Rogers telemarketing - scam & privacy concerns

Rogers telemarketing - scam & privacy concerns

November 7, 2005

Warning!!! Rogers has sold your Account Number to a Scam!!!! During the evening of Oct. 25, I received a call at home from someone claiming to be a representative of Rogers Wireless and he had a promotion for me as I had been selected from Rogers' client list to receive a special offer. The area code that appeared on my call display was somehow falsified (it was 422) and the individual from the call centre was virtually impossible to understand. He did have my Rogers Cable account number. However the deal seemed attractive:

2 free phones

no contract

1000 free minutes

unlimited local for first 7 months

And more that I really couldn't understand.

I said that I would like to take the deal and was immediately transferred to a "manager". This individual told me that for the security of the valuable package that they were going to send me, he was required to get 2 pieces of ID from me. He said that it could be "any id" such as Passport number, SIN number, Green Card, Birth Certificate or Drivers License. When I refused to give any of that information over the phone, he informed me that he was not able to send my order without it and then reiterated that anything, even a passport, SIN or green card would be fine. I asked him his name and where he was calling from and after having to get him to spell it, he said that his name was Jason Robinson and he was in "downtown Toronto" but could not name any specific areas in "downtown Toronto".

I immediately called Rogers Customer Service to file a complaint. The individual there informed me that Rogers uses a lot of off-shore companies for their telemarketing. He also told me that the offer that was made was not available at all from any Rogers outlet. That call ended with a promise of a call back within 24 hours which as of Nov. 7, has not been received.

I also emailed the privacy office of Rogers. I received a call back on Nov. 1. The first thing that the person making the call back tried to do was sell me Rogers services that I do not currently have. After apologizing for that he informed me that the majority of Rogers' call centres are in the Toronto area and had no explanation why Customer Service would tell me the complete opposite. He also said that Rogers does not "give" the information to these 3rd party call centres but they "give them access to a database" which contained my account number. He had no answers as to why this happened and why they would want my passport number. He also had no excuse as to why I was not informed of Rogers privacy policy, what the information was being collected for etc. as per the Privacy Act (PIPEDA).

As of this point on Nov. 7, I have received a message asking for a call back to the privacy person who had no answers the first time. I have left a message but have had no response. Has anyone seen this? Is this a current scam being tried on unsuspecting Rogers clients? NOTE: Rogers did not deny that such a thing could have taken place. Click this link to e-mail the message author: Email User