw
Premium Member
join:2007-10-27
Wellington N

A Lurker to EdmundGerber

Premium Member

to EdmundGerber
said by EdmundGerber:

This is sad. More and more threads like this popping up.

I'm on a business account (with no overages), however, I did notice with more free time in Dec/Jan that I could really rack up the usage with Netflix. I meant to post it here at the time, but one Fri/Sat/Sun in Dec when I had the flu (ie. couldn't sleep) I used 39GB and it was purely Netflix on HD. Some of it was due to the fact that I would start something, doze off, and have to restart it. However, it really was a shock how much I'd used.

urbanriot
Premium Member
join:2004-10-18
Canada

urbanriot to Cogeco_Aaron

Premium Member

to Cogeco_Aaron
Does Cogeco still send out warnings when people are close to hitting their cap?
rudeboy24
join:2002-10-14
Welland, ON

rudeboy24 to Shecat2000

Member

to Shecat2000
your probably better off switching to start

»start.ca/services/highspeed

Shyte
Premium Member
join:2002-02-27
NF, ON

Shyte to urbanriot

Premium Member

to urbanriot
said by urbanriot:

Does Cogeco still send out warnings when people are close to hitting their cap?

Yes, I just had a warning last month. Got the 85% one, I had to watch my bandwidth for a few days, damn Netflix.

Shyte.

Davesnothere
Change is NOT Necessarily Progress
Premium Member
join:2009-06-15
Canada

3 edits

Davesnothere to urbanriot

Premium Member

to urbanriot
said by urbanriot:

Does Cogeco still send out warnings when people are close to hitting their cap?

 
Yes, but you do not receive them if you don't use a GOUGEco email account.

What a BS rule !!!!

For the full details, SEE »Cogeco email can't autoforward to external address!? and also see an earlier thread of mine, which is linked from within THAT thread.

Direct Link : »Re: Cogeco email can't autoforward to external address!?

START would be a wise choice (I'm there already).

Lower prices, more GB of monthly usage before the caps, and less per GB if you go over.

Same reliable Cogeco network, without all of the gouging and other BS.

And Cogeco is STILL making money from whatever share that START pays them for our feed and traffic !
EdmundGerber
join:2010-01-04

EdmundGerber to urbanriot

Member

to urbanriot
said by urbanriot:

Does Cogeco still send out warnings when people are close to hitting their cap?

Given how unreliable cogeco's email service has been, I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't anymore. Warning folks will impact their profit margins - can't have that!
Shecat2000
join:2013-01-21
Burlington, ON

Shecat2000

Member

Yes i was told they send warnings about getting close to or going over your cap. But since i have never used or opened my cogeco email and my hotmail was listed as my contact email i received no notice. Last night i finally called the office of the president of cogeco. will update on how that goes, if they ever return calls. next BBB. And as for net flix. yes we have it but have never gone over using it. and cant use Dec holidays as an excuse. I had reached my cap Dec15. my kids were not even out of school yet. Then the same was happening for Jan. over 70% the first week of jan. so something was using up all my data the very first week of each month. that insane. thats 65 movies. Do the math. 65 movies at 2 hours each. 130 hours. there is only 168 hours in a week. impossible to have watched that much.

dillyhammer
START me up
Premium Member
join:2010-01-09
Scarborough, ON

dillyhammer

Premium Member

For what it's worth, I got dinged in much the same way you did. For the 12 months leading up to the onset of cap enforcement, I regularly used well below my cap.

During the first month of UBB, November, I apparently went over my cap my the max (at that time). During the next month I used even more, over by the max again.

Of course, I did not know about any of this as I never used the Cogeco email and it hadn't hit my bills yet. Lo and behold, I get a call on New Years Eve warning me of my impending $30 surcharge for each of the months of Nov and Dec.

January mu usage mysteriously reurns to normal. They have no explanation for it, removed one of the $30 charges but wouldn't budge on the second.

I left Cogeco for DSL within a couple weeks. Cogeco is an unscrupulous company, make no mistake. Have a look around the Cogeco forum. You WILL get burned.

