A Toronto couple spent four days on hold, in chat, and in Rogers stores trying to cancel a $140 CAD internet plan, according to the Toronto Star.
Sarah Brooks and Nick Williams were moving into a new house in the Junction and figured cancelling Brooks’ condo internet would take a day. Instead they hit dropped calls, chatbot loops, and a recording that said the queue was too long to even wait on hold.
Store staff told Brooks that internet cancellations have to happen by phone. A Rogers spokesperson later confirmed to the Toronto Star that this is industry protocol.
“I don’t even know how many chat specialists I’ve spoken to,” Brooks told the Star. “I’ve lost count.”
The Star‘s analysis of Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS) data found accepted complaints about being unable to cancel telecom service rose 64.9 percent between 2022 and 2025. Rogers and Shaw accounted for the largest share. Telus complaints in that category jumped nearly 300 percent, and Bell’s rose by 50 percent.
OpenMedia executive director Matt Hatfield told the Star the barriers are the point. “They throw up barriers because people do give up.”
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) already moved on this. In April it ordered carriers to offer ways to change or cancel internet and wireless service that do not require a phone agent, with a deadline of April 26, 2027 and fines of up to $10 million for a first offence. That digital cancel rule still leaves Canadians stuck on hold until next spring.
Rogers spokesperson Christina Salituro apologized for Brooks’ “frustrating experience” and said the company is “working towards” the 2027 deadline. She also said cancellation issues made up less than 3 percent of issues reported to CCTS in 2024/25. CCTS told the Star that “unable to cancel” complaints still grew about 4.9 percent faster than overall complaints.
The timing lines up with front-line support cuts at Rogers and a petition asking the CRTC to cap hold times. Hatfield said customers are getting stuck in AI loops, and he expects the next year of CCTS numbers to look worse.
Williams cancelled his own condo internet with Virgin Plus in one 20-minute call and is paying about $65 CAD a month at the new house. Bell stopped offering Virgin Plus Home Internet to new Ontario customers as of January 2026, but honoured the price on his new plan.
After the Star contacted Rogers, the company called Brooks and confirmed the cancellation. Rogers would not explain why so many customers still hit the same wall.
Until the 2027 digital cancel rule kicks in, the workaround is the one the CRTC has allowed since 2011: ask your new provider to cancel the old service for you.
A similar seven-hour Rogers cancellation maze landed at CCTS last year. The regulator’s latest switching-fee fight with Rogers, Bell, and Telus is still open too, after the CRTC rejected an attempt to stall that probe on August 16.
The phone-queue decision is Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2026-78.
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This exact same thing happened to me. They would hang up on me or put me on hold and hang up. Or make me wait until there office hours ended. Took me 2 weeks. The agents get reprimanded when they have too many cancellations and get fired so no one wants to process the request. This is a grotesque organization that penalizes the employees for their poor management
i am currently experiencing the same problem with Roger’s they are rich company but still cheating,this company is one of the worst,very hard to talk to real customer service people,real people. Very disappointing.
Same, agents act dimb and say they dont understand, then hold then get disconnected. Its all planned to frustrate you.
It took me four days continue calling the Great Rogers to return 2 internet pods
They have outsourced customer service support
Big telecom has been abusing their customers this way for decades. I had several similar “endless hold”, dropped call, must talk to a (retention) agent (M-F, 9-5 only) for cancellations as far back as 1999, and over the years since. Amazingly, agents are available any time to sign up new customers. Hopefully this new ruling will make a difference. No good reason they need so long to implement it.
Agree to the always there to sign you up!
I wish it only took four days for us to cancel our Internet. We went days upon days going through the cycle to get where we needed to be only to be told there was no one able to take the call try back later or try online and then they hung up on us. And it was multiple people trying from our family every day. Absolutely disgusting.
When Rogers says in there ads “we got you” they aren’t kidding.
I waited 5 hours to get technical support.
First they “could” not help me. Then one rep knew the solution but did not share it with me because I was not the authorized account holder. Even though my husband has called several times, given my name, and asked them to make me an authorized user. After four reps and 5 hours I resolved my own issue while on the phone with an operator. They are all.totally useless!
Yikes! I will let my family and friends know of this and suggest they do not sign with Rodger’s.
Or bell they are the same
Elbows up? For this ?
