Cable companies rant

[gus6464]

So last year I bought a new house and decided I don't watch TV much so makes no sense for me to drop $90 on just the TV portion. I go to the cox store with my cable box to cancel TV. The sales guy at the place says hey what if I can get you all the channels you have now plus hbo for $50. Sure why not. Well he gets the deal and replaces my cable box with the shiny new Contour box. Fast forward a year later and cable bill jumps an extra $60. I go to the store to renegotiate and this time I get this arrogant dude who says he can't help me as my promotion has ended. I told him exactly what the other sales guy did last year and he said he couldn't do it because he would get fired. Funny thing is that the guy who helped me last year was at the store and is now a lead.

Well I told him if he can't do anything I am not paying $100 for just TV so cancel it. Then he goes on this rant how this promotion I had for the last year was making Cox lose money and blah blah blah. When I home I check my online account 2 hours later to see if my TV has actually been cancelled and I get a popup that says "hey you no TV service but we got a deal for you". I click on it and low and behold I am offered the same service I had before with hbo again for $50. I call cox sales dept and tell him what happened 2 hours before and he just tells me sure I can activate TV again for that price. I also tell him that I already have a cable box which I am supposed to return so if he can just activate that. Total of 5 minutes on phone and I have my TV back at same price as I have been paying all year.

The thing that pisses me off is why do I have to jump through all these hoops for something you end up doing anyway.

 

[Kartajan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ilMx7k7mso

 

[cmdrdredd]

My problem is you have to constantly call to get the promo price. If you can do that why not just keep you at the promo price? Oh that's because someone will forget and keep paying too much. Anyway earlier this year I dropped Cable TV. I went full streaming only. Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube any other services that I can stream from for free and OTA HD fills my TV needs. I have not missed the 200 channels I never watched or the HBO or other premium channels that never really played movies I cared about. I did increase my internet speed and pay a bit extra per month to remove the data cap from my account but I still ended up saving over $100 per month.

 

[gus6464]

I guess I just need add it to calendar to cancel the TV service one year from now and read 2 hours later.

 

[truckerCLOCK]

My problem is you have to constantly call to get the promo price. If you can do that why not just keep you at the promo price? Oh that's because someone will forget and keep paying too much. Anyway earlier this year I dropped Cable TV. I went full streaming only. Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube any other services that I can stream from for free and OTA HD fills my TV needs. I have not missed the 200 channels I never watched or the HBO or other premium channels that never really played movies I cared about. I did increase my internet speed and pay a bit extra per month to remove the data cap from my account but I still ended up saving over $100 per month.

I did the same thing with Charter. Dropped their "package" and only use internet. But by doing that the price for only internet went up and I'm only saving $28 by not having cable. Kinda sucks in my area because Charter is all we have..well if you consider the phone companys DSL which is a joke.

 

[mindless1]

Yes that is their game, designed to test your resolve to drop them then if you weren't bluffing, try to make at least a little money off you again. If it were automatic for everyone then they'd make less money. That's the way businesses think these days, play games to your advantage even if it disrespects your customers.
While I am not on their side, you should have known it was a year long promotion and when it ended that you'd have to do this.

Look on the bright side. A single 5 minute phone call that gets something resolved with the cable company is a near miracle lol.

 

[13Gigatons]

It boggles the mind to what advantage this is to cable companies. It just pisses people off and waste everyone's time.

1. offered promo
2. promo ends...denied new promo
3. cancel service
4. offered promo again

They seem to have too many departments in these companies.

 

[mindless1]

^ They've been doing this for several years so they must have ran the numbers and concluded it's more income to have people who forgot to renegotiate during month 12, pay the 13th, 14th, etc months higher bills, than the expense of the addt'l CSR hours spent dealing with it.

 

[bigboxes]

Screw them. TWC kept me on the phone over an hour while I played patient with their game. Thought I had at least matched their last year's price. Come to find out that I'm not receiving all the channels that I once had. Hell, I would have never known cuz who watches all 200+ of those crappy channels on a regular basis. I work.

Anyways, I called to talk to Spectrum (TWC was bought out by Charter). They can upgrade my equipment and give me a lot more channels for just a little more $$. No way. So, the next package down doesn't include the sports package I had been paying for. I tell them to just forget it and that I was going to cancel as soon as I found a replacement for them.

I want cable internet so that will jump my bill by $10 month by not bundling. Then I'm going to add a streaming service like SlingTV or VUE (leaning towards VUE) for half what I'm currently paying. Plus, I have Amazon Prime Video and a file server with 8 very large HDDs filled with TV shows and movies. I just bought digital antennas for all three of my TVs. I also bought a couple of Amazon Fire TV boxes. I have a dedicated HTPC in my living room, but will most likely get another Fire TV box due to the wife needing an appliance, if you know what I mean.

