# 9 hours in line and empty-handed: Rogers SNAFU!!!



## gmark2000 (Jun 4, 2003)

As some might of read in the Sherway Gardens thread, I left the Apple Store (line-up) after 9 futile hours of waiting.

I arrived at 5:45am and left at 2:45pm. In this span, I guess that this Apple store might have sold 300 iPhones, quite possibly less. The hold-up? The Rogers/Fido system.

Whatever they were using for processing upgrades kept constantly crashing or their servers were down. At 7:30am, an Apple employee serving coffee, pastries and water was estimating a two hour wait - this proved to be totally wrong.

At the 8 hour point I cornered an Apple supervisor who was pulling non-contract purchasers from the line. I asked that if the Rogers/Fido systems were so problematic, why were there no creative contingencies being employed to get people the iPhones and activating later.

We had heard many horror stories. A person who lined up at 1:30am and was 20th in line, waited an hour and a half to get inside and then had another hour and a half for their new activations. The activations/upgrades were taking anywhere from 10 minutes to 3 hours, but averaging over an hour. Couple that with the 10am barrage of authorized resellers, corporate stores and the Western Apple Stores activating, the situation was bound to get worse.

Finally, after getting out of the line to get one of the unlocked iPhones, I returned to have them issue 'claim checks', a voucher guaranteeing a phone for arriving the next day for activation/upgrade. Now we had learned from ehMac that the Eaton Centre Apple Store starting implementing this system after the futility of the Rogers/Fido system was being made extremely apparent (after a few hours of delays) but it seems that there was no consistency in assuring that those dedicated and committed to lining up for several hours would be allotted the coveted devices.

All in all, this was a terrible day for an iPhone launch.


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## daniels (Jul 27, 2009)

so did they run out or did they not know what to do about the servers crashing?


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## Ottawaman (Jan 16, 2005)

That is inexcusable. Rogers is so full of crap. What was their recent profit? Billions? 

Make some stink online and in the press. Send Steve an email. This tarnishes Apple's image as well.


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## MattOnDemand (Nov 5, 2008)

Same thing happened at yorkdale today and at the iPhone 3G launch 2 years ago. Bell and telus customers were laughin' today man.

Today I was 182nd in line. Got there at 6am. Left at 3:30 with a brand new iPhone 4 32GB


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## adagio (Aug 23, 2002)

It was bad enough today I was thinking of switching to Bell. If I didn't still have 1 year left on my Rogers contract I would have jumped ship.


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## gmark2000 (Jun 4, 2003)

Apple was gracious and friendly but the Rogers/Fido fiasco and the inability to respond to the system deficiencies with an alternate process just exacerbated the futile wait. The minutes and hours just ticked away without the Apple Store having an effective way of communicating the issues to the line up. At peak there would have been over 500 in the line-up but attrition probably whittled the core line to 250 by the time I left. 

Not all those who lined up are prodigious Apple aficionados and they will take away a negative sentiment from this experience that will affect the image of the company. This is something that Apple must be concerned about. They need to have a strong contingency for dealing with system an process issues that affect hundreds of committed customers who embark on queuing on launch days.


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## adagio (Aug 23, 2002)

As far as I'm concerned right after Apple knew there were problems with Rogers and Fido they should have started issuing claim checks to be used over the next week. They could easily set stock aside to be claimed over a short period of time thus spreading the rush over days instead of hours.


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## gmark2000 (Jun 4, 2003)

I even thought of buying an unlocked phone and returning it, in order for it to be used as an upgrade at a later date during the return period. They said that despite giving full refunds on sealed product, the iPhones are opened and inspected and then thrown into the refurbished/refreshed pool of product (used for customer replacements at the Genius Bar for example). There was no way for me to upgrade with the "just returned" phone unfortunately.


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## cap10subtext (Oct 13, 2005)

Not sure if anyone else pointed this out but my experience was that the Rogers employees had to connect the phone to iTunes, then download the 4.0.1 software because without that it wasn't accepting the Rogers carrier upgrade. I can't imagine that's a typical thing to have to do the morning of the launch. Was it a technical limitation that the carrier update wouldn't work until 4.0.1 was installed?

