Please! Help me lower my cable bill.

Z

Z06_Mir

Pattern Altitude
Joined
Oct 6, 2012
Messages
1,738
Display Name
Display name:
Radna
So, the lovely Cox Communications has decided that since my "promotion" was over, they were going to raise my bill $50 a month. Yikes. I thought my "promotion" was over last year when they raised it $20... guess not! So I called them, talked to a nice guy who transferred me to some absolute jerk, Kyle. Now, Kyle thought that giving me a "great deal" of a $10 discount a month was going to win me over. When I said no thank you he told me I could upgrade internet for $145/mo (no tax) total (bill was $185 but previously $135 including tax). So I'd still be up like $25/mo and I would only be locked in a year. I told Kyle no thank you I'd like to look at other options and if he didn't have any I'd likely have to switch providers. That's when Kyle told me that only Cox could provide the services I needed (internet at a reasonable speed) and that I was stuck. I told Kyle I didn't appreciate his sarcastic tone and BS.... "I am giving you a great deal and no BS here" yeahhhh I've been in customer service a long time and you're a jerk.\


So the moral of the story is, how can I fix this? I'm not saying I need the $99 new customer thing, but I think $140-$145 up from $135 is fair. When we started it was $108 FYI.
 
Don't watch TV. There are many worthwhile and productive things that are more worthy of your time. The last time I watched TV was a few minutes of the last presidential election. I have not suffered for it.
 
DO they have actual offices you can go to like Time Warner does? Time Warner did the same thing to me last year. The CSR on the phone could not do much and admitted it. Suggested going to the TWC store. They were able to restore my original promo and said to come back each August to renew it. Hope this helps.

David
 
The obvious is switch to internet only. Even with hulu, netflix and amazon prime plus internet we are ahead of the cable package we used to have. Most folks put up a digital antenna for local channels. We don't bother.

Unfortunately, Comcast is still the only fast broadband option in my neighborhood, stuck with them for that service for now. There is talk about new competition coming our way, can't wait to switch.
 
I'm ditching Direct TV and going with Roku. All the news I could ever want and most of everything else.

ROKU, say goodbye to monthly bills....................forever!!
 
I'd get rid of your cable all together, with a smart TV not much of a reason for cable.
 
Ask if you can cancel, wait ten days, call back and get the new customer rate?

I do that with Verizon and every time they realize that it's easier to just give me the new customer rate.

The trick is to be firm but polite. These people generally want to help but have to go through the "steps".
 
what do you watch? Have you looked into hulu, sling, netflix etc to see if they have what you need?

We cut our cable and land line last year. Still have internet though! I have hulu and netflix. I use my daughter's prime when I need it. Also installed an antenna that lets me get the major local stations.
 
see if one of those free HD antennas works in your area. if it does, then just drop cable. it's what I did, although I DO miss having the options, I don't miss the bills and all the BS customer 'support' of all the cable companies. they're no different from each other.
 
I ditched cable this year. I got a Roku box, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, Netflix, and an HD antenna for the regular network TV stations. Can't say I miss cable at all and I'm saving over $100 a month.
 
With Comcast, I always get a good deal when I call to cancel my TV. I think if you call to talk about reducing your bill you get a different department than the cancellation department. Everytime I've to decided to cut the TV and just keep internet, when I call they offer me a bundle that's cheaper than the Internet alone. You might try approaching it that way.
 
We went roku and amazon prime this year. Internet-only service + cheap cellphone plan = close to $2000/year saved.
 
So Mrs. Steingar watches the damn thing every night. Watches stuff on PBS, antique shows (like American Pickers) and BBC (masterpiece and the like). If I could stream this stuff without a cable I would in a heartbeat.
 
We dropped cable 3 years ago. Most of the stuff the kids watched wasn't that good. What they watch now is on Amazon, Netflix or Hulu for the most part. That's about 1300$ a year back in my pocket.
 