And if I don't like VUE then I can try whatever comes out in the future from the competition. Or just drop it all together. It's my wife that wants all those bs channels anyways. Here's to cutting the cable!

 

[WhiteNoise]

@bigboxes So by streaming your TV services will you get all those BS channels your Wife wants? I've looked at streaming services but everything I have tried sucks compared to cable or SAT quality. VUE is interesting and I have been looking at it lately out of curiosity but I like my very clean HD service from Dish Networks but I agree; spending $100+ a month for TV service is stupid even though I continue to pay for it.

 

[bigboxes]

@bigboxes So by streaming your TV services will you get all those BS channels your Wife wants? I've looked at streaming services but everything I have tried sucks compared to cable or SAT quality. VUE is interesting and I have been looking at it lately out of curiosity but I like my very clean HD service from Dish Networks but I agree; spending $100+ a month for TV service is stupid even though I continue to pay for it.

To be honest, my wife is stressed out about change. I feel that the cable company has been gouging me for years, no matter how good a deal I thought I was getting. I'm tired of paying so much for so little. Wouldn't it be great if we could go a la carte? $50 for 70-100 channels, you pick them. I checked out VUE. They offer all the sports channels I could ever want. I don't give a shiz about soccer. They have a lot of news channels. Throw in Adult Swim and I'm happy. The wife will lose some of ability to hold on to DVR shows for long term. With VUE it's on their servers and for only 28 days. To me, it's all about compromise. Is it good enough variety and quality for half the price? Yes. Combine that with an OTA antenna (tv said it found 72 digital channels) and I think we are good. I've heard lots of good things about VUE. We'll see how the quality goes. I'm going to hard wire the Fire TV boxes. I've got a bad ass WiFi router, but I never want to worry about bandwidth when it comes to streaming video.

 

[WhiteNoise]

That would be cool. All I need is the History channel and AMC.

 

[bigboxes]

That would be cool. All I need is the History channel and AMC.

I would love the History Channel if they played much history. It's not the same network it used to be. I download (torrents) Better Call Saul and The Walking Dead episodes.

 

[Kartajan]

To be honest, my wife is stressed out about change. I feel that the cable company has been gouging me for years, no matter how good a deal I thought I was getting. I'm tired of paying so much for so little. Wouldn't it be great if we could go a la carte? $50 for 70-100 channels, you pick them. I checked out VUE. They offer all the sports channels I could ever want. I don't give a shiz about soccer. They have a lot of news channels. Throw in Adult Swim and I'm happy. The wife will lose some of ability to hold on to DVR shows for long term. With VUE it's on their servers and for only 28 days. To me, it's all about compromise. Is it good enough variety and quality for half the price? Yes. Combine that with an OTA antenna (tv said it found 72 digital channels) and I think we are good. I've heard lots of good things about VUE. We'll see how the quality goes. I'm going to hard wire the Fire TV boxes. I've got a bad ass WiFi router, but I never want to worry about bandwidth when it comes to streaming video.

Since you are already invested in FireTV, consider the following:
PS Vue has some DVR like functionality, your TV does not. One option to get DVR (and keep things consistent as far as accessing content) would be the Tablo DVR's. They will allow your Fire devices to both DVR and watch live your OTA channels. (Caveat: it has some delay- like 10-20 sec- before it tunes a live channel, and you need to add your own HDD). Another is to use a network based tuner on your antenna and DIY the DVR.

DIY OTA DVR w/ a SiliconDust HDHR Connect and their <BETA> DVR running on your PC (80+tax, +$60 for early access to DVR s/w, projected $30 per year annual)
Tablo (4 tuner DVR) + HDD + Lifetime Guide (ACCOUNT based, not device based like Tivo) is around 250+85+150= 485+tax for a "never pay again" OTA DVR

 

[bigboxes]

Since you are already invested in FireTV, consider the following:
PS Vue has some DVR like functionality, your TV does not. One option to get DVR (and keep things consistent as far as accessing content) would be the Tablo DVR's. They will allow your Fire devices to both DVR and watch live your OTA channels. (Caveat: it has some delay- like 10-20 sec- before it tunes a live channel, and you need to add your own HDD). Another is to use a network based tuner on your antenna and DIY the DVR.

