Shaw customer service

[Regular_John]

I was with Telus a few years ago and had such a bad experience I swore on a stack of bibles to never give them another dime of my money.

Shaw may be going down the crapper, but Telus is a bigger mess than Shaw has ever been.

[OilKiller]

Really just wish we had more competition. Would be nice to saw screw you, I'll go to the other cable provider or satellite provider, etc. Customer service would get better, prices would get better and offerings would get better. The consumer really does get the short end of the stick in Canada IMO.

[Cluelessboy]

Originally Posted by OilKiller

Really just wish we had more competition. Would be nice to saw screw you, I'll go to the other cable provider or satellite provider, etc. Customer service would get better, prices would get better and offerings would get better. The consumer really does get the short end of the stick in Canada IMO.

The consumer gets the short end in the city not canada. Outside of calgary alone there roughly 50 small ISP's for people who live in rural areas that shaw and telus dont cover. There is a reason why there hasnt been any competition in the city and thats cause no one would standna chance since shaw and telus have the entire consumer market in calgary

[fundmark19]

I think direct tv and dish network could make a nice bang

[OilKiller]

Originally Posted by fundmark19

I think direct tv and dish network could make a nice bang

Yup...unfortunately, never would be allowed by the CRTC.

[malcolmk14]

Well, Telus is coming over next Friday to set up Optik TV, Internet, and Home Phone.

If, for whatever reason, they don't show up, you'll all be reading about me in the paper...

[fundmark19]

Originally Posted by malcolmk14

Well, Telus is coming over next Friday to set up Optik TV, Internet, and Home Phone.

If, for whatever reason, they don't show up, you'll all be reading about me in the paper...

Make sure you go to edmonton if you are planning to murk someone. They need all the homicide help that can to stay at number 1

[pylon]

Well, I have been on hold now for 2 hours with Shaw tech support. Third time I have held for over an hour in 2 moonths. This company is getting worse by the month. I am going to be placing a call to Telus tomorrow. Enough is enough with these idiots. I am truly of the opinion, they are the worst run company in Alberta.

[calumniate]

Originally Posted by malcolmk14

Well, Telus is coming over next Friday to set up Optik TV, Internet, and Home Phone.

If, for whatever reason, they don't show up, you'll all be reading about me in the paper...

Do yourself a favor and call them a day in advance - make sure they have you scheduled. Then call that day and make sure they have you in the system. Trust me, they're systems are ridiculous. It may annoy you to call them to confirm, but it's way less annoying than waiting for somebody who doesn't show up.

In my experience, once they set stuff up you don't have to call them again.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by calumniate

Do yourself a favor and call them a day in advance - make sure they have you scheduled. Then call that day and make sure they have you in the system. Trust me, they're systems are ridiculous. It may annoy you to call them to confirm, but it's way less annoying than waiting for somebody who doesn't show up.

In my experience, once they set stuff up you don't have to call them again.

Why should he have to do that? I call someone and set up an appointment, they shouldn't need to be reminded.

I understand that sometimes things happen so the appointment doesn't work out, but that's a totally different story, where calling them the day before shouldn't matter.

[calumniate]

Originally Posted by Rathji

Why should he have to do that? I call someone and set up an appointment, they shouldn't need to be reminded.

I understand that sometimes things happen so the appointment doesn't work out, but that's a totally different story, where calling them the day before shouldn't matter.

What you say makes sense from a traditional customer service operation, but I'm talking about Telus here. If you don't want to have your ass handed to you, follow my advice

[bomber317]

I just signed up with Shaw.

Moving into a new house, and they offered 3 months free internet and TV. Telus would only offer me the same promotions that is on the Telus site. (free laptop with 3 year contract)

If their service is crap after 3 months, I'm switching it over to Telus. Although Shaw does have Food network in HD now....

[Jbo]

Just wanted to share my story about Shaw.

Have been a customer for 8 years. I just rented out my condo in the SW, and called in advance to cancel my current service. It took 45 minutes to get through just to cancel.

So I ask the Customer Service if I will owe anything and she says "no you are paid through to mid-September". No problem so far, so I tell her to just leave it on until its paid and that gives my new renters a chance to have some TV until they can get it hooked up.

She reminds me that I have to drop off the digital box back to them after the service runs out and I tell her no problem, but Im about to leave for a couple weeks travel, and could I return it when I get back. "No problem" she tells me "you have a month after your service ends to get it back to us".

I come back to the following; A half a month unbilled in Sept, because they left it on until the end of the month. instead of just disconnecting it in mid-sept, and a collection notice telling me that I did not return the hardware and would be going after my credit etc.

What a friggin joke.

[Jimdon]

Wanted to cancel my superchannel subscription this morning, 17.00 a month for something i never watch, so I called Shaw at 9:30 this morning, after several menus and going through hold I opted for a call back in 45 minutes. 45 minutes or so they called back, only to ask what I needed and transfer me to another department where the call back time was 2 hours plus.