UBB is a classic example of what happens in a deregulated uncompetitive market. Cogeco's actions are exactly the type of corporate behaviour our consumer protection and competition laws are aimed at protecting us from.

As someone else has already mentioned, you may want to investigate Start.ca. If you have TV services through Cogeco you may want to consider replacing that too. There is far better for far less.

Mike
pwilde
join:2012-12-21
Milton, ON

pwilde to Shecat2000

Member

to Shecat2000
Cancel all of your services, tell them exactly why, and don't look back. Maybe if enough people do it they'll finally pull their heads out of their asses, but I wouldn't hold your breath - I know I'll never do business again with such a shady company that's for sure.
Eunectesboy
join:2012-05-24
L7M0K1

Eunectesboy to Shecat2000

Member

to Shecat2000
For more than a year we never went over 123GB/month. One month maybe 95GB, another 118GB...

Then last July we had 1 month with more than 280GB usage.

Long story short...Cogeco would do nothing. Essentially they insisted we had used 280GB+ because...well...because their 'meter' said so...and god knows that can't be wrong.

I find it completely absurd to suggest we used that much in summer with no change to our usage patterns. I mean more than double???? You'd pretty much notice that kind of change in usage...that's more than twice as much Netflix, twice as much downloading/uploading etc...

I paid the overage and cancelled their service (the last Cogeco service we had BTW). Felt good. I mean REALLY good to cancel.

Last 4 months or so on START.ca...and still hovering around 120GB per monthy usage.

So what's the most likely excuse? We more than doubled our usage during a month when we spent most of our time outside BBQ'ing or at soccer games with the kids...or their damn usage meter sucks!!!???

dillyhammer
START me up
Premium Member
join:2010-01-09
Scarborough, ON

dillyhammer

Premium Member

said by Eunectesboy:

So what's the most likely excuse?

1. Billing fraud.
2. Severe programming incompetence
3. Both of the above.

It's shocking that none of the internet media pundits have mentioned word one about this crap. The single greatest resource with bytes on this obscene fiasco is right here, DSLr.

Mike
dillyhammer

dillyhammer to pwilde

Premium Member

to pwilde
said by pwilde:

Cancel all of your services, tell them exactly why, and don't look back. Maybe if enough people do it they'll finally pull their heads out of their asses, but I wouldn't hold your breath - I know I'll never do business again with such a shady company that's for sure.

This ^^^^^^^^^^^^^



Mike

J E F F4
Whatta Ya Think About Dat?
Premium Member
join:2004-04-01
Kitchener, ON

J E F F4 to Shecat2000

Premium Member

to Shecat2000
My ex is with Cogeco (Winona) and had the same issue past two months. 100GB's over. No Netflix either. Just Minecraft, hotmail and a little YouTube. She blamed my kids at first, but there is no way they used that much, especially since they were with me for two of those weeks she complained about. I DO use Netflix (heavy) and HuluPlus (heavy) and go to about 130GB a month...that included upgraded a computer to Windows 8 and OS X updates, which chewed about 30 GB of download as well as a few movies plus non-stop usage of Minecraft during that time.

As others suggested, if you can get a different provider that might be your best option. Cogeco_Aaron See Profile is a great guy, but there is only so much he can do. I think Teksavyy is available in your area...might be worth looking at.

urbanriot
Premium Member
join:2004-10-18
Canada

urbanriot to Cogeco_Aaron

Premium Member

to Cogeco_Aaron
said by Cogeco_Aaron:

PM me your modem MAC (it'll most likely be on the bottom of your modem) and I can take a look.

If you have problems finding the modem MAC, just PM me your account information and that'll work.

Curious if there was any update to what you'd found?

Also curious if you can confirm whether or not Cogeco will send warning emails to alternative emails than simply the @cogeco.ca email?

Davesnothere
Change is NOT Necessarily Progress
Premium Member
join:2009-06-15
Canada

Davesnothere

Premium Member

said by urbanriot:

....Also curious if you can confirm whether or not Cogeco will send warning emails to alternative emails than simply the @cogeco.ca email?

