Help me drop CABLE!! to lazy to search.

[djbleach]

I know I've seen this posted before, so please forgive my laziness. I just got off the phone with Charter cable and got so upset, I don't know what my next move will be. Long story short. Long loyal customer. 12 years. Never late on a payment. Price has steady went up. Internet/HBO (with all the other TLC,Bravo, MTV, etc.) started upper $80, now $155. They had me on a $30 discount, so last bill was $122 (and that is too high for me) This bill at $155 just isn't going to work. Called and talked with first lady, then Supervisor. No luck in getting the bill down.
I went on and on about what has happened to customer service and appreciating loyal customers. They rather give promotions to new customers and nothing to somebody who has supported them for years. Told her, look at Sears, JC Penny's. Woolworth, Kmart….etc……they are all going under because they lost contact with their loyal customers. Anyway. She really showed me how unimportant I was as a customer when she asked If I wanted her to send me to the cancellation department.
As a supervisor, I thought that was tacky and not a smart move to just let a customer leave.
So what have others done.
This is my plan.
Keep their internet $55
Buy an attic antenna and get all local channels.
Then either Amazon Prime (somebody is doing this and I think you can stream shows)
Use our Wi to stream Netflix.
So $55 + $10 for netflix $65 is better than $155
We really only watch TLC, Bravo then local. Sometimes HBO
Daughter watches Disney XD or something like that.
Thanks for any help and experience. Once again. Sorry for venting, but if anybody can relate to how frustrating it is to constantly pay more for less, I figured Dis Fourm members would!!!! Thanks

 

[chloelovesdisney]

I have no advice but have the same issue and also want to ditch our cable. We actually rarely watch any cable programs so it seems especially pointless. Good luck and I hope you get some good advice that I can also use.

 

[4HppyCamprs]

I am still searching for a way to get cheaper Internet but yes that is what we did. Internet used to stream Netflix and Amazon prime. I am not happy about the 99.00 price for Prime so I don't think we will renew. I have a year to think about it. We now have a smart tv but before used Xbox to access Netflix and amazon. We use a Roku for our tv in our bedroom. We used a small flat antennae (roof mounted) to pull local station, ironically it had to be set to search for stations online. Cannot figure out the cheapest way to get Internet as I would like to completely do away with cable company as I agree with you 100% they do not care about customers (Comcast in our case).

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

 

[Nayan]

First off, go to TV Fool (yes I know you're lazy, but ) and put in your address to see what channels you can get with an antenna and if it has to be mounted outside (digital is not like the old analog days, you either get it or you don't). Also keep in mind that since you are 'bundled' with cable and internet sometimes the cost of internet can jump way up if you cancel your cable part of it. Amazon is okay but I find the selection lacking. I hardly stream anything but I do have a 3 disc plan with Netflix and have so many things on my queue it's not funny, plus you get them sooner that way.

 

[PinkBudgie]

Years ago we went from cable to dish because cable was getting too expensive. Then we dropped dish about 5 or 6 years ago because that kept going up too. Our internet is a separate company and we use them for phone service too.

Where we live, an antenna would be no help- you can't pick up anything. So, currently we just have Netflix streaming (on Wii) and two discs at a time. We are currently watching Revenge on Hulu (not plus, just the regular) and we watch Downtown Abby on PBS. Other alphabet stations also run their shows on their own websites. You just have to check. We have Amazon Prime but don't think the quality and ease of use is as good at Netflix (we just have it for the shipping).

We get our news off the local radio station, the local newspaper website, and from other news sources online I have pulled together on one webpage I made my homepage (my Yahoo).

So, that's what we do. There may be a few things we don't get to see, but actually not much. And we have saved a lot of money. It also makes tv watching more intentional. We don't just sit down and flip channels watching nothing. If we turn it on, it is because there is something we intend to watch.

 

[kiramay]

I'll be following. We're planning to do something at the end of the summer (after the last season of True Blood). We currently pay $220 for cable, Internet, and land line phone! OP, same thing has happened- it keeps going up and the discounts are only for new customers!

 

[Shagley]

Actually, call back and let them send you to the cancellation department. That is the department where they can do the wheeling and dealing to lower your bill in order to keep you as a customer. At Comcast, they call it the "Retention" department, but it is the same thing. I just went through this last weekend to get my bill lowered, but we were ready to actually cancel in case they were not willing to lower our bill.

Edited to add - before you do that, make a list of your "must have" channels that you would really like to keep. That is one of the questions they asked me so they could come up with a cheaper package for me. HBO might be the channel that would make your package cost more. At least with Comcast, that would be a "premium" channel.