When we canceled Rogers, the guy on the phone was very hostile. When he got into the retention spiel, I told him we could both save time by skipping that because the service replacement was already installed and operational. The guy started yelling that I was threatening him! How on Earth was any of that threatening? I then told him to grow up and make the rest of the call as short as possible. He was such a jerk he wouldn’t retain anyone.
After being a Rogers customer since 1990, I finally canceled my cell service. They thought 4G for over $70/month was reasonable. Took me 4 hours on chat b/c no human would take my call. They offered more data for more $$. I need very little data, but they said this wasn’t important. Got Virgin Plus to make the change for me. Took 45 minutes. After the change, funny that, Rogers keep calling offering a better deal. Thanks but no thanks. Stay as far away from Rogers as possible.
I had the exact same thing happen to me. It took me one week for my home internet and another week for our 2 mobile phones. For the mobile phones I just went to Bell and had them port over since I was frustrated with Robbers, I mean Rogers.
For the internet, I got tossed from rep to rep on the phone, hung up on multiple times and had to escalate it to the manager who then took a few days to call back and in all honesty, I wasn’t sure he was even going to call back. I gave them a time of after 6PM so I could be off work and take the call, turns out he called me at 10:15AM when I was in a meeting. Worst customer service, worst representatives and worst company EVER!
We had many attempts to talk with with Rogers about a return we needed do .On hold numerous times and calls dropped.wish the government,t would allow more competition might give us improved services I hate both Rogers and Bell equally
The call center b.s is out of control and if you say something about the issue you get even bigger run around more un English speaking loops to go through its not even trustworthy anymore causr all these call centers are in India NUMBER ONE COUNTY THAT RIPS OFkF OUR CITIZENS SO HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO TUST OR GIVE SENSITIVE INFORMATION TO THEM.
How about it taking a whole day of my time to get public mobile to send me a link to change my credit cArd # after cutting me off with no warning. Super ivnora t of them and not a real person to call!
I have nothing good to say about Robbers. They double charged me for a travel plan and owe me a refund since March. In May, I was told it would be adjusted on my bill within 1-2 bill cycles. I’m still waiting
I am trying to get credit from roger for lasy 6month for hardware i send back
My story is similar except with the mighty conglomerate BELL CANADA
I tried to post my story of woes here but unfortunately it was too long. After reading these complaints I do believe my story was more horrendous and I think you will agree. I am a 72 year old recently widowed women. The topper was when they refused to remove his name and mobile phone number from my profile still to this day. BELL is not our service provider for mobile phones
I also filed a complaint with the CTS-CPRST which was accepted and was told that BELL CANADA would be contacting me as they also received a copy of the complaint file . Good luck with that one. Rather than continue to tell the rest of my nightmare experience with BELL CANADA I am asking for the media to please contact me so that my story can be shared in a more public manner.i ask others who have had very bad experiences with BELL CANADA to please jump on the band wagon if you would like to be heard in a more public manner maybe even on the news. Pls pm me if you are interested.
Wow this is crazy I just experience the exact same issue mines went on for weeks hung up waiting to Q just took too long today I finally had it taken care of but even then it was still an hour and a half on the phone which is absolutely ridiculous
Rogers hasn’t come to bury the cable line in seven months since I got the service. But they did raise the monthly fee. After my term expires, I will never return to Rogers again! I don’t care how nice of an offer they give or how many times they knock on the door, it will be NO!
Just went through the identical drama with Bell and my parents services, almost 6 hrs. on the phone and over a week to get it sorted out!
Omg I thought it was just me! I was going in circles to try to cancel a Rogers mobile phone account that was opened in my mother’s name who doesn’t even have a cell phone! Rogers put up so many walls resisting to cancel it even though the phone number they assigned to her had zero evidence of activity. I demanded for them to let me listen to any audio recording of her subscribing to a mobile account and they wouldn’t let me. I don’t believe them! I think someone cold called her and signed her up and I don’t know how they had her credit card number. Very sketchy!!! Eventually after days and hours dealing with my demands they cancelled her account but would not credit anything back from the previous months!!!!!
I have a contract with Rogers Xfinity for my wifi and TV. I’ve moved to an area they don’t have service in. They said they will charge me 20. Month for 6 months then I have to keep paying them 244. Month for the rest of my contract