Comcast had an Internet and cable blackout in our area Friday, and this somehow messed up both our modem and cable reception. The technician finally came to fix it Sunday morning, but then it went out again yesterday around 10 a.m. It came back on around 5 p.m., and it looks like it is working again. The technician was supposed to come this morning, but I just called to cancel and to get the appointment on hold, in case we get problems today. When I called to schedule an appointment with the technician, I asked if we could get a credit for the days that we had trouble with the Internet connection.
Anyway, yesterday I was so frustrated with all the money I didn't get to earn, so I decided to take the advice of a gather friend. I do not remember, who it was, but I once read an article from a gather friend about how it was possible to renegotiate you cable/Internet bill, if you wanted to switch company.
I gave Comcast a call, told them we had been having lots of problems, and that we just did not feel that the price justified the service we were having, especially not since we always had to wait more than one day to get a technician out. I therefore asked if there was anyway in which, we would be able to renegotiate the cost of our cable/Internet package, as we were considering changing everything to another company to lower our bill. (we had a 12 month promotion to begin with, but this ended in January, and we were now paying full price $45.95 for Internet and $13.50 for cable.
I had a great talk with a very courteus and understanding comcast employee, and she ended up offering us a promotion, where we would only pay $22.99 a month for the next six month for the same Internet speed and connection. We could have chosen a 12 month deal that would be about $33 dollars a month, but because my husband is looking for jobs almost everywhere, we are not confident that we will be here for a year.
The only thing neededwas that my husband had to call back to get my his drivers license info confirmed, and my talk with Ashley has been one five calls between yesterday and today. At least I was on the exercise bike some of the time, so I didn't feel the on-hold time was a complete waste of time. My husband was given a round about, when he called back, and so was I when I tried calling again. Then this morning I decided to give it another try, and this time the customer service representant was courteous and knowledgeble as Ashley had been, and we got our deal.
So by saving $137.76 on our Internet bill (saved $22.96 every month for the next six months), I no longer feel bad that I lost a bit of online earnings yesterday. My husband was very surprised, when I got the credit to our account for the days that we had connection trouble, so imagine how excited he got, when I called to tell him about the price reduction. I know he works hard to pay the bills, so I am happy I could help him out a little bit.
If I can do it, I know you can do it too. My advice to anyone, who would like to try and renegotiate their cable/Internet bill is to be polite, calm and patient. It did take several calls, but I got the deal and we saved lots of money. Also, if you for some reason have to call back, make sure to get the person's name and possible extention, also make sure they put a note on your account. The reason, why I was able to get the original offer despite what everyone told me, was that Ashley had written down a note with the offer on our account.
Have you ever been able to save money on your bills by getting a bill reduction?
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Comments: 39
Our internet is combined with our phone service and is largely subsidized by my roommates company. So I have no clue what we really pay. Our cable is with comcast though and again since it's not my bill, I don't know what is actually paid. We do have the HD services though.
Bonnie, this was the first time we ever asked for a credit for the days we had problems, but there was no problems getting it.
Sherrie, I'm sorry to hear that you are having problems with your phone company. We don't have a regular phone (only cell phones with free local calls and we use phone cards for long distance or skype). It made sense for us to make this move, but I know you are in a different situation with the Inn.
Maybe you should call around to get a few different deals from other companies. Then when you call Sprint again let them know that you are seriously considering changing companies because of this problem. I am sure you could pull it off as well.
We have RR, but when Verizon puts cable on our street, we'll see about getting a good deal with them for everything. Our friends have it and are all satisfied.
RR is fine, but more expensive - we don't even have HBO and all that, I am not into movies that much.
Rose, I hope you get a great deal!
Amanda, I'm so glad that your husband was able to negotiate his way to a better deal. I was so amazed I thought I could get 5 dollar off or so, but 23 dollars was definitely a lot more than I expected. Great customer service.
We do not have cable or satellite. We tried out our phone companies dsl service- first time fast one then the slower one. We decided to stay with the $20 a month slower dsl service because it was just as fast as the faster one. So we get a good deal in my opinion!
We only have basic phone service so we pay less than $25 a month for that. But I found out with our income we qualify for lifelock which will give us between $8-12 off our phone bill each month!
I have saved on DirecTV, my cell phone bill that I can recall.
The ease of obtaining credit for service outages is indicitive of the quality of their service.
I average 6 or 7 credits a year, usually amounting to the equvilent of 20 days.
I tried that not too long ago with our charter service, but never got any where. they said that if we added their phone service, which we would use, we could get a deal, but it was still more than we were paying. I will try again soon!
I have no idea how much we are paying we have interent and phone together and actually we have to call them every month to argue about our bill, because they somehow add some crazy sum to it every time. I am so glad we are moving and I won't be dealing with this company again. Never ever!!!
my phone and internet are combined.
It wouldn't do us any good to call and tell them we were thinking about taking our service elsewhere, because they would know it was a bluff. We don't have any other options here.
Carla, I sure feel for you, it is always bad, when there is no alternatives to create competition. T
Jennifer, I think my husband was quite impressed and a little bit amazed that it was possible. I don't think he believed it until I paid the bill yesterday. They still had not change it on the online payment plan, but we call customer service, and she said she could see the amount was changed, so I just had to enter the correct amount!
Of course electricity is increasing 16 percent:(