 

[aprilchem]

I know I've seen this posted before, so please forgive my laziness. I just got off the phone with Charter cable and got so upset, I don't know what my next move will be. Long story short. Long loyal customer. 12 years. Never late on a payment. Price has steady went up. Internet/HBO (with all the other TLC,Bravo, MTV, etc.) started upper $80, now $155. They had me on a $30 discount, so last bill was $122 (and that is too high for me) This bill at $155 just isn't going to work. Called and talked with first lady, then Supervisor. No luck in getting the bill down.
I went on and on about what has happened to customer service and appreciating loyal customers. They rather give promotions to new customers and nothing to somebody who has supported them for years. Told her, look at Sears, JC Penny's. Woolworth, Kmart….etc……they are all going under because they lost contact with their loyal customers. Anyway. She really showed me how unimportant I was as a customer when she asked If I wanted her to send me to the cancellation department.
As a supervisor, I thought that was tacky and not a smart move to just let a customer leave.
So what have others done.
This is my plan.
Keep their internet $55
Buy an attic antenna and get all local channels.
Then either Amazon Prime (somebody is doing this and I think you can stream shows)
Use our Wi to stream Netflix.
So $55 + $10 for netflix $65 is better than $155
We really only watch TLC, Bravo then local. Sometimes HBO
Daughter watches Disney XD or something like that.
Thanks for any help and experience. Once again. Sorry for venting, but if anybody can relate to how frustrating it is to constantly pay more for less, I figured Dis Fourm members would!!!! Thanks

You will not be able to see HBO shows if you go cable free, unless you are willing to use somebody else's HBO-Go password. We are not (because I feel that it is dishonest), so we are still waiting to see the Game of Thrones season that finished 6 months ago. You can't buy those shows on iTunes like you can seasons of other network's shows.

 

[tvguy]

Where we live, an antenna would be no help- you can't pick up anything. .

Where are you? You might want to double check that since TV stations have spent milions in the past 3 years to make sure almost everyone can get a signal off air.

 

[PinkBudgie]

Where are you? You might want to double check that since TV stations have spent milions in the past 3 years to make sure almost everyone can get a signal off air.

We live in a valley in the wine country. I admit I haven't checked for a few years.

 

[christineann]

I dropped cable 13 months ago for the same reason (price) and have no regrets. I bought an indoor antenna, and I get the major networks plus 4 or 5 more. Once I dropped it, I realized just how much I don't need it, and the monthly savings is an immediate benefit.

I would also note that my internet/home phone bill jumped about $40, so I called the provider to ask why and spoke with some out-sourced CSR who told me she couldn't even look at my past bill because she was in the Philipines. I thanked her and called back and got someone who I could barely understand, so I asked to speak to the retention department. I told them I was dropping their service and going with another company and was given a rate lower than the one I paid with the new customer promotion. I guess it's who you speak with and how much time you're willing to spend on the phone.

Shop around. Customer loyalty means nothing since the companies are not loyal to the customers.

 

[tvguy]

We live in a valley in the wine country. I admit I haven't checked for a few years.

I know KTVU, KPIX, KGO and KNTV have made a great effort to improve their signal that direction, so it may be worth $20 for rabbit ears to find out.

 

[mnrose]

We dropped cable years ago, and just use what we can get over the air. I did buy a one time roku box (cost $80 one time) and now can get Simthsonian, etc for free. I also watch Hulu. HuluPlus is also quite reasonable ($8.00 a month).

We don't miss cable, except for HGTV, but most of our faves from this channel can be watched on line. Frankly, I now find cable to be a mindless time suck.

 

[Jules123]

I have Charter also and have had no luck getting them to lower my rate. BTW, I don't know if you talked to them about just keeping your internet, but when I did, they told me the price of my internet would go up if I dropped their TV service. I am currently paying $50 for their internet, but the lady told me the regular rate would go up by $10 PLUS they would start charging me for wifi also. It was going to cause my rate to go up to about $75 a month. I was so mad. I spoke to 3 different people and not one tried to work with me to lower their rate.

 

[Theaberdeenkid]

If you have a Roku box consider getting Playon

 

[powellrj]

I tried to drop cable last year and found out I am really a cable lover. We had insight cable for over 30 years and loved it. They merged or whatever with comcast and didn't like it so we moved to att uverse and loved it even more than insight, but I decided it was too expensive and went back to comcast. HUGE mistake. Hated comcast even more this time. We stayed a year because that was our contract and now we are back with att uverse.

When we left att, they tried to keep us, but I had already signed a comcast contract. When we left comcast, they did nothing to try to keep us.

We have roko or blu-ray boxes on all of our tvs and have amazon prime and netflix, so we could leave cable at anytime, but what I found when we downgraded to comcast was how much I loved tv! I don't want to wait a year or more to watch my hbo or showtime shows. We watch our DS and DDILs niece and nephew all the time and I love to be able to let them watch their favorite shows without having to say, sorry, not on nexflix any more. I did find ways to downgrade, we don't have as many boxes as we use to.