I have DISH. So they send me a survey. I fill it out. Then they ask what is unsatisfactory. Well, every time DISH negotiates a new agreement with providers, ie NBC etc, we lose that channel for weeks or months. But, our bill remains the same. Now the NFL Network has been off the air for weeks while they negotiate. That ****es me off! Love my FB. Go Packers!
 
steingar said:
So Mrs. Steingar watches the damn thing every night. Watches stuff on PBS, antique shows (like American Pickers) and BBC (masterpiece and the like). If I could stream this stuff without a cable I would in a heartbeat.
Click to expand...
I believe you can. Check out Roku. I know on mine, I have a PBS and BBC channel set up. Though honestly, I've only watched it 3 or 4 times in total since buying the roku. But like I said, worth the few minutes to look into it.
 
You can fix your problem by dropping their a** and installing an antenna on top of your TV. That's what we have. It is good enough for news and weather and instead of wasting time on the couch, I'd rather fly anyway.

You can also call Habib and tell him you want to cancel. He will likely transfer your call back to 'murica and the local retention office will give you a deal because it is better to make less greedy profit off you than losing your business/profit completely. That's what I have to do with our AT&T monopoly here every year as well.
 
Craig said:
We dropped cable 3 years ago. Most of the stuff the kids watched wasn't that good. What they watch now is on Amazon, Netflix or Hulu for the most part. That's about 1300$ a year back in my pocket.
Click to expand...

Hope to join you soon! I'll have to keep my cable internet, though. Screw DSL.

steingar said:
So Mrs. Steingar watches the damn thing every night. Watches stuff on PBS, antique shows (like American Pickers) and BBC (masterpiece and the like). If I could stream this stuff without a cable I would in a heartbeat.
Click to expand...

No local PBS stations in your area? If so, a digital antenna would do for HDTV.
 
As all others have stated, going with Over the Air services is free and quite good (provided you have reasonable reception.) I use a Wineguard flatwave amplified antenna and it works very well.

There are channels my family watch that are cable only. I keep cable and one cable box for that TV only, and I go with the extended basic cable package since the channels the family watches are in that package. I use a Slingbox HD to connect the cable box output to the computers and tablets in the house, so we can watch cable television in any room in the house or out on the road.

I also ditched the cable company's cable modem and bought my own modem. I get faster speeds and reduced my monthly fee $10 a month on that device alone.

And as others have said, you can either go to an office and see if they can help you. Or you can call the termination department as they get "deals" that the regular customer service team don't have access to. They are more willing to give you a better deal to keep you as a customer.

Good luck
 
BigBadLou said:
You can fix your problem by dropping their a** and installing an antenna on top of your TV. That's what we have. It is good enough for news and weather and instead of wasting time on the couch, I'd rather fly anyway.

You can also call Habib and tell him you want to cancel. He will likely transfer your call back to 'murica and the local retention office will give you a deal because it is better to make less greedy profit off you than losing your business/profit completely. That's what I have to do with our AT&T monopoly here every year as well.
Click to expand...
Funny, I go through the same song and dance every year with Sirius radio. They give the promo price but raise it unless you call and threaten to cancel.
 
steingar said:
So Mrs. Steingar watches the damn thing every night. Watches stuff on PBS, antique shows (like American Pickers) and BBC (masterpiece and the like). If I could stream this stuff without a cable I would in a heartbeat.
Click to expand...

PBS does have a Roku channel. I watch it once in a while. Not everything is there, but a lot of it is.

I think BBC also has a channel, but that you have to be British to get it. It has something to do with the antenna tax or some similarly bizarre thing. But a lot of BBC stuff is on Netflix.

Rich
 
Switch to internet only and use sources like amazon, roku etc. to watch movies. You should be able to get local 'TV' using a $40 antenna.
 
James331 said:
I'd get rid of your cable all together, with a smart TV not much of a reason for cable.
Click to expand...

The only reason I have cable TV service is because the way Sparrow Fart Telecom prices packages, it's actually cheaper to have the TV service than to have only the Internet. I think that's because they plant their own local commercials on the syndicated content, so they bump up the Internet-only service to make up for the lost ad revenue.

We have NO over-the-air channels here, more because of the topography than the distance, per se. If I built a tower I probably could pull some in.

Rich
 
Many years ago I had a similar issue with my cable provider. They told me their increase was "take it or leave it."

