Last week I noticed my bank did not autopay my cable bill. Looking back the monthly rate has been creeping upward until two months ago they raised my rate by $37/month for no reason. I called and told them I was not going to pay the new rate for the last two months and to come disconnect the cable TV DVR's if they did not reduce my monthly bill from what it was even a few months back. My bill has gone from $130/month a few years ago to $267 last month.
They agreed to drop my bill to $214, which I thought was shit, but I said OK. I also had them come and fix an issue that plagued the box in my bedroom. Today they send a complete retard that doesn't understand the most fundamental concept of electrical signals. She actually insisted that a cable splitter boosted the cable signal. She said the signal in my room was "too strong" because I had too many splitters in my house. I mean IMO you can't say something any dumber than that as a cable TV technician. She argued vehemently when I told her the signal coming out of a two-way splitter is cut in half out each of the two outputs. It even says so on the damn splitter as "-3.5db" at each output connector. BTW, before I became a computer engineer I was an electronics technician and engineer. I went to electronics vocational school when I was 12 years old. I even showed her on the Internet a page about cable splitters and how they work, which of course confirmed what I told her. She still argued that the splitters were making the signal too strong.
So she calls her boss to discuss it. OMG!!! He agrees!!!! WTF?
Then she tells me she has to put an amplifier on the line to reduce the signal strength. 
At this point I am flabberghasted and totally mind blown that this company can even function.
Then in the middle of all this she tells me that one of my DVR's had been disabled in their system and she could not turn it back on. It turns out the woman I spoke with on the phone "reduced" my old billing amount by $20 by changing my plan from three TV's to two TV's and without saying a word to me that she turned off one DVR. I was told today if I added the third DVR back my rate would be MORE than I was paying two months ago.
Fuck it I said, I had them take all three DVR boxes with them today and am now cable TV free.
Not sure what I can do to watch the Capitals, but I just saved more than $2000/year and I am still keeping my Internet with them (for now). And I did not have any special channels or packages, just basic cable.
FUCK Comcast!! They wanted me to pay $3200/year for Internet and three basic cable TV's.
I knew this day was coming as I watched the rates climb every year.
I wish there was a reliable Internet streaming service for just the Capitals.
Hey AJ! How have you been?
I too have Comcast/Xfinity cable TV and internet services. My prior service was Dish for TV, with only Hughesnet as my satellite internet service. Dish was ok, but Hughesnet was a horrible nightmare to deal with, as they were the only game in town out here, and they knew it. Best speed available was only 25k. We had Fios in our other home with 100k.
I’m quite rural out here, so my only non-satellite choice is Comcast, and we are one of the few “areas” that gets the cable ran to our street, solely because a Comcast exec just happens to live in our same rural sector.
Cost me $2,000 to get Comcast cable ran to my house, (about 1000 ft). I’m not a big Hollywood fan, so we don’t have the HBO, Showtime, etc stuff, but we have six boxes for TV and about 200k internet speed.
Just like you, over the past few years, our bill has crept up, from $210, to $325!
In May of this year I finally called and complained. Ended up with some douche of a rep who gave me the standard BS explanations.
I immediately went two supervisors above him, after some attempted shielding by Comcast, where the conversation escalated quickly to me CANCELLING my service.
They allowed the service to stay on thru the rest of the cycle, (about 10 days). I received numerous calls from higher level folks at Comcast, during that time. Each was quickly dismissed by me, as they would only offer service at $299. I was determined to walk, for sure!
I stopped answering the calls, and figured it was over. 3 days before the service disconnect date, I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize. Thinking it may be one of my HVAC customers, I answered it, and to my surprise, it was the Comcast executive that lived in our neighborhood.
She called to ask why I was cancelling, as I’m the only other person in our 7-house, rural area section, that gets the service, besides her, of course!(LOL).
Turns out, I got lucky, she arranged a 3-year service contract for me, at $225/month. She also comped my May monthly service charges, less taxes, (approx. $270)!
My point isn’t to brag, it’s the opposite, in that I realize that EXCEPT for my lucky connection, I would have been screwed Royally!
These big cable companies, AND cell phone companies are ALL getting in position to SCREW the public over GRADUALLY, IMHO, because their marketing info tells them that the majority of customers will simply TOLERATE IT!!!
Sorry for your experience, AJ. I wish the inept technician, AND service managers, were just an anomaly, but it’s just too pervasive in EVERY home servicing industry nowadays!
I’m not gonna get started, or I’ll ruin my 4th of July, as there is so much to be thankful for in our great USA!
The fact that half of our country doesn’t get the appreciation, is NOT my problem! They can stay all faux-angry, at even the most basically understood decencies, super-impressed with themselves, at their wimpy-ass ability to microscopically dissect any of today’s issues, solely looking for reasons to get and STAY, angry at something, so they can take some irrelevant, FAKE action, get it up on Facebook, or Twitter, and feel like they’re INVOLVED!!
You need to go no further than to compare today’s 18 year olds, to those that stormed the beaches at Normandy in WWII! What a frickin joke!!
Rush
