When you haven’t had phone service for several days and all you want is for someone at the phone company to tell you when it will finally be fixed, it’s not a good idea for a customer service rep to try to A) try to tell you about the benefits of its pay-TV service; and B) be a smartass about it.

But that’s exactly what happened to Consumerist reader K. when he tried to contact Canadian telecom titan Rogers through the company’s @RogersHelps Twitter account.

K.’s phone service has been out since Friday — incoming calls disappear and won’t even go to voicemail; outgoing calls won’t complete — and he just wanted to find out when, if ever, his service would be restored.

As you can see from the screengrab above, not only was the RogersHelps account unable to provide him with anything other than a “it’s being investigated” response, it got glib when K. asked why he should stick with Rogers for his service.

“We do have Rogers GameCentre Live free for our customers until December 31, 2014,” Tweeted the company rep, referring to Rogers’ premium NHL TV package.

When K. pointed out that maybe it’s not a good idea to try to market its TV service to a ticked-off customer who has been without a phone for several days, the RogersHelps account replied that he had “asked why you should stay with Rogers. This was one reason.”

That sort of cute reply might work coming from a spunky adolescent in a sitcom, but it’s not exactly a way to win over customers.

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