 
HAH !

dillyhammer
START me up
Premium Member
join:2010-01-09
Scarborough, ON

dillyhammer to urbanriot

Premium Member

to urbanriot
said by urbanriot:

Curious if there was any update to what you'd found?

"We found an anomaly in the way usage was retrieved where for some reason random customers were billed way more than they should have. We know all the customers that this happened to since day 1 and everyone is getting there money refunded, with interest, plus 6 months of free internet as our way of saying sorry."

[::crickets::]

Mike

hagbard72
join:2000-10-02
Kingsville

hagbard72 to rudeboy24

Member

to rudeboy24
My experience so far is Start's metering system doesn't work. For a while there it was recording someone else's usage (was running about 10gb/hour!). Now, their meter isn't working at all and tells me I'm using zero a day??

dillyhammer
START me up
Premium Member
join:2010-01-09
Scarborough, ON

dillyhammer

Premium Member

said by hagbard72:

My experience so far is Start's metering system doesn't work. For a while there it was recording someone else's usage (was running about 10gb/hour!). Now, their meter isn't working at all and tells me I'm using zero a day??

My stats from Start (using CapSavvy) are pretty darn close.

Mike

hagbard72
join:2000-10-02
Kingsville

1 edit

hagbard72

Member

Mine are too, when its working. Apparently got shut off because of an issue earlier in the week but now its supposed to be turned back on. Still nothing showing up so I'll see.

Now running.

J E F F4
Whatta Ya Think About Dat?
Premium Member
join:2004-04-01
Kitchener, ON

J E F F4 to urbanriot

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to urbanriot
Rogers redirects you to a page once you hit 75%, 90% and 100%, and you have to click "acknowledge" that you received the notice, otherwise you'll get it again. No emails.

dillyhammer
START me up
Premium Member
join:2010-01-09
Scarborough, ON

dillyhammer

Premium Member

said by J E F F4:

Rogers redirects you to a page once you hit 75%, 90% and 100%, and you have to click "acknowledge" that you received the notice, otherwise you'll get it again. No emails.

You mean, if I type in google.ca in my browser, Rogers would hijack my session and redirect me to some page?

Mike

urbanriot
Premium Member
join:2004-10-18
Canada

urbanriot

Premium Member

Yep. Cogeco used to do something along those lines but everyone complained so now they just straight up charge...

Mind you, they didn't initially offer a choice and if people had to choose, I'm sure they'd choose Rogers' method over outright paying through the nose.

WarningU2
Premium Member
join:2002-10-27
Burlington, ON

2 edits

WarningU2

Premium Member

Thanks for this post, made me check my own bandwidth.

I too rarely use more than 25% of my internet bandwidth (175GB) but for January I reached 85%. Note: I didn't realize the utilization notifications were only sent to cogeco addresses. It should be assoc with the same address they send the bill IMHO, which is to an external email address for me because I changed when all the issues with their smtp servers continued for several weeks.

I did do something I don't normally this past month - downloaded 3 movies. That's it. But with uploading them back, the total utilization numbers are very similar to what Cogeco is telling me. For me at least the Cogeco tool looks accruate.

My point is ... it doesn't take much to quickly use your bandwidth and we don't for the most part even realize it. Very scary when you think about it.

I do think that Cogeco needs to improve their notification methods when you approach 85%. When you get to 99% it should require some sort of authentication to go over - a pop up or email link (to the same email address you use for billing) to confirm you want to start getting charged the penalty. And if you don't answer the confirmation, your service is suspended at 100% until you contact Cogeco. Not everyone may want that option but it should be there for people that don't want to get extra charges for exceeding their bandwidth.

Edit ... just realized the other change this past month is I switched to Cogeco's phone service. Likely stupid question but VoIP usage isn't counted for your bandwidth utilization - is it?

reboot
@cogeco.net

reboot

Anon

The DNS redirect is a good idea , but when you have a little Johnny in the house who is running Bittorrent for 24hours a day, and he clicks the notification and does not tell mom and dad, who pays the bill when it comes in?

At least when they send the email it goes to the primary email address, which would normally be the bill payer.