Shaw Communications review: billing scam 29

Beware of these scammers. Actually, maybe it's not fair to call them scammers -- they are just inept. I signed up for a package deal (against my better judgement) which was to include internet, Cable and Digital phone. They called it the Novus Package - $54.00+tax. I pre-paid 3 months in advance and today (2 months later), my services shut off. I called to find out what was going on and their explaination was as follows:

Because the technician had yet to initiate the phone jack (I was out of town, it was scheduled for Nov 15) they were charging me thier "regular" price for the other two services until the phone was active -- ie: $250+. Not a price I ever agreed to and their answer to me (after 2 hours of hold time) was basically "tough". Now I'll have to deal with this in court, more than likely, simply to protect my credit.

I'm not surprised, I should have known better. I've had trouble with these idiots and their inability to apply promo codes before. Kepp an eye on your bill and NEVER pre-auth payments.

The same thing happened with me and now they have put it on my credit...I don't know whom to seek help from

I was told by shaw that if your service is down and you phone in they will reduce your bill. But then again shaw's customer service SUCKS.

Shaw cable has very poor customer service. I have phone 4 times in regards to one issue. Not only did I have to sit on the phone for 20 min each and every time (sometimes longer) and then when they come on the line they have no answers. They say they will have a supervisor phone you back. You guessed it the supervisor also does not know how to return calls.

How do you respond to the Shaw Cable 'scam? I had the exact same problem. They disconnected my service, and billed me for an extra month of cable for $60. I called 3 times, and did the online chat to try to clear this up. They claim to have called me 4 times with no answer. I work 8-4 m-f and can't take personal calls. I also have a hard time believing that they were calling to tell me that I could hook the cable up directly! They also charged me a $20 service fee, one day after I paid $20 on my account. It felt like a slap in the face. What is the best course of action? No one would give me a manager's email or contact information. They don't even know that I actually work for the Better Business Bureau! I can't file my own complaint because it is a conflict of interest :( Any suggestions?

SHAW is committing fraud by charging you for service they have no intention of supplying. I have only Internet through SHAW and they are illegally charging 1 month in advance for service not yet rendered. If you are 20 days late paying they will cut off service automatically. If you then pay your bill the service is not turned back on but they continue to send a bill. The best way for dealing with this is through the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services http://www.ccts-cprst.ca/ they currently have SHAW under investigation for fraud. This has a potential of becoming a class action law suit vs SHAW as well as criminal charges. Please do as I have and talk to the CCTS. Oh yeah and it took me all day phoning over a dozen places starting with the CRTC and ending with the CRTC before finally getting the info on the CCTS. Good luck to all with this issue.

Thank you for the help. I even went down there in person the other day so that they might treat me like a person instead of a number, and guess what happened? They just renovated their Victoria HQ, and there is a lineup of 20-30 people crammed in there, with only 3 CSRs working! When you undergo changes, they should be for the better, not the worse. After waiting for only 45 minutes, they told me the same BS that the call center supervisor said over the phone: "There is nothing we can do." All they have to do is press a couple of buttons, save me the $80 they overcharged me, and I would have paid the balance in full and been ok with that.
Have they learned nothing about customer service in the last few years. The CSR even agreed that it was unfair. They could have turned this aggravation around and made everyone happy. Epic fail Shaw Cable... very sad indeed. http://www.ccts-cprst.ca here I come!

I have no sound on many of my TV channels. I contacted Shaw Cable and then I am placed on hold for 30 minutes to an hour, plus. They do not return your request for call-backs. When I finally got through, I was told I have to wait 10 days before the next available technician.

Shaw is clearly engaging in fraudulent activities, and it is remarkable that a company of its size can be allowed to operate in such a manner, unfettered, for so long. But so long as everyone keeps the pressure up, we will put them in check.

If you don't know how to be effective, you can get the ball rolling by looking HERE:
http://www.consumerhandbook.ca/en/contacts/provincial-territorial-offices

and HERE:
http://www.complaintcourier.ca

Phone calls, e-mails, and letter writing (in increasing order of effectiveness) CAN BE a real pain in the neck for ANY company to be dealing with. The more they need to spend on steep salaries for the kinds of people who deal with and coordinate government and independent industry watchdog (like Better Business Bureau) communications, the LESS likely they are to continue these practices. In my case, they are trying to screw me over a measly 100 bucks. In the process, they are screwing with my credit score at a very important time for me. Now it's personal, and I guarantee I am going to cost them more than a thousand in wages. If everyone here who has been screwed by Shaw does likewise, it will make them think twice.

Good luck, and good hunting!

