I hate Satellite companies

[6t7gto]

http://www.satelliteguys.us/index.php

[dankeenan]

Call them and ask for cutomer retention. Tell them you want to cancell due to a better offer from cable. I did this and got a free DVR upgrade, free 4 room install, and $10 off for 1 year. They are sending out offers all the time for free HD DVR and installs, so giving it to you should be no big deal.

[nissan_crawler]

Originally Posted by dankeenan

Call them and ask for cutomer retention. Tell them you want to cancell due to a better offer from cable. I did this and got a free DVR upgrade, free 4 room install, and $10 off for 1 year. They are sending out offers all the time for free HD DVR and installs, so giving it to you should be no big deal.

I thought this was standard practice? Once every few years, i call around and threaten to quit all my services, garbage, cable, cell phone, etc., just to keep their asses in line.

If you call and just ask about a deal, you will be denied. I always do this anyway, as they usually keep it on record.

Call back the next day, tell them you found somebody new, and you are canceling, and they quickly sing another tune. I've gotten them to knock 20% off the monthly bill before.

[fatrhino]

I won't pay for cable either. I've got an antenna and get my HD for free

[Rickster]

Agree with several here. The DVR is a "must have" item. We rarely watch any shows at their scheduled time any more and its great to blow through the commercials at 4x speed. You have to call your provider constantly to play them against the competitors pricing. I have WOW but we also have availability to get Comcast so I badger them about the great Comcast deal to get a better Wow deal.

[Tscott]

Originally Posted by dankeenan

Call them and ask for cutomer retention. Tell them you want to cancell due to a better offer from cable. I did this and got a free DVR upgrade, free 4 room install, and $10 off for 1 year. They are sending out offers all the time for free HD DVR and installs, so giving it to you should be no big deal.

I just did this and got a DVR installed for free. As soon as the wife mentioned Direct TV (we have Dish Network) they transfered us to customer loyalty and they sent someone out the next week free of charge. You just need to know how to play the game.


Tom

[Jaguar Fan]

Originally Posted by paranoid56

wow, yo guys have some expensive cable LOL i am using uverse with two dvrs and HD (around 76 hd channels) and 18mb/s internet and its only around 120.

18mb/s internet!!! Is that a typo? 1.8 megabits? or do you really have 18 megabits??

[tstukel]

Originally Posted by Todd.Brock

...Mainly, I dont want to change my email address to whatever@cablecompany.com instead of whatever@phonecompany.com ...

Don't get trapped with a single ISP because of not wanting to change your eMail address. Get yourself a Yahoo or gMail account which you can then use with any provider. It gives you the freedom to shop for the best deal...I've had the same eMail address for over a decade even though I have gone thorugh several different ISP providers.

[Jaguar Fan]

Originally Posted by Rickster

Agree with several here. The DVR is a "must have" item. We rarely watch any shows at their scheduled time any more and its great to blow through the commercials at 4x speed. You have to call your provider constantly to play them against the competitors pricing. I have WOW but we also have availability to get Comcast so I badger them about the great Comcast deal to get a better Wow deal.

What is WOW?

On comcast, so many of the shows are available on-demand we don't bother to record anything anymore.

[54FordPanel]

Oh, jeez, where do I begin with DirecTv....I hate those guys. I've had so many go-rounds with them. I'll just rehash the latest incident. I was moving, and called to disconnect my service, as I wouldn't be watching TV for months as I worked on the new house and garage.
They connected me with somebody in a special department...Customer Retention maybe. They said if I would reconnect with them, they would give me the deluxe package of all HBO, Showtime, etc, along with the NFL Sunday ticket for 5 months for free, and it would be cheaper ($59) than I was paying now ($79). I said ok, but I only want it because it's free, and I want to cancel it right now for after the free time period. Sorry, sir, you can only cancel it in January after you receive the bigger bill. Ok, whatever, I will cancel it in January.
I ran all my own cables at the new house, so all the guy had to do was mount the dish. When he got here, I decided that it might be nice to have a HD receiver in the bedroom. The guy had one on his truck, and he called Customer Service to have me order it from the lady. She said I had to give her a credit card # in order to have the additional receiver billed for $100. I said they had no trouble billing me $79 a month for the last 8 years, why would they need a credit card now? I'm sorry, she said, that's how they have to do it. I said never mind, forget the additional HD receiver.
So I get my HD tv receiver hooked up at the house, and I am kinda excited to see NFL Sunday Ticket and watch any game I want. Guess what? I can watch any game I want, but they are all in low-def. If you want to see them in high def, it's an extra $100.
So my 1st bill comes, and it's $150 instead of $59. I call them and say "cancel the NFL Sunday Ticket, cancel the movie channels, cancel everything and just give me what I had before.... You guys said it would be cheaper and it's 3 times as much!".
They said..."Sorry, sir, the NFL season has started, and we cannot refund your money after the season has started".
"What?!?!?...You guys said it would be FREE! I wouldn't have ordered that if it wasn't free!"
"I'm sorry sir, the season has started, and we cannot credit your account after the season has started...."
"Let me talk to your supervisor...."
Supervisor gives the same message. Can't credit my account, season has started, blah, blah, blah.
I keep at it, and finally find somebody who was willing to look at my bill, and they saw that I was double + charged, and they fixed it.
And to think they supposedly are #1 in customer service.