So.........

On my next bill, I wrote out a check for the amount I was willing to pay. I attached a letter saying this was an offer to purchase their service, made on a "take it or leave it basis," and if they were unwilling to accept my offer they should return the check and stop providing service. The letter also said that, once cashed, the check would constitute payment in full for the month. I put the same annotation on the check.

They cashed it.

So I did it again the next month. And so on. For nearly a year I purchased cable at my price, not theirs. Finally, one month I received a letter from a law firm rejecting the offer. By that point there was a competing carrier with a better rate so I switched, after requiring the law firm to send me a letter stating that my account was paid in full and that I didn't owe them a cent.

I can only imagine how many layers of management my situation had to work through before they got to somebody who was authorized to refer it to a law firm, and then what the lawyer charged them. I hope they spent thousands to resolve it.

Nevertheless, I never paid them one dime more than I wanted to. Might be worth a try.
 
I haven't had cable or satellite at all my adult life, only internet. Pay under $75/month. Cancel your cable, that'll save you the most money on your bill. We just have a TV hooked up to a DVD player.

Cable is one of the biggest unnecessary expenses that also takes away from your time to do other things that might actually make (or save) you money.
 
I just have internet. No need to spend that kind of cash each month when there are very few TV shows I like to watch.
 
Search these phrases to find a useful story: billfixers cable nytimes

The story describes a company that will phone your provider on your behalf and negotiate a lower rate. The story also tells you some of their tactics, if you want to do it yourself.
 
RevDMV said:
The obvious is switch to internet only. Even with hulu, netflix and amazon prime plus internet we are ahead of the cable package we used to have. Most folks put up a digital antenna for local channels. We don't bother.

Unfortunately, Comcast is still the only fast broadband option in my neighborhood, stuck with them for that service for now. There is talk about new competition coming our way, can't wait to switch.
Click to expand...

I just did this and most local stations live stream their newscasts so I didn't even go with a digital antenna.
 
That being said, I cut the cord in 1997. Offerings for us cord cutters are constantly improving, with Roku, Sling, Netflix, and so forth.

Things about cable that I really don't miss include high costs, unpredictable fees, multitudes of uninteresting channels, and terrible customer service.
 
Yup, I have Cox internet for like $50 and the Roku w/Amazon Prime and Hulu. We have an antenna in the attic and it gets us 15-20 digital channels and is connected to the house cable, so all televisions get the signal. We really don't watch a ton of tv, but it has been great for us over the past year. Roku 3 was like $100 or so, Hulu is $7/mo, and we already had Prime due to frequent Amazon shopping.

Side note: we also have my parent's DirectTV login, so Comedy Central/ESPN/etc are all "free" for us. I believe HBO Go was supposed to be offering an a la carte service on Hulu soon, too.
 
SoonerAviator said:
Yup, I have Cox internet for like $50 and the Roku w/Amazon Prime and Hulu. We have an antenna in the attic and it gets us 15-20 digital channels and is connected to the house cable, so all televisions get the signal. We really don't watch a ton of tv, but it has been great for us over the past year. Roku 3 was like $100 or so, Hulu is $7/mo, and we already had Prime due to frequent Amazon shopping.

Side note: we also have my parent's DirectTV login, so Comedy Central/ESPN/etc are all "free" for us. I believe HBO Go was supposed to be offering an a la carte service on Hulu soon, too.
Click to expand...

You can download the HBOGO channel on Roku, and log in from there. Works just fine for me. Though I know for a fact if you have Comcast, either they or Roku is prohibiting HBOGO playing. Otherwise, if you use anyone else, you should be good.
 
I ditched DirecTV... our bill had climbed to over $100/mo with tax. I thought about it and we only really cared about 2 or 3 shows on the entire thing and most of the rest was just background drivel while doing other things. I decided I'm just not paying that much money for TV, especially when every channel has commercials now.

So we do netflix, amazon prime, and if they don't have it I just order the DVD/blu-ray set. It's still significantly cheaper.
 
We ditched cable T.V. years ago and never looked back. I have an Apple TV and it does what we need it to do.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top