Also the Rogers store was on hold to rogers as an emergency life line in case their servers went down for an hour 45 by the time I was done. So clearly there weren't enough reps in case of emergencies.


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## gmark2000 (Jun 4, 2003)

Perhaps there weren't enough "hands on deck" at 7am Eastern Time on the Rogers side. Apple certainly had every available staffer on duty today.


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## Rounder (Aug 9, 2008)

After being there from 5am to 2, I agree with the TS. It was utterly disgusting how Rogers/Fido couldn't handle only a few thousand upgrades. You have millions in some countries like China. It's really something that they should be ashamed of. It was really a long day especially with always hearing that Rogers / Fido are down and I actually went to the Rogers Store while in line and the workers there were absolutely useless. I ended leaving the store pretty angry, but then quickly joined back to the line. 

Ater 15 hrs, I now have a fully functional Unlocked iPhone 32GB because I wouldn't and simply refused to pay Rogers 499 to upgrade. Too bad for them...


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## Asherek (Aug 30, 2009)

Robbers really should be ashamed of themselves. Such a large company with such an absolutely _terrible_ load balancing setup for their systems.


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## spiffychristian (Mar 17, 2008)

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## haber (Sep 29, 2009)

Wow, glad I figured out the hopelessness of my place in line quickly and went home. Sounds like a painful day.


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## milhaus (Jun 1, 2004)

I too experienced the same problems with Rogers + Fido, and didn't get my early upgrade phone, but am fairly happy with the Rogers employees who helped us. Rogers/Fido really did royally screw up the launch for many, many people, but the employees at my Rogers store were great.
1. They came out an hour before opening (10am) to take down names and device preferences, and let people know when stock was spoken for.
2. They did everything possible to activate, including staying on hold for upwards of an hour to confirm early HUP status when SaleCentral wasn't confirming. 
3. They allowed me to leave (after waiting 4 hours to get through 20 people) and called me when I was next in line for activation.
4. I ran into the HUP eligibility problem, and instead of making me wait longer, they've reserved the 16GB iPhone for me, for tomorrow, when things should be a bit calmer.


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## gmark2000 (Jun 4, 2003)

haber said:


> Wow, glad I figured out the hopelessness of my place in line quickly and went home. Sounds like a painful day.


Aaaah, that's a word that Apple folks should tweak on: "hopelessness". The customers in the line-up were worn, haggard and had the look of being defeated. The mindless boredom was broken by postulating the customer activation rate, estimating numbers in front of oneself and pondering the progress made in inches.

These weary became compatriots as they mutually suffered. As people parted, with iPhone or not, many handshakes and farewells were made. This was generally an experience of defeat and loathing.


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## Meiso (Jul 27, 2010)

Looks like the same story everywhere.. I got in line at the MTL Apple Store at about 2 am.. Finally got inside the store at about 10 am.. And then spent 4 HOURS waiting for the Rogers system to process my upgrade.. You know, I am prepared to wait in line for hours to gr into the store. However, once I'm inside it shouldn't take half the freaking day to get through about 6 pages on the Rogers sales central web portal.. It's just appalling that Rogers is so incompetent after two previous iPhone launch debacles.. That should know by now!!!


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## vfr (Jul 22, 2009)

The Rogers back-end server infrastructure has always been utter cr*p. Every time I've been in a store or called in for something I've always had to wait and wait and wait because "the system is slow today". Their web site is no better - it always errors out with some kind of problem and "try later". They really need to hire IT staff that knows what they are doing...


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## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

I get why people are upset at rogers, and they should be. I however wouldn't put too much blame on apple or the apple stores. I agree they should have been more communicative about the issues with the rogers system, even so much to throw rogers under the bus, so atleast people could have a choice whether to stay in line or not.

I don't think that the apple store really needed to come up with creative solutions to the problem, communicate, yes. This is a learning experience for apple, maybe next time they will have some contingencies because rogers is so terrible.