I was with Shaw for at least 20 years. My wife's computer died and Telus offerd a notebook. We are happy with it. The story goes that we discontinued service. They sent a final bill of $260 which was way out of line. I always paid in advance at least a month, sometimes two. We sent all their equipment by UPS. This is all under 30 days. I just got a letter of "collection" and a phone call saying it was being sent to a collection agency. .What happened to 3 notices? I phoned them and was on hold for close to an hour. They said they never got the equipment. We went to UPS and they said it took Shaw 3 or 4 months to process the return. Whaaaat! So it looks like I have to go into debt to friggin pay them. I will NEVER use Shaw's services again.

i was wondering how much shaw cost for hooking up the internet.I paid$50.00 cash to the guy at the door for the hook up, March 1 week later with a $20.00 discount i paid a total of $54.00 cost for the month of March.BUT I GET A BILL OF $54.00 at the end of March no mention of April, seems to me there charging $50.00 and a month worth just for the hook up.

I have been waiting for over month for Shaw tec to come out to replace my cable line when I move into my trailer that I still have an temporary line from the box to the trailer. What is going to happen when I need to cut my lawn or when there is so much snow they will tell me to wait until spring!

No speedy responses. I was told they would return my call in 24- 48 hours. It is now day 5 and no response. Their service just gets worse. I have better things to do than sit on hold for 2- 3 hours and have now tv or internet on 5 different occasions for 4- 5 hours. Some compensation would be nice.

I have a Shaw modem that I use for internet and phone only.
At least once a week, if not more, I have to reset the modem by unplugging and removing the battery.
Why? So my phone will ring properly and the caller id will work.
A tech came out, "nothing wrong here" and problem continued.
More calls than necessary to Shaw resulted in me being told it was my phone causing the issue.
Fine.
New phone.
Problem continued despite their best efforts to blame me, the customer.
Forget the condescending attitudes of ineffective cs reps; they have no power, and it's more than adequately reflected in their above stated tones.
I believe the problem, in my case, is equipment sabotage between SHAW and the provider I switched from, TELUS.
It's nothing that a private dick couldn't get to the bottom of, and that's what needs to happen, a thorough investigation hired by fed-up-with-being-shafted customers.
Find a lawyer, set up an account, hire a dick, and go about our business until payola time.
### Shaw out isn't working, but a ### slap will...
That's the long and short of it...

Shaw Rips off customers regularly - Great source of revenue for them. We are currently disputing additional charges they put on our bill - FOR THE PEOPLE ON THE FLOOR BELOW US. They removed all but $116.73 of those fees, which they refuse to remove, plus after cancelling Shaw service on the phone AND IN WRITING they charged us an additional $117.65 for an extra month. I am definitely going to the better business bureau, and notifying people through twitter and social media to be leery of Shaw. we are now over $200.00 in extra fees and charges that they say we "Owe, " and it is pure B/S! $$$ Grab greed -- that would be SHAW.

It was a toss up between worst customer service, customer support and product integrity. Our internet acts like a spoiled child behaving (or working at times) and not working at all. We call in and they tell us to trouble shoot for them and none of these things have worked. The tech that we called never showed up. The internet works maybe half the day and we are frequently dealing with people being booted out of the net because it has decided to stop working. The lady today on the phone took the cake fighting with us saying that we have never been offline. THANK YOU! YOU HAVE PROVED MY POINT! If it says it is working there and a hard wire and wireless connections don't work, unplugging as well as power going out and resetting the internet and none of these register I would like to know who they set our internet up to and which house is getting the internet since it isn't ours. The lady fought with me for 37 minutes while I was on my cell phone all of this costing me money as well as the money we lost when the internet decided it wasn't working today. THEN SHE REFUSES TO REIMBURSE OR SEND A TECH it took her going to a manager to decide we had a right to get the services we had been paying for. I plan to let others know how poor their service is contacting friends that work in areas where they speak with 1000's of people a month. No company should be allowed to deliver no service and be paid as if they have been giving us service. Leaving the company just isn't enough!

