Another Reason Why Cable TV Companies Suck

Another Reason Why Cable TV Companies Suck - picture of hand holding coaxial cable

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A few weeks ago, I wrote a post called Saving Money: Cut the Cord to Cable TV.  I was pretty pleased with myself, feeling like I did a good job explaining the basic reasoning behind how you can save money by not paying for cable TV.  At the time, I had no particular beef with any cable company.  As a family, we decided that it was a financially sound choice not to purchase their product, and I wanted to share that tip with my readers.

Fast forward a day or so from the time that I wrote the first version of the post, and I was reminded of exactly why I will never purchase cable TV again.

Our Search for Internet…With a Cable TV Company

My wife and I decided that we were tired of our old, slow, DSL internet connection.  After searching for high-speed internet providers in our area we realized that our options were extremely limited.  We either had to pay our existing company $150 installation fee to switch to their faster brand of service, or we had to choose our internet service from a cable TV company with whom we have had a few prior bad experiences.  Blinded by our disgust at the $150 installation fee, we decided to go with the cable provider – hoping to infinity that we’d be pleased with their product.  After all, the company advertises that their product is lightning fast.  Being that I have an affinity toward lightning, what could possibly go wrong?

The answer to that question is that nearly everything went wrong.  The installation guy did show up near the end of the agreed upon 2-hour window, which is more than I can say for the last installer I dealt with through this company.  He proceeded to hook our house up to their grid, which went fine besides the wire hanging across my back yard.  After coming inside to check if his connection worked, he asked if we had a router so that our WiFi would work.  After telling him that the modem we were renting was supposed to be a modem/router combo, he proceed to tell me that I was wrong.  Besides, I could go out and buy one at nearly any store.  He then grabbed his things and left.

To make a long story short, after dealing with hours of phone calls to foreign call centers, being promised return calls that never came, and spending nearly all Saturday trying to fix their incompetence, we decided to cancel the service that we never received.  They promised us we would not get a bill.  Since we canceled that day, they promised us that we didn’t even have an official account set up yet.  They sent us a box and we returned their equipment promptly.

Unfortunately, the story does not end there.  Upon returning home from work today, we opened our mailbox to find a bill from the cable tv company there.  We immediately called their so-called “customer service” office, and were told by the agent that they were unable to remove the charge from our bill.  In order to do that, they would have to talk to their supervisor and call us back in an hour.  Of course, there was no call back so we called again 3 hours later to find out that the department we needed to deal with was closed.  Ugh.  Seriously, how does a business operate this way?!?

So, again, I’d urge you to cut the cord to cable TV.  If you won’t cut it to save money, cut it because you deserve better treatment than what they give you.

Next → An Open Letter to Comcast

 

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3 Comments

  1. I actually just cancelled my Comcast cable earlier this year. best decision I’ve ever made. I hate Comcast with a passion. They will tell you one thing and then do another. Sadly I’m still stuck with them for internet…one day that will change hopefully. I honestly don’t know how they are still in business, everyone I’ve talked to has some beef with them. There’s no need to pay $100+ a month for cable these days with all the programs like Netflix and Hulu

    1. OMG!!! I know! I will NEVER do business with them again! They are easily the worst company that I have ever dealt with. Like you, I can’t believe that they are still in business…except for the fact that cable companies have been able to “monopolize” markets for years. In many areas, people don’t have a choice between cable providers. It is ridonkulous.

  2. We oppose subsidizing television programming that we do not want or use. Being charged for ‘packages’ of programming (religious, sports, home shopping, infomercial, and faux news as examples) that we will never use, and being denied programming that we DO want because it doesn’t fit into a pre-determined ‘package’ is nothing less than legalized corporate extortion. We petition for a regulation of the television provider industry, to mandate them to stop charging for and forcing unwanted programming on subscribers, and begin programs offering ‘ala carte’ packaging based on actual buyer desires and use.

    Will you sign and share my petition? Click here to add your name:

    http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/television-providers?source=c.fwd&r_by=126709

    William Mann
    Pittsburgh, PA

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