At this point, I got pretty pissed that I pay these guys almost 200 a month and I've got three hours invested so far and still have not got my incredibly simple request resolved, called Telus they offered me free install, free PVR, free box for my bedroom, free HP laptop, faster internet and more TV channels for less than I'm paying now, 50% off my bill for the first 6 months and free Playboy channel. I am now a Telus customer.

The end of the story is that when Shaw finally called back a couple hours later, I had to get transferred again to cancel my entire service package and that took them another 30 minutes, but that is the last 30 minutes those a-holes will ever get from me, never had such shoddy service before in my life.

[Mtt48]

i f%cking hate shaw. They are so obviously throttling my speeds and will do nothing about it. Their M.O. is to "run a focking speed test". Oh, that reports acceptable speeds? nothing we can do.

I hate how limited the competition is here. The choices are absolutely abysmal.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by Mtt48

i f%cking hate shaw. They are so obviously throttling my speeds and will do nothing about it. Their M.O. is to "run a focking speed test". Oh, that reports acceptable speeds? nothing we can do.

I hate how limited the competition is here. The choices are absolutely abysmal.

Why do you say that?

and I doubt they are, but I won't go into that just yet

[Mtt48]

I have been downloading from private torrent trackers for years. I have been with shaw for years. I have been on the same plan (speed) with shaw for at least 1 year. Everything has been fine except for the past 2 weeks. I have gone from consistent 2MB/s downloading over the course of years to now fluctuating between 800kb/s - 200 kb/s.

I have tested 2 of my laptops at different locations, on different connections. Each time the results have been similar to the old, fast speeds I was used to.

What else is the explanation? I have tried connecting directly to the modem instead of using the router, same problem. I have done this with several of my computers. Same problem.

I really can't fathom another explanation. If you have some advice I'd love to hear it.

Edit - the only variable I can think of that has changed on my end is that I got a new laptop about 1.5 months ago. It runs uTorrent as opposed to transmission/rtorrent that my other computers use. Could some strange setting in uTorrent complete screw everything up? I doubt it, but that is seriously all I can think of on my end.

[Rathji]

The simple fact is that Shaw doesn't throttle any traffic in Calgary, it doesn't have the infrastructure in place.

You hear claims that XYZ provider is throttling over and over, for many years, but still many people never experience any issues, including people I know who have managed multiple TB bandwidth usage in a single month. Think about this for a second, if you have been torrenting for years and years on the same account, do you think suddenly 2 weeks ago Shaw finally noticed and throttled you?

How does that make sense?

How does it make sense that no Shaw employee I have talked to has heard of this happening in Calgary (aside from some tests a few years ago), but willingly admit that the company openly used the Arbor-Ellacoya DPI (ie what they use to throttle speeds) in some markets (like Lethbridge) to maintain bandwidth when they wanted to deploy Shaw phones on aging infrastructure?

Sure your speeds might be slower that they used to be, I wont debate that with you, but I would be willing to bet the saturation on your node is way higher now than it was a year ago. Almost all plans have doubled their upload speeds, but I can pretty much guarantee that the infrastructure wasn't increased by the same magnitude.

You might be convinced of it, but if I was a betting man, if you live in Calgary I would bet against throttling every time.

[Mtt48]

Fair enough. I called them several times...I always asked the tech, "is my node busy? Is it a busy time?". Each time the tech said there were no problems in my area. I really think that I must have finally hit some mark in their system, or perhaps they ran through some database and my account has become "flagged". Who knows? It doesn't seem that improbable.

I just find it weird that speedtest results will be relatively normal but torrenting speed has become so poor.

I'm interested in your suggestion that shaw doesn't have the infrastructure to do so. Why do you say that?

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by Mtt48

Fair enough. I called them several times...I always asked the tech, "is my node busy? Is it a busy time?". Each time the tech said there were no problems in my area. I really think that I must have finally hit some mark in their system, or perhaps they ran through some database and my account has become "flagged". Who knows? It doesn't seem that improbable.

I just find it weird that speedtest results will be relatively normal but torrenting speed has become so poor.

I'm interested in your suggestion that shaw doesn't have the infrastructure to do so. Why do you say that?

Because they tested it here and decided not to implement it on a wide scale. To do this they would need to install a unit at each node. To monitor and maintain it they would need to involve staff at various levels of the company. I knew several people who worked at Shaw at enough levels that I am confident that if there was such a system in place they would need to know about its existence.

Now, to be fair, I don't currently know anyone who works in a position that could provide definitive proof of this, so if a system was put in place in the last 6 months it is possible, albeit very unlikely, that I have no idea about it. However, I don't believe this is relevant to this conversation, because people have been claiming your exact issues for years, without actual throttling taking place. For it suddenly to be happening now would be fairly unlikely.