Remember people wait in line to have the phone right now, they could always not wait in line and not deal with crappy activation times by waiting a couple of weeks. By lining up you have to accept that you might be there for a long time, especially in the event of computer problems... Rogers was probably running windows right


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## Meiso (Jul 27, 2010)

Throughout the day I heard plenty of ppl blaming the apple store for their Rogers misery.. I kept asking them the same question: Where's the weak link.. Apple who makes a great product and does their best to get it to a many ppl as possible? Or Rogers who benefits from having had exclusive rights to Apple's product for over a year, and who EVERY YEAR has problems with their systems on lunch day... Even if you go to a freaking ROGERS store!!

I hope ppl know who's the culprit here..


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## Benito (Nov 17, 2007)

I was in the Fairview Mall lineup from 6 am until I finally gave up around 1230 or so. In the final two hours or more the line didn't move at all. During that time I'd heard that the Rogers servers crashing was the cause. I couldn't stand waiting any longer at that point and gave up and left. I still have my 3G iPhone and I guess I'll be waiting longer to get a IP4.


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## zlinger (Aug 28, 2007)

Waste of time. I waited for 4 hrs to get an iPhone 3. Never again, and I'd rather go for a hike and see nature instead.


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## Mocha (Oct 10, 2007)

*HUP mess*

I got to Fairview at 3:00AM and they opened the mall doors at 6:00. At 7:00 the store opened but it took 15 mins until the first customer left with a phone. Shortly after 20 or so sales, the Rogers validation system started hanging, effectively choking off any form of steady sales for MANY hours, until they come up with a plan to make lists of who wanted an unlocked phone, and who was upgrading. Almost three hours later, the upgraders were given tickets that they could use to pick up their reserved iPhone at a later date. I chose to stay and was eventually rewarded for my perseverance some 15 hours after I initially arrived.

To their credit the store staff handed out water, coffee, timbits and chocolate bars to keep the restless natives at bay.

Just waiting for my phone to go live on the Fido network.... for 16 hrs...


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## gmark2000 (Jun 4, 2003)

I wonder if the system is working this morning, I have to go back to line up again with my claim ticket.


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## Thorvald (Jul 31, 2010)

I hit a small Rogers Plus north of the city, recently moved so not many people knew of it. Got there around 8am and started the line (didn't open until 10). Store only had about 11 units so once I started the line, it grew fairly quickly.

Rogers system however would not honor the $249/249 upgrade price that the Rogers website 'check my eligibility' link showed.

Didn't get mad at the store employee, simply paid full price and then called retentions after I left. All sorted out, credits applied and a second one for the wife on order.

No need to panic or freak out, Rogers has always come through in the end. Bell on the other hand would never ever bend on their rules in all the years I was with them, ruthless.


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## madhatress (Jul 22, 2007)

gmark2000 said:


> I wonder if the system is working this morning, I have to go back to line up again with my claim ticket.


I saw a tweet from someone (search twitter #iphoneincanada) that said that there were STILL problems! Can you go tomorrow?

General FYI: When I was at Rideau yesterday, the rep said that the HUPs were down but new activations were OK. Still took 7 tries to get me signed up.


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## gmark2000 (Jun 4, 2003)

madhatress said:


> I saw a tweet from someone (search twitter #iphoneincanada) that said that there were STILL problems! Can you go tomorrow?


That was from Eaton Centre: "chriskayTO The line is still moving painfully slowly, though, so I'm assuming Rogers and Fido's system is still down. #iphoneincanada"

BTW this was from someone at Fairview Mall yesterday who posted on RFD:



HunterSlayer said:


> Avoid Fairview like the ******* plague. I got there at 4:30 am and I only got my unlocked 32 GB iPhone at 7:30 pm. That's right, 15 ******* hours in line, it was an absolute catastrophe. We never received any tickets initially and the organization of lines was completely ****** up resulting in a ****load of line cutters. When the servers for activations were slow, they didn't allow anyone to purchase a phone which meant that those looking for an unlocked phone had to wait for no apparent reason. And when they were running, those buying outright still had to wait for no apparent reason. They refused to split the lines properly.
> 
> I was in a group and overall we managed to move about 10 feet every 1 and a half hours. Eventually they started another line from the opposite side of the entrance for those that were buying a different Apple product but this resulted in a cluster**** of people outside the entrance and it allowed some asshats to get an iPhone without waiting at all.
> 
> ...