DIY OTA DVR w/ a SiliconDust HDHR Connect and their <BETA> DVR running on your PC (80+tax, +$60 for early access to DVR s/w, projected $30 per year annual)
Tablo (4 tuner DVR) + HDD + Lifetime Guide (ACCOUNT based, not device based like Tivo) is around 250+85+150= 485+tax for a "never pay again" OTA DVR

Thanks for the info. I did go to the Tablo site and check it out. If would be cool if there was a way to stream/DVR the Prime Video/VUE over the Tablo device. Meh. I'm not so sure I want it just to DVR the OTA content. VUE carries FOX, NBC, CBS and ABC so I could DVR it on the VUE interface. Sounds like an expense I would rather not have. If I have to spend that much to "add" OTA DVR functionality I might as well keep cable. JMO.

 

[Kartajan]

Thanks for the info. I did go to the Tablo site and check it out. If would be cool if there was a way to stream/DVR the Prime Video/VUE over the Tablo device. Meh. I'm not so sure I want it just to DVR the OTA content. VUE carries FOX, NBC, CBS and ABC so I could DVR it on the VUE interface. Sounds like an expense I would rather not have. If I have to spend that much to "add" OTA DVR functionality I might as well keep cable. JMO.

unfortunately they are completely different animals. The thing that got my attention for tablo was the never pay again part- unlike Tivo it is by account.. So if I change HW, the lifetime sub is still good.

(admittedly, it needs time to "break even" from cable- but what is their DVR costing you? assuming $16/ mo on top, the DIY is a no brainer. the big dollar one breaks even after 2 1/2 years - And that is based on JUST the basic single DVR charge)

 

[bigboxes]

unfortunately they are completely different animals. The thing that got my attention for tablo was the never pay again part- unlike Tivo it is by account.. So if I change HW, the lifetime sub is still good.

(admittedly, it needs time to "break even" from cable- but what is their DVR costing you? assuming $16/ mo on top, the DIY is a no brainer. the big dollar one breaks even after 2 1/2 years - And that is based on JUST the basic single DVR charge)

The thing is I don't care about DVRing OTA content. My wife does. Like I said, I can use VUE's DVR function for the major networks on VUE. That should suffice. Now, if the missus is extremely unhappy then I may reconsider in the future. I want to give her time to adjust and see if she can adapt.

She's always been scared of change. We kept our overpriced metro line for years. She freaked out when we dropped the phone company line for Vonage. She cried when we discontinued Vonage and both got smartphones with unlimited plans. She fretted when we finally dropped the cellular big boys and went to Project Fi this spring. This is just the latest in trying to save costs, but keep the services we've grown accustomed to.

We can always try something else or go back to the cable. *crosses fingers on VUE*

 

[Kartajan]

The thing is I don't care about DVRing OTA content. My wife does. Like I said, I can use VUE's DVR function for the major networks on VUE. That should suffice. Now, if the missus is extremely unhappy then I may reconsider in the future. I want to give her time to adjust and see if she can adapt.

She's always been scared of change. We kept our overpriced metro line for years. She freaked out when we dropped the phone company line for Vonage. She cried when we discontinued Vonage and both got smartphones with unlimited plans. She fretted when we finally dropped the cellular big boys and went to Project Fi this spring. This is just the latest in trying to save costs, but keep the services we've grown accustomed to.

We can always try something else or go back to the cable. *crosses fingers on VUE*

At least you now know about some other options/ methods of getting from here to there... I can attest to the challenges of the WAF....

 

[13Gigatons]

It's funny that DVR's are old school now. People just stream everything now. Most shows can be watched after they air. Only live sporting events are left...

 

[wetech]

Switched to Vue about a month ago. Awesome service. An occasional hiccup with buffering; like twice in a month. Very happy overall.

 

[darkswordsman17]

OP, after his rant you should have requested to speak to a manager or right there in front of him called their customer service and filed a complaint and then ask if you could get deal again (and let someone else get whatever small perk for retaining a customer). Maybe even file one with the FCC too for good measure.

People need to hammer the fuck out of the FCC with complaints to make sure they realize that people fucking hate putting up with the horrible service, prices, and attitude of these companies, otherwise they will let them completely fuck us. Granted with the change in political situation, the FCC is likely not going to do jack shit about the complaints in the next few years (if it even still exists that is...), but we'll see. I personally think that even the paid for and politically motivated asshole politicians will actually do something about it if they see how much of an issue this is for people. But people need to actually tell them.

It boggles the mind to what advantage this is to cable companies. It just pisses people off and waste everyone's time.

1. offered promo
2. promo ends...denied new promo
3. cancel service
4. offered promo again

They seem to have too many departments in these companies.

Its because we don't have real competition so they have little downside to pissing people off. Generally at best people have duopoly and many effectively have monopoly options, meaning you either deal with the bullshit and pay whatever they say, or you settle for substantially inferior alternative, or you go without. And when you generally get the same shitty attitude and service from everyone (I don't know if they actively collude to be pieces of shit or what, but they sure seem to), you're kinda limited in being able to tell them to go fuck themselves.