It all started with a knock, a letter, and two cable guys. Nick Scott never imagined that within a few days he’d be calling the police, and barricading the front door.
Last week, two Rogers representatives showed up unannounced, at Scott’s house. They said they were running a signal level upgrade in the area. Scott’s partner was suspicious, but reluctantly let them in. Twenty minutes later they were gone, and she didn’t think anything of it.
But when Scott got home from work, he noticed his internet wasn’t working properly.
“I went to watch a trailer on the Apple store and this message came up that said ‘you’ll have to switch to a lower video quality because your speed’s not fast enough,’” Scott said.
“We had never received that, in three years at our current house. We had never received that kind of message and we have the highest speed internet.”
So Scott called Rogers, to find out what was going on. They looked at his file, and told him they hadn’t sent anyone to his house.
“So my heart stopped, and I just felt like I was a little nervous about that.”
They suggested he report it, so he called the police. When the officer showed up and looked at the letter, she said it looked like fraud, and told him to disconnect everything so no one could access their personal information.
Scott looked at the letter his partner received, and became more suspicious. When he looked up “signal level upgrade program,” he found nothing. When he looked up “Network Maintenance TM,” the title of one of the guys, he only found four results from Taiwan.
There’s also no signature on the letter, the phone number goes straight to voicemail and the Rogers logo was just pulled from the Internet.
His partner told him the van they drove had a Newfoundland license plate, and said YNC Cable on the side. When he looked up YNC Cable he came back empty-handed.
“This is really, really bizarre. So I’m thinking, I really hope this was an authorized situation anyway, but it’s not looking good.”
That night he blocked the front door from inside, and his partner slept at her mother’s house.
Scott asked Rogers to send an authorized technician. When he showed up and looked at the letter, he said it did look sketchy but he knew the guy on the letter, and he was in fact a contractor with Rogers.
“That put a lot of stress on us, and nobody from Rogers could tell us that these people were authorized.”
Patricia Law, from Rogers Communications, confirmed the letter was legitimate.
“Dan Kuehl, Team Manager, Network Maintenance works for Rogers, and we contract out the work to Cablelync Communications,” Law said in an email.
Scott still doesn’t know what they did to his internet, since they only made it slower. He is filing a complaint with Rogers.
“There’s clearly communication gaps in their process and they’re clearly lacking standards in how their contractors conduct business.”
