Government granted monopolies are best case a necessary evil. Our IP system is hugely corrupt and is now doing the opposite of what was ever intended. It’s actively stifling innovation in the private sector and is a huge source of rent seeking.
No question they are civilly liable and morally reprehensible. I’m asking because I don’t know. Did they actually break criminal law?
At best for them they are guilty of criminal gross negligence but the reality is the conspiracy likely involves all sorts of direct and indirect crimes.
What grinds my gears the most is how they treat new v. Loyal Existing customers. As noted above, as a new dtv customer I got Sunday Ticket free for one year, plus one of HBO or Showtime free for a year, plus a lower than cable price on the whole bundle including internet guaranteed for two years. Meanwhile on the verge of leaving they offer…$7 off HBO for a year? It’s a bit insulting.
There are active criminal fraud and racketeering investigations in NY and CT into the matter. It’s possible.
Right. It’s about the contempt and dishonesty they show their customers. I had Cox and about nine months ago I got a call from them and they said they were going to give me free HBO because of me being a long term customer. All I had to do was agree to a one year contract. I asked I would do that but I wanted to make sure my bill would be the same for that year. They assured me it would be so I agreed, free HBO. Great.
Fast forward two months. My bill increased 50 bucks a month. This is after two straight years of 10 dollar a year increases. I called and asked what was going on, they said a promotion had ended. I said there must be some mistake, I was just assured that my rates would not change for the year. They said that my rate WASN’T changing. The promotion was just ending. The rate was the same. I said are you fucking kidding me? They wouldn’t budge. It was the most dishonest thing I have ever seen, I was absolutely furious. I threatened to cancel. He said you can’t cancel because of your service agreement. I told him I was going to cancel if I didn’t get the rate I was paying three months ago. He said sorry, not possible. I told him I was canceling and paying the $250 fee. He said wait I actually can get you that promotion. I told him to go ahead and cancel because I’m not going to give his despicable company another cent for cable. He said but but but I can get you that rate you thought we promised you. Too late scumbags, maybe don’t treat your customers like garbage and idiots. Just incredibly dishonest and unethical.
I mean yeah now I’m getting my TV from Amazon and Google, which sure is probably not any less evil than the cable company but hey at least they don’t make you talk to petty functionaries to change or cancel your service.
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Right, and essentially the people who are too nice/polite on the phone get run over and get screwed. You basically have to yell at someone getting paid like $8/hr in order to get the price they’re willing to give you, and it’s not their customer service rep’s fault that their company treats us all like shit.
I resent being forced to treat other human beings poorly in order to get a price we all know they’re willing to give us, but that’s how it works now.
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And I know that guy was just doing his job and his job is shitty and it pays crap but I swear I could hear him smirking over the phone. At some point you know you’re actively fucking over people and maybe get another job that isn’t so horrible. Easier said than done, I know. But you know who else was just doing his job? Eichmann!
Comcast though.
I work from home a lot and in my area it doesn’t really make sense to just get high speed Internet and a couple of the streaming services so I’m stuck with cable for the foreseeable future until fiber comes though.
Thanks all, this reminds me that Comcast jacked my bill up $30 a few months ago and I haven’t called to bitch yet.
Also, because their pricing is a joke, when I signed up for my plan it was cheaper to get internet + basic cable than just internet. Ridiculous.
Why can’t we just nationalize internet providers already… (though scary to think what the GOP could do if the gov had power over the internet)
I appreciate you all reminding me why I have fiber through AT&T at full price (it’s 60 bucks a month) and am a full blown cable cutter. I’m never going back to calling those assholes every 6-18 months to demand a better deal. I say this as someone who worked cable company call centers in my early 20’s.
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They know if you’re in an apartment or not. They have a big database. But in your building probably some of the units don’t have a good view of the southern sky, so you’re on the maybe list. If you have a house with new
Again though if you pretend to be a student it’s much cheaper and none of this matters.
If you get gamepass with the student deal RZ comes along for free.
I guess I’ll add my recent story as well. I got internet only through Charter and they called me for weeks asking me to try out their streaming package for 29.99 a month. First month free.
I ask 3-4 times if I wanted to cancel would I be able to do it online. Guy never gave me a direct answer (Should of been my first clue). He finally said yes.
So I said so if I want to cancel I can do it online, I don’t need to call in.
He said correct.
Of course I have to call to cancel this shit.
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Monopolies are fucking terrible is the moral of this story. Seriously if it’s a natural monopoly like power/cable/water/etc the government should just provide it as a nonprofit. We’d get better service for a better price if the DMV just managed it.
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AT&T DGAF. Directv used to work with you. They probably have some score they’re looking at based on how much PPV you order or something. According to Chiefsplanet some still do get their Sunday Ticket reduced, others are told to fuck right off.
They’re all horrible though. I called Frontier FIOS to remove Showtime after one of my promotional rates expired.
What followed was the slipperiest slimiest sales pitch where they kept saying my before tax total (to make me think I was getting the discount) but trying to get me to approve of something called “Internet Security Shield” or some BS for like $10/month.
But of course it was said in such a way that it was really unclear they were adding anything at all to my bill and made it sound like I was just getting the reduced price for removing Showtime. The only thing that clued me in was when she said “Is that ok with you?” And I’m like wait - is what ok with me. And it took me about 20 questions to unravel what she was trying to do.
SCUMBAGS. I love when companies I pay good money to try to prey on me. LOVE IT
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I’ve had Youtube TV for a while and I’m pretty happy with it. @Marksman, I believe if you record something on the DVR and there is also an on-demand version of that recording, you can pick which version you want to watch.
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Trump 2.0 is going to do the same shit but give people healthcare (somehow for whites only - like based on county per capita income or something) and institute super high-profile consumer friendly laws like anything you sign up for online should be cancelable online - and then it’s really GG democracy.
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Yeah a good work around with directv USED to be asking for customer retention. You could always get some good deals out of them every time but many years ago they changed their support system so regular operators would not forward to retention in most cases.
Att is a complete tire fire. They have lost like 20% of directv subscribers since they took over and now they launched a secondary streaming service which is confusing named similar to what the new name of directv now is but it has yearly contracts, cancellation fees and all the horrible things people hate about satellite and cable. Why they would create a service with these “features” is beyond me.
Activist investors are raising a stink about att pivoting so hard into television. So far it has not been a good move. The directv and warner acquisitions have left them with 150 billion in debt and declining revenues.
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I haven’t had cable for 5+ years.
Over the air and streaming + netflix is all we need. I don’t miss it at all, History channel had turned to shit. Only really watch local news, PBS, dateline, courttv, and sports.
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