Shaw has to turn a large profit in order to pay corporate pensions and bonuses. Paying JIm Shaw a $475, 000 per month pension requires innovative ways of increasing charges to customers while cutting quality of service. Repeat programming is one way. Like "Rifle Man" (who could believe someone would still be watching that) and it plays over and over like the many other cheap and outdated programs. And your bill will keep inching up and up. You won't even get notification that the charges are going to be increased or any kind of an explanation just an increase on your bill especially if you pay with automatic debiting.
They purposely arrange you package deals so that in order to watch one or two programs you like you have to take five times as many channels that you don't want. Think of it as them selling hamburger's. You get the basic bun and meat but if you only want cheese then you must take and pay for the onion. pickle. lettuce, tomato, mustard and ketchup.
Possibly it's just as well to use a set of rabbit ears if you can get reception. You are right in saying you can't get any contact information for managers. They know what's going on and and the customer service is nothing but scripted responses after you have been on hold for twenty minutes or more. This is why the big three don't want any outside competition coming into Canada and what they will tell you is that they are keeping costs competitive while protecting Canadian's jobs. And we are the wimps who seem to need this junk at any cost. And what does CRTC do for "consumers"?
Only in Canada "eh".

Shaw Cable is as usual ripping people off. When they cut off service but do not credit the customer's bill for the time it was disconnected, they are billing for services not delivered. When you factor in the extremely high interest rates and penalties Shaw tacks on for these undelivered services, multiply that by thousands of customers over several years, it all equals one huge scam. Shaw is once again defrauding customers and making a fortune. Same old same old! They are already being sued in a federal class action for not disclosing to consumers the extreme and excessive penalty charges and interest they will hit you with if your bill is not prepaid every month!

we moved into a town house 2 years ago n setup shaw for phone, cable n internet

we have had nothing but problems with the internet n cable since day one. after having tecs to my house n on the phone with tech support, after a year I was told nothing could be done to fix the problem, as they said it was caused other peoples signals.

so I called them again as my internet speed was down to 2. point something, the tech on the phone told me he could fix the problem, if I would pay for internet broad band 50, twenty dollars more he would up me to 100 band free. so stupid me I did what he said, well it put my internet up to about 14, so now we could use it without it taking for ever or freezing up all. so we did this for all most a year, until a tech came to the house to fix our on demand channels that were still freezing up two years, as techs coming to our house n on the phone could not fix the problem, we were offered updated boxes for free. so on December 12, 2013 the tech came changed boxes for us. I told him what was happening with my cable n he said he would check it. low n behold he went to a shaw web page n changed the way the signal comes to my house, wow my internet wifi speed was now at 75, he told me that was a standard thing to check n he couldn't believe no one checked it. so I called shaw tech n spoke to a guy n told him what happened, he agreed to credit me the 200 hundred dollars I spent for the broad band 50, as they were the ones who told me to do this n it would fix my wifi internet along with them putting it up to 100 band for free, but it never worked. so when my new box starting working the my demand was still freezing, so I called shaw n they sent out the same tech from the morning who fixed my internet, make along story short he put around signal thing on the front of the box n this fixed the problem right away n again he couldn't believe no one did this as it is a standard thing to do. so I waited until January 7, 2014 when I got my new bill to call in again about my refund as the first time I called they said they had to email the two techs I talked to find the one who gave me the refund. so I asked to speak to a supervisor well to my surprise he told me I had to pay the 100 hundred dollars it cost for 100 broad band n would only refund me a hundred dollars I was so shocked he would charge me for something that would not n they offered it free, shaw sucks n if there are any class actions law suits going on against them please contact me
thank you

bob

Shaw needs to up it services a lot. They are a bunch of crooks and that shows through the employees at all levels. They do not care about you, it is only about how they can squeeze you every month. The bills keep creeping up a few dollars every month. They do not account for the days when their service is down or erratic.

Canada needs to bring in more players and open this market. This guys are getting rich the customers are being taken advantage off every day. We are no more a free country but controlled by the likes of Shaw, Telus, ICBC, BC Ferries and Translink

i have had cable for a while now with shaw. The past few months however my credit card was compromised 2 times at which I called everyone to change my credit card information. And I also went online and changed them too. But the other day I rec'd an email bill notification for a couple month that said I owe them $353 immediately but even on the bottom of the email it stated "don't pay this bill it is just a notification and will be charged to your credit card.. I asked about it and they said it was because I missed a couple payments in the last few months on my equipment (which was supposed to have been "taken care of"). Whether it is because they have two different charges (one for equipment and one for service) they should have changed both when I spoke with them. But that obviously was not the case. so now they don't care about my situation-they won't budge and say they can't put me back on a payment plan for the equipment because of something I had no control over, . and being a single parent-that is very difficult. and no matter what I say -they can do this but they won't. anybody know of a better provider that cares about their customers?

