Went to get a "pay as you go" phone from Rogers Wireless, since I had a gsm phone but only made 2 or 3 calls per month.
So I walk up to the counter, tell them what I wanted. They tell me it's going to be a $50 "activation fee". Well, it's pretty well known that the Canadian mobile phone providers are ripoff merchants, but I can take $50. I agree, they IMMEDIATELY take a sim card out of one of their boxes, without telling me anymore about the product.
I then start to think about what questions I SHOULD be asking. Like "what's the minimum amount for a pay as you go card". $10. "does it expire? ". This is where it gets really confusing. The card apparently expired in 30 days. But once the card is put into the phone, I'm told the minutes purchased roll over into the following month.
Cool. I give them my details.
It then comes up in conversation that the minutes only roll over IF YOU KEEP PURCHASING THEIR CARDS. So if you don't purchase a card, goodbye to your money.
At this point I'm getting annoyed. Hidden costs popping out of the woodwork like termites. $50 activation, minimum $10 per month, and then the kicker, $0.40 per minute for any calls I make in the first place!
At this point I'm annoyed, so I tell them that no, I won't be doing pay as you go from Rogers. Not at $170 for the first year and $120 per year thereafter, whether I use the phone or not. That's NOT "pay as you go", that's "pay through the nose for not much".
The kicker was, they then made me pay $25 tax for the sim card that they had immediately opened earlier, before disclosing anything.
So we have a complete lack of disclosure on their part that ends up costing me $28 just for having talked to them.
Unfortunately, that behavior is apparently not only legal in Canada, it's typical of all mobile phone operators.
Be warned. If you deal with a mobile phone operator in Canada, you ARE going to get ripped off.
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