I know people have tried to tell me ways I can downgrade, but I am not willing to give up many of the things I now have. Before everyone tells me what a lazy loser I am for watching so much tv, I am homebound in a wheelchair and spend most of the day alone, so I have pretty much given up all the things I loved before. Shopping and traveling are things I can no longer enjoy like I use to, so I am not willing to make the sacrifice to giving up my tv too!

 

[Megkel]

I hate cable. It always seems far more expensive than needed. We have Verizon internet for $60 a month. We have Direct TV for $60 a month. We have the lowest package with two receivers and DVR. I really do not watch anything on HBO but when I use to watch True Blood I would turn it on for the season and then back off when it was over. It usually was around $10 a month for those three months.

 

[Planogirl]

I tried to drop cable last year and found out I am really a cable lover. We had insight cable for over 30 years and loved it. They merged or whatever with comcast and didn't like it so we moved to att uverse and loved it even more than insight, but I decided it was too expensive and went back to comcast. HUGE mistake. Hated comcast even more this time. We stayed a year because that was our contract and now we are back with att uverse.

When we left att, they tried to keep us, but I had already signed a comcast contract. When we left comcast, they did nothing to try to keep us.

We have roko or blu-ray boxes on all of our tvs and have amazon prime and netflix, so we could leave cable at anytime, but what I found when we downgraded to comcast was how much I loved tv! I don't want to wait a year or more to watch my hbo or showtime shows. We watch our DS and DDILs niece and nephew all the time and I love to be able to let them watch their favorite shows without having to say, sorry, not on nexflix any more. I did find ways to downgrade, we don't have as many boxes as we use to.

I know people have tried to tell me ways I can downgrade, but I am not willing to give up many of the things I now have. Before everyone tells me what a lazy loser I am for watching so much tv, I am homebound in a wheelchair and spend most of the day alone, so I have pretty much given up all the things I loved before. Shopping and traveling are things I can no longer enjoy like I use to, so I am not willing to make the sacrifice to giving up my tv too!

I'm with you. We dropped land phone lines and whittled down our channels to a bare minimum but I will not give up the few channels that we truly love. Unfortunately, we rarely watch the networks but we have some channels that we won't give up.

 

[PinkBudgie]

I know KTVU, KPIX, KGO and KNTV have made a great effort to improve their signal that direction, so it may be worth $20 for rabbit ears to find out.

Thanks for the heads up. We should check in to that.

I tried to drop cable last year and found out I am really a cable lover. We had insight cable for over 30 years and loved it. They merged or whatever with comcast and didn't like it so we moved to att uverse and loved it even more than insight, but I decided it was too expensive and went back to comcast. HUGE mistake. Hated comcast even more this time. We stayed a year because that was our contract and now we are back with att uverse.

When we left att, they tried to keep us, but I had already signed a comcast contract. When we left comcast, they did nothing to try to keep us.

We have roko or blu-ray boxes on all of our tvs and have amazon prime and netflix, so we could leave cable at anytime, but what I found when we downgraded to comcast was how much I loved tv! I don't want to wait a year or more to watch my hbo or showtime shows. We watch our DS and DDILs niece and nephew all the time and I love to be able to let them watch their favorite shows without having to say, sorry, not on nexflix any more. I did find ways to downgrade, we don't have as many boxes as we use to.

I know people have tried to tell me ways I can downgrade, but I am not willing to give up many of the things I now have. Before everyone tells me what a lazy loser I am for watching so much tv, I am homebound in a wheelchair and spend most of the day alone, so I have pretty much given up all the things I loved before. Shopping and traveling are things I can no longer enjoy like I use to, so I am not willing to make the sacrifice to giving up my tv too!

Well, I certainly hope no one would judge anyone for their choices- tv or otherwise. We all have things we are willing to do without and those we aren't. Those choices are going to be different for everyone.

 

[lizbaby007]

If you keep CABLE INTERNET, there is no need to buy an antenna. Simply plug the cable from the wall into the back of your TV (make sure if it is a flat screen it has a built in tuner although 99% of new tvs do) and do an "over the air" search. You will get ALL LOCAL channels (including HD quality) for FREE!!

I live in the country surrounded by pine trees and got absolutely nothing with antennas. It was actually the cable guy who told me to just use the actual cable as the on air channels could not be blocked and I would get them clearer than even the best antenna

I gave up Cable back in October when it went up another $30 a month to $110 for extended bacic (no HBO or anything cool like that) and internet. I now pay $29.99 for Cable Internet and $7.99 for Netflix, per month. I miss some of the channels like HGTV and ESPN but otherwise am very happy with cutting the cord!