[z28snksknr]

Comcast:

Upgrade to HD = $5/month

Upgrade to DVR = $10/month

You guys are getting BONED.

[D KRAGER]

This shit gets me going..... Directv called me, said they would give me 5 months of the upgraded movie channels and NFL sunday ticket for an additional $5.00 a month for being a loyal customer. Told them no thanks. Finally had to pretty much hang up on the guy, he couldn't figure out why I didn't want it. Told him I already pay too much, then after the 5 months, I'd have to call and cancel the additional services, not worth it. I asked him if he could knock $5 off my bill now and he of coarse said no.

Don't get me going on this HD shit either! The govt. makes everyone switch over to digital, then the electronics companies, cable, ect. make a fortune charging us for all this new shit. Old stuff works just fine, but oh no. Then everyone wonders why we are in a recession???? Because you are making us buy shit we can't afford!!!!!!!!!!

Same way with internet, hell you can't do anything without the internet, granted yes it's good, but don't discriminate agaist someone that doesn't have it. I've had to deal with many things that you MUST do over the internet. There again, a monthly bill that some people really can't afford, but do......

Ok I'm done venting for now....

[eborcim]

Springsteen's appropriate music playing in background

My main complaint with pay tv is the overall amount of commercials that are programmed. Shouldn't they be paying us to watch the commercials? Honestly, pay tv should be investigated for consumer fraud.

I would also like to be able to pick and choose my channels and pay so much per channel rather than buy their preselected package. Of course the P&C would have to be competitive with their package price. I would watch Speed, SyFy, DIY, History, TLC realm, Military, USA, BBC, and some movie packages, and some other crap my wife likes to watch.

[Rickster]

Originally Posted by Jaguar Fan

What is WOW?

Wide Open West cable company.

http://sales.wowway.com/(biqm3n55noy...FSXyDAodhD8xRA

[norry]

I won't be back on cable/dish until it goes a-la-carte. I'll get Speed Channel, BBC, Fox News, History Channel, Fox Sports, and ESPN.

Why should I pay to subsidize the garbage on MTV, Hollywood gossip shows, and so forth?

I'm running OTA at 720p on an old projector. Programming is free, decoder was $60 on Ebay (Directv declared their old Samsung boxes obsolete - the ones that could do OTA too, and also function as scalers), old CRT projector was $150 on Craigslist. A little over $200 to watch sports on a giant screen, and NO recurrent bill!

[ddawg16]

I can't believe you guys are watching TV when you spend so much time on GJ....

OTA for me....69 channels of HD for free....but we have better things to do than spend that much time watching TV....

[Art From De Leon]

I, too, cannot understand why you cannot pick individual channels, instead of having to buy a package. Personally, I have absolutely NO use for sports channels, 'music' channels, pay per view, channels, shopping channels, or about 99 percent of the absolute shiite that I would have to buy to get FOX news, The Military Channel, and Turner Classic Movies. It it wasn't for getting the Weather Channel and the 'local' networks, altho I could not give a shit about what happens in the Metroplex as far as 'news' goes, I would, and I am seriously considering it, dump Direct TV.

[e-tek]

You don't know how good you have it!! In Canuckistan we have to pay $500 for ONE PVR! Plus $70-100 a month - no matter if you're loyal or not! They just say..."whatever...call when you're ready to pay through the nose!" Bastards!!

[Torque1st]

Originally Posted by tstukel

Don't get trapped with a single ISP because of not wanting to change your eMail address. Get yourself a Yahoo or gMail account which you can then use with any provider. It gives you the freedom to shop for the best deal...I've had the same eMail address for over a decade even though I have gone thorugh several different ISP providers.

Another way to do that is to buy your own domain name. Check out GoDaddy at: http://www.godaddy.com/default.aspx

My cable company has fiber to the home so I get 5Mb/sec both up and down. I also run a VOIP phone over the cable that runs me ~$9/month for essentially unlimited service with all the bells and whistles. I don't get anything but the standard channels and HD service but it is $105/month with one HD DVR. I really like the military history channels, BBC, discovery, science, Nat geo, etc.

Edit- That $105/mo includes the internet service. The HD PVR was also included along with three more set top boxes.

[Torque1st]

Originally Posted by ddawg16

I can't believe you guys are watching TV when you spend so much time on GJ....

I have a dual monitor setup with a TV-Tuner card. I can watch TV and type/browse also.