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THE ABOVE HEADLINE doesn’t refer to Afghanistan. Even that 20-year struggle has finally come to an end. This is about an even more relentless campaign—against the cable company. In my case, that means Spectrum, part of Charter Communications.
The first question is, why haven’t I cut the cord? The short answer: My wife loves sports on TV and cable seems to be the only way to get all her favorites.
As cable victims know, after those enticing “new customer” deals expire, you’re subject to a constant series of escalating fees, which can quickly have your monthly bill skyrocketing. There’s only one remedy, I’ve found, and that’s constant negotiating.
As soon as I see an increase in my bill, I examine it. If it’s just an increase in the cost of a standard component, I’m probably stuck with it. But the more substantial increases come from the expiration of whatever promotions I currently have.
The next step is calling Spectrum and telling the robot I want to cancel service, which gets me to “Customer Retention.” Once there, I explain to the rep that I’m willing to remain a customer, but only with enough new promos to get my bill back to where it was.
I’ve found that some reps really try to help and others have a bad attitude from the get-go. When I get the latter, I usually just claim a bad connection and spin the wheel with another call.
It takes time on the phone and persistence, but I can usually get my bill back close to where it was—and occasionally even a little less. It’s crucial to take good notes, including the name of the rep, because often my next bill doesn’t jibe with the new discounts I’d been promised. That means yet another phone call is needed.
Not long ago, I spoke with a friend who didn’t know negotiation was even possible, and probably wouldn’t bother with it anyway. His monthly Spectrum bill was $75 higher than mine for the same services.
We went without cable for 6 months when we were between homes and were renting an apartment. There were no deals for such a short period of time, so we just went without. We found that after a few weeks we didn’t miss the TV at all and anything we did watch was netflix streamed on the laptop or phone. Now that we have moved into our new home, I’m questioning whether we need to buy a tv for this home. No matter the decision, we don’t miss anything that the broadcast companies have to offer.
What sports can you get with cable but not streaming or over-the-air? We love sports and haven’t found any we can’t get those two ways.
My wife is the big sports fan in our house and I just remember the last time I checked the streaming options they didn’t have all the channels she enjoys in our current cable package. My memory’s a little rusty on this, but I believe it was mainly the NFL channels.
Served in both forever wars (afg and cable tv), I’m tempted to write a biography called Dr. Strangelove or how I learned to love paying the same price for several streaming services to give me exactly what I used to get from cable tv.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5DeDLI8_IM
Saturday Night Live just did this last Saturday…”Canceling cable with Spectrum”
James, thanks for the SNL link—great!
You are welcome.
Funny yet not funny…..we did cut the cable a few years back after experiencing the same situation with ATT/Direct TV. We do not watch much TV with the exception of college football in the fall. We enjoyed HULU first and now have You-Tube TV which we find a bit friendlier when we travel. We can also pause our subscription which we do for several months at a time. We find ourselves finding others avenues of entertainment.
Other avenues such as reading? News/weather is available in broadcast (free) TV and reception is usually very good. Cable spoils you with great reception and too many choices for way too much money. Internet is another issue though – it would now be very hard to live without it or even function without it for that matter the way everything functions.