Comcast is My Friend Today
So this is something I have known about and have done in the past, and I kept meaning to do it, but today I finally did it. I lowered my cable/internet bill.
Truthfully I was considering cancelling cable anyway. I’m paying about $117 per month for high speed internet and basic digital cable. I should note that I am paying $10 extra for higher speed internet and getting a $10 discount for bundling cable and internet so that is pretty much a wash.
Since I don’t watch a lot of TV I wasn’t too concerned with cancelling it altogether. I know my wife enjoys watching Fox News in the mornings and watching TLC and HGTV during the day as she is folding clothes and stuff. For the kids we have a few shows we DVR for them like Tom & Jerry and Martha Speaks. So when they want to watch TV we generally have something available.
Since I have built my own media center pc, we have the benefit of watching shows online. I recently discovered hulu desktop which makes it even easier. So that being said I was totally ready to just cancel cable altogether. I guess the biggest sacrifice would be from my wife who, like I said, enjoys Fox News and TLC. One other downside that I would miss is being able to see the 500 or so movies that will be playing soon on all our channels and recording the ones I want to see. I think this is one of the coolest features of Windows Media Center.
So I determined to call and cancel and figured that Comcast would offer me a deal to get me to stay. If the deal was good enough I would take it. Before calling I read some great tips from Matt Jabs that helped me stay upbeat and friendly with the customer support person.
I was connected with "April" and the conversation went something like this:
Me: Hi, I currently have cable and internet and I would like to cancel my cable TV service only.
April: [Gets my name and retrieves account] OK, do you mind if I ask why you want to cancel?
Me: I just want to lower my bill.
April: OK, well, how about I see if I can lower you bill. It appears you are currently paying $117… per month, is that right?
Me: Yeah, that sounds right.
April: It looks like you are paying $10 extra for an 8 megabit connection. I can remove that $10 charge for a year. For your cable service, I can reduce the price to $29 per month for a year. Would that work for you?
Me: So what would be my total bill?
April: It would be $71 per month, saving you $46 dollars per month.
Me: Wow, for a year huh? Yes, let’s do that.
April: OK, you’re all set.
Me: Really, that’s all I have to do?
April: Yep.
Me: Great! Thank you very much.
April: No problem. Thank you for being a Comcast customer.
So I spent a total of 3 minutes and 45 seconds on the phone and saved myself $552 over the course of the year. I would say that was worth my time and I don’t mind keeping cable TV around either. Especially now that I have a big screen to watch BYU & Utah football games this fall! Oh, did I forget to mention that?
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June 24, 2009
Tags: bills, cable, comcast, internet, TV Posted in: Finance
15 Responses
When you actually figure in the amount of time it takes… people can “give themselves a raise” with just 5 minutes of “work”.
It is rewarding in more than one way!
Nice work Dustin.
I truly miss Comcast. When I lost my job earlier this year, I couldn’t afford my basic cable/internet package anymore, which was running me about $80/month. I decided I was going to try AT&T’s DSL since they quit requiring you to have a land-line phone account with them.
I had been hosting my own personal web server with about 5-6 websites, some mine, my brothers, and a friend of mine. Well I went through one awful ordeal with AT&T and they managed to screw that process up every way possible. It was the absolute worst experience I’ve ever had. Then on top of that, I had verified there was nothing in the TOS agreement saying I can’t have a web server and that they don’t block port 80. Well, there wasn’t, but they didn’t bother to mention they rotate IP’s every 8 hours, making it nearly impossible to keep a domain name pointed at the correct IP.
I ended up dropping them within the first 30 days because I wasn’t paying for that garbage. Now I’m just waiting for the day I can get my Comcast bill caught up and re-activated. I truly miss it, as I had had them for about 3 years and loved their service.
Congrats on “saving” some money. However, it sounds a little like a half full/half empty glass situation. They may have made you feel like you are saving something when in fact all you are now doing is not overpaying for your service. Classic trick used by the BT monopoly here in the UK.
Well I’m glad you’ve had a good experience. I’ve had them 2 different times and both times ended poorly. The last time was over their refusal to price match a local cable company. The difference was $50/month so I switched!
Nice one! It’s amazing how much you can save with a little common sense and a frw minutes of “work”
Wow, nicely done! Yeah my friend got a great savings from AT&T not too long ago. He had a huge cellular bill and was able to get his costs reduced by about $300. a month. I was really surprised the companies would reduce your bills so easily. Good job again, nice to see the consumer winning some times.
That is indeed great work on your behalf. It comes to show how much these tv providers are making on each sale. These days you can watch every single tv show and movie online. There are countless of free online tv services out there. What I recomend is getting a good antivirus software before you visit these sites. You can find episodes of your favourite shows the next day they air.
It is good if we got to save some money in this way. I prefer to watch my favorite TV shows on my laptop through internet. I have taken the internet TV provider, Hulu subscription.
Hey – this post is very interesting to me as I have been thinking of an alternative to cable for some time now. I read a lot about satellite TV on you PC but this sounds like a much more realistic option! Thanks a lot for the info – Im going to research it more!
I’ve already cancelled my cable service. It wasn’t worth it for me, however, i didn’t have anyone else in my apartment that utilized it. Since then I’ve pretty much switched to watching everything online or using windows media center using TV hookups for a laptop. Frankly I’ve found it much easier since i usually missed my regular shows anyways. Its amazing how convenient places like hulu are for finding shows.
Good job!
It is not easy dealing with these monopoly providers. On the one hand I am glad that it was easy for you to negotiate your bill down. On the other hand, I think the cable companies are over charging like crazy and then quick to drop the price to keep you. What about all the months you “Over Paid”. Maybe more people should follow Dustin and call their cable company and negotiate a rate reduction. Great Job.
Great savings done there..these days a lot can be done like this as the providers care for retaining customers rather revenue..and an alternate way is that, as many have said in their comments above, satellite tv on pc via internet is a cheaper way…we get to see more channels in higher quality than the cable tv.. nice way of presenting the whole telephonic conversation there..
I love my computer, tv, music, data station which I have now for almost 10 years. You realy can save much money and I guess energy too. They only fear which haunts me is what is if my computer strikes?! Then I am in the “stone age” because I have even no extra TV anymore.
PS: “… almost 10 years.” I do not mean that I have the same computer 10 years
I had been hosting my own personal web server with about 5-6 websites, some mine, my brothers, and a friend of mine. Well I went through one awful ordeal with AT&T and they managed to screw that process up every way possible. It was the absolute worst experience I’ve ever had. Then on top of that, I had verified there was nothing in the TOS agreement saying I can’t have a web server and that they don’t block port 80. Well, there wasn’t, but they didn’t bother to mention they rotate IP’s every 8 hours, making it nearly impossible to keep a domain name pointed at the correct IP.
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