By far one of the worst customer service departments I have ever experienced. Apparently even if you can back up your claim, as long as one of their internal reps puts a note on your file - that is gospel. They had record of my call May 29th to cancel my account as they could not provide the services I wanted at my new home so I went with their competitor. The rep stated on my file that I was going to discuss their services with my husband? Interesting...even have the emails from Telus dated the 29th of May showing my new account is set up. What is to discuss? Cleaning up my desk to pack the office today and called all vendors to ensure all accounts are closed since I have been away on business. Shaw Direct clearly did not fulfill my request and expect me to pay for 2 weeks of service when I provided more than 30 days notice. Shameful - I have been a Shaw customer for over 20 years - never again! Perhaps if the CEO of Shaw didn't pay himself a salary of $12.5 million dollars - and spent that money in training his staff better they wouldn't have so many pissed off customers seeking online platforms such as this to vent their frustrations. Moving to rural Alberta? CALL TELUS!

Shaw could not care less about user issues they are huge money suckers sanctioned by the CRTC.

I too feel ripped off as a consumer and have lost all respect for Shaw Cable. They always bill me one month ahead and when I asked them about this they said that some customers like to pay ahead. I said to them well some do not, including myself. I asked them if this is illegal to bill ahead, for services ahead of time and their response was that those were their terms. Then they say that because I have not paid for the two months, they cut me off and I had to fight for more time. They even had the nerve to charge me a late charge, for not paying my bill, when the due date was set for the following month. I live in a mobile home park, where the landlord includes Cable as part of my pad fee. Shaw is charging me more for the cable. When I mentioned that I just remembered that the cable is included in my rent, they would only reimburse me 25 dollars, when I had be paying for the bundle package, including the full cable for approx 10months. The customer service experience has been a joke. Thank goodness I only pay by cash, at my banking institution. I have also noticed that my bill keeps climbing with all kinds of charges. Unfortunately, Shaw is the only provider in our area. I am going to the BBB about this. Beware, watch your bill

Shaw just charged my 94 year old grandmother for over 100 dollars worth of pay per view UFC. Stated that "someone" must have come into her house at 5 pm while she eats dinner and ordered/watched payperview? Really?! I live here with her and I am SURE we would have seen this happening. I have no other cable box so it would have had to have been in the most used area of the house right by the kitchen and dinning room. Not to mention we all find fighting utterly unwatchable. They might have got away with it if it had been a David Attenborough special, but UFC!? No way. HOW DARE THEY. I have not had tv since they screwed my parents around so badly I gave up all cable companies, refusing to pay one more cent to these scammers. I get all my tv from the internet. So we have been calling shaw about this charge. Now there are two people from this family are on the account, but when contacted by people NOT on our account NOT using this phone line shaw happily gave out MY account information without asking for any names or any proof of identity. Luckily these people ARE in my family, but how many people I dont know can just call up and get my info? Is this how people are ordering pay per view?!

I signed up for shaw cable service in 2014 for a friend. When he couldn't pay, I called shaw to cancel, returned the equipments and paid the outstanding balance of $185.84. They ended up not recording the payment and sent me to collections. I talked to them back and forth several times and told them that I paid this balance when I returned the equipments and paid for my shaw bill at the retail store in the mall. They still claimed that I did not pay the bill and are requiring me to pay the balance. Shaw is so rich but behave like slum lords. They are so unprofessional with their documentation/record keeping and scam you off every penny. Now I am stuck with a collection bill and a payment to make. I can't wait for Canada to bring other competing internet/cable providers like they have in the states. These people need to be audited and sent back to accounting school.

The most abysmal customer service and outrageous fee increases have finally driven me to Telus. Also not my first choice but I am at my "ANYONE BUT SHAW" limit. Biggest joke (and slap in the face) is I am able to see all the great deals for American cable on all the overpriced channels from Shaw that I don't want to begin with. C'mon CRTC, time to open up the monopoly these creeps enjoy to some healthy competition. If you have a choice NEVER CHOOSE SHAW.

My son hooked up shaw cable during a promotion 6 months for 19.99 a month the first contact was from me because the service was stopped due to the bill being over 300. That was after just 3 months! my son was concerned about his credit so we paid it . The next bill only two months after that also reached 300plus. I tried to explain that 19.99 a month for 5 months does not reach the 300 dollar range . I heard every bs reason from the technician is from a diff biz to the other channels were sép so all packages were on bill. So we paid then called and asked to have cable disconnected. My son moved. Then a cpl months later my son called saying his credit was shot and y didn't I pay cable. This time it was over 500! They said there was no call to disconnect I asked y it w's left to run up so high and after more bs from them I reminded them they disrupted service when bill was only over 300! Lying crooks! I thought I was dealing with SGI !

A rip-off company. Make Shaw Communications your last choice if you can get a fair deal somewhere else