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## ehMax (Feb 17, 2000)

gmark2000 said:


> A person who lined up at 1:30am and was 20th in line, waited an hour and a half to get inside and then had another hour and a half for their new activations. The activations/upgrades were taking anywhere from 10 minutes to 3 hours, *but averaging over an hour.*


I wrote this on Twitter the day before the launch:



> Dear Rogers - The iPhone 4 is coming out tomorrow. *Please get your computer system ready so we don't have to wait 1 hour for each activation*
> 2:55 PM Jul 29th via web


If only this tool of a company would learn. I could see maybe the first iPhone launch in Canada catching them off guard. But this is the 3rd iPhone launch in Canada. You'd think a company with common sense or half a brain would get their activation system in order. What a bunch of idiots.


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## maximusbibicus (Feb 25, 2002)

Waiting 15 hours for a phone. Insane. A buddy of mine waited at Eaton Centre the whole day, over 12 hours and got nothing. Walked in to another store today, 2 phones, less than 30 minutes. 

I just don't understand the need to be the first to get something like this.....it wasn't any cheaper, there were no freebies, like BT headsets etc.


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## Benito (Nov 17, 2007)

Do the Apple stores in Toronto actually still have iPhone 4's left for walk ins to buy?


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## maximusbibicus (Feb 25, 2002)

From what i hear, yes.


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## gmark2000 (Jun 4, 2003)

maximusbibicus said:


> I just don't understand the need to be the first to get something like this.....it wasn't any cheaper, there were no freebies, like BT headsets etc.


We go to the Apple Store for guaranteed stock. Rogers Plus and the authorized resellers like Best Buy got about a dozen average, some even just a half dozen 16Gb ones. We go on the launch day so that it's not sold out. We want it now because it's already launched in the U.S. and other countries so we know what we are buying feature-wise.


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## maximusbibicus (Feb 25, 2002)

gmark2000 said:


> We go to the Apple Store for guaranteed stock. Rogers Plus and the authorized resellers like Best Buy got about a dozen average, some even just a half dozen 16Gb ones. We go on the launch day so that it's not sold out. We want it now because it's already launched in the U.S. and other countries so we know what we are buying feature-wise.


RIGHT.....but that not really what i am getting at. The phone is the same price today, and next week, and in September. What i don't get is the urgency. Sure for some items i will go on release day and pick up a new video game or DVD, etc but i won;y kill 15 hours of my day to be the first with one. 

Different strokes for different folks. I want an iPhone 4 REALLY bad....and when i can walk in and out of a store in 10 minutes with one i will get it.


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## Ironside (Jul 24, 2010)

maximusbibicus said:


> RIGHT.....but that not really what i am getting at. The phone is the same price today, and next week, and in September. What i don't get is the urgency. Sure for some items i will go on release day and pick up a new video game or DVD, etc but i won;y kill 15 hours of my day to be the first with one.
> 
> Different strokes for different folks. I want an iPhone 4 REALLY bad....and when i can walk in and out of a store in 10 minutes with one i will get it.


I think the concern is that, after the first batch of phones it could take weeks or months to get more supply in stock. People don't want to wait that long.

I know I WANTED to get one because I had sold my 3GS and if I didn't get an iPhone 4, I wouldn't have a cell phone for weeks/months.

That being said, next year i'll hang on to my iPhone 4 until well AFTER the launch of the 4GS/5/whatever so I can just walk in and pick one up stress free.


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

Benito said:


> Do the Apple stores in Toronto actually still have iPhone 4's left for walk ins to buy?


Eaton Center is sold out of both sizes, and only has enough stock for those that were in line yesterday, and given a white card to reserve it.

I arrived at 7AM this morning, and they started letting people in at 8:30AM. I got in around quarter to 9, and was out by 9.


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## ehMax (Feb 17, 2000)

For me and a lot of people, I believe a big part of the purchase is the excitement a new cool gadget brings. Gadgets are a really fun hobby for a lot of people. It's fun, exciting getting a new iPhone when it just comes out. It's the same thing with sports season openers, or the first day of fishing for those who like those things. 

Having said that, I'm going on Wednesday.


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## gmark2000 (Jun 4, 2003)

I arrived back to Sherway Gardens at 1:25pm and was almost immediately greeted when I came upon the line. I identifed myself as a returning customer from the previous day and was informed that I would be pulled out of the line with a special queue to process persons like me.

After about a 40 minute wait, I was called in and we began the process of upgrading and activating my new phone. The process was somewhat smooth and I was finished, making my first call at 2:41. 

I'm a happy camper again.


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## spiffychristian (Mar 17, 2008)

.


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## TPCM (May 8, 2010)

gmark2000 said:


> As some might of read in the Sherway Gardens thread, I left the Apple Store (line-up) after 9 futile hours of waiting.
> 
> I arrived at 5:45am and left at 2:45pm. In this span, I guess that this Apple store might have sold 300 iPhones, quite possibly less. The hold-up? The Rogers/Fido system.
> 
> ...


That was us. WE got there actually closer to 1am. The iPhone is working great now and was worth the wait, i myself am considering purchase (i went with a friend.)

-tpcm


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## jimbotelecom (May 29, 2009)

I experienced my 3rd year in a row of Rogers systems failure. You would think that over a 36 month period that Rogers would introduce VPN from all of their locations and dealerships so that packets could be prioritized and made efficient instead of using best effort Internet connections which grind to a halt as the day unfolds across a country with multiple time zones. VPN is easy to do and they control their own network with multiple aggregation points in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. Costs would be low given it's their network. This year they didn't have to contend with the iTunes slowdown because the U.S. launched before Canada. There's really no excuse for not bothering to improve except that Rogers doesn't care about customer experience. 

Having said that my independent Rogers dealer is fantastic. They gave me a heads up that they were getting a small shipment. I arrived in line at 7:45, kibitzed with the 5 people in front of me, had a few laughs, and offered my sage advice to everyone that the Rogers systems would crash and be unresponsive by the time the store opened at 10. Staff took orders and when every phone was sold they told the rest of the line that they had sold out and that they didn't know when more stock would come in. Seven of us were let into the store as staff diligently worked the phones and terminals to try to process new accounts and upgrades. Timbits were provided free. I was number 6 to be processed and was out of the door at 1:30 with the phone not fully activated. My 32g iPhone kicked in at 5:10 and all was right. 

In the end the launches are always great events and you meet fine people with varied interests. The one thing that never changes is Rogers abuse of its customers. Their lack of attention affects not just new iPhone clients but everyone else who has a need for a non-Apple phone because the system gets bogged down. My dealer lost sales on Friday that they would normally be able to capture. 

So Nadir, Ted Jr., Melissa, you run a Billion $ company, with a fine network, lots of in-house talent and know how but you consistently fail to perform on iPhone launch day year after year. It's 2010 and you now have competition. Stop acting like a smug monopoly and start delivering better customer experience or face the consequences.


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## gmark2000 (Jun 4, 2003)

I forgot to mention that lining up early on Sunday or Monday (if the Apple Store is open at your particular mall) can net you one of the pre-reserved "claim" ticket iPhones that weren't claimed from the previous day. On Saturday, only 16gb were left and so theoretically some 32gb came back online on Sunday from the Friday tickets.


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## spiffychristian (Mar 17, 2008)

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## thedarkhorse (Jul 12, 2008)

All the default icons are crisp. Many downloaded apps are still designed for the original screen resolution so the are only half the possible resolution. As apps are updated over the coming months more and more will update their icons.


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