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Old 11-20-2019, 12:12 AM   #21
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We currently have xfinity at $29.99/mo. for 25 Mps. but it's soon going to end the 1 yr contract and jump to $50/mo.

So I check xfinity site as a new user, and they offer 25 Mps for $20.
When I look at my account, they offer to raise me to 30 Mps for $40 ! (Being a customer sucks).

So I checked Wow, they have a deal on right now to the end of the month.
It was 100 Mps for $35/mo for 2 years
I left the computer on and we watched some Netflix. When I came back and went to close the tab, a popup offered $25 off first bill if I signed up. (maybe the delay was worth it ?? )

So I decided to sign up at $35/mo and scheduled the install for beginning of December, when Xfinity will be jacking up my rate.

Tomorrow I'll phone xfinity to tell them to stop at the end of the current bill.
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Old 11-20-2019, 05:52 AM   #22
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Loyalty is punished, flippant customers get catered to when it comes to Internet/cable.
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Old 11-20-2019, 06:17 AM   #23
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Vyve has a 1 year special 105mb for $40. I am on a special 50 for $40 for 5 more months. I called and the 105 was for new customers. I asked what it took to become a new customer and was told to cancel for 1 day. I will check that out a little more before i cancel.
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Old 11-20-2019, 06:30 AM   #24
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I am also in a location where Spectrum is the only provider.

Another option for those that don't want to play the "change the account holder" game is asktrim.com

They got $20 knocked off our monthly bill for 1 year. The catch is that they get 1/3 of the savings.

Interesting business model.
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Old 11-20-2019, 07:03 AM   #25
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Originally Posted by trirod View Post
I asked about cancelling service and then signing up as a new customer for a special deal, and what the rep told me was that to qualify as a new customer then I had to have not had Spectrum service for at least 30 days.
I don't have spectrum, but I can tell you I would not take that approach. Asking "well if i cancel and sign up again" isn't they way you get a deal. You don't do any if's. You call their bluff completely. You say, I want to cancel, period.

That's when you get the retention offers. Can't be on the fence with most companies, their scripts only let the reps pull those out when the customer is ready to cancel now. That's what we do with our cable every year or two, and we always end up with some special that is too good to pass up.

If for some reason that fails and they actually say "ok well bye" I'll be surprised, but if you hold out for a few days you might then get a "Come back we miss you!" discount email.
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Old 11-20-2019, 07:04 AM   #26
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Because they are trying to attract new customers. Long term customers are presumed subject to inertia...and if there's only one ISP, monopoly as well!

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Originally Posted by kskmfire View Post
(why aren't long term customers valued the same?).

a.
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Old 11-20-2019, 07:56 AM   #27
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Unfortunately I don't have any alternative provider here - other than satellite, which is more expensive for slower service.
Comcast (Xfinity) is my only option for broadband internet. The phone company does not offer DSL out here. We have too many trees for satellite. The topography of our hill blocks wireless. Even cell reception is very iffy.

I currently pay about $79 per month for internet only. I'm thinking about dropping to a lower speed to save a few dollars. Of course, Comcast doesn't list download speeds on their price sheet and I have to visit their store to downgrade anything. They refuse to downgrade service online or over the phone. I would only save $20 at most, so it hasn't been a big priority.

The only positive is that my cable internet has been very reliable since the day I hooked up.
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Old 11-20-2019, 08:37 AM   #28
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Originally Posted by Aerides View Post
I don't have spectrum, but I can tell you I would not take that approach. Asking "well if i cancel and sign up again" isn't they way you get a deal. You don't do any if's. You call their bluff completely. You say, I want to cancel, period.

That's when you get the retention offers. Can't be on the fence with most companies, their scripts only let the reps pull those out when the customer is ready to cancel now. That's what we do with our cable every year or two, and we always end up with some special that is too good to pass up.

If for some reason that fails and they actually say "ok well bye" I'll be surprised, but if you hold out for a few days you might then get a "Come back we miss you!" discount email.
I tried that with Comcast after 10 years of service. Next thing I know, I have no account and had to go to Consolidated Communications for service, which is terrible.
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Old 11-20-2019, 08:45 AM   #29
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One guy I heard of was planning a 4 week trip through the Western USA. A week before leaving he called the cable guys and asked for a better rate. When they refused he told them to cancel his service. Period. He claims that over the four weeks of his vacation, he received some nice offers to return, and he finally took one.
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Old 11-20-2019, 08:50 AM   #30
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One guy I heard of was planning a 4 week trip through the Western USA. A week before leaving he called the cable guys and asked for a better rate. When they refused he told them to cancel his service. Period. He claims that over the four weeks of his vacation, he received some nice offers to return, and he finally took one.
Must vary by location. Comcast never called back or sent me any offers. Could be they just don't like me? But next year I am going back to Comcast for a new 2 year deal. After that.....who knows?
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Old 11-20-2019, 08:51 AM   #31
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chuckanut View Post
One guy I heard of was planning a 4 week trip through the Western USA. A week before leaving he called the cable guys and asked for a better rate. When they refused he told them to cancel his service. Period. He claims that over the four weeks of his vacation, he received some nice offers to return, and he finally took one.
This is some hardcore manipulating and I love it.
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Old 11-20-2019, 10:12 AM   #32
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The cable companies see the handwriting on the wall. Everybody's moving to streaming. 5G and satellite internet is on the horizon. They've got to milk that monopoly on programming and internet for as long as they can.

I, for one, won't shed a tear for them. It's the same thing the land-line phone company did toward the end there. Eventually they jacked their rates up to the point where even keeping my home phone number of 35 years wasn't enough to keep me paying.
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Old 11-20-2019, 01:42 PM   #33
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
Vyve has a 1 year special 105mb for $40. I am on a special 50 for $40 for 5 more months. I called and the 105 was for new customers. I asked what it took to become a new customer and was told to cancel for 1 day. I will check that out a little more before i cancel.
Be careful of cancellation fees, all my internet contracts have it, starts out high and decreases by $10 or $15 per month of service.
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Old 11-21-2019, 12:44 AM   #34
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In October, my Spectrum internet service increased from $65.99 to $69.99. I have considered canceling right before a vacation and signing up after returning but an installation fee is required, even if you have your own modem and do not need a technician to visit your place.

I am resigned to paying it for now but look forward to canceling one day. I cut the TV cord not because I don't watch some TV but because of not wanting to support TWC/Spectrum. With every other utility (electricity, gas, water) the user is billed based on consumption, but Spectrum gets full rate whether you use it a little or a lot.
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Old 11-21-2019, 10:22 AM   #35
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mountainsoft View Post
Comcast (Xfinity) is my only option for broadband internet. The phone company does not offer DSL out here. We have too many trees for satellite. The topography of our hill blocks wireless. Even cell reception is very iffy.

I currently pay about $79 per month for internet only. I'm thinking about dropping to a lower speed to save a few dollars. Of course, Comcast doesn't list download speeds on their price sheet and I have to visit their store to downgrade anything. They refuse to downgrade service online or over the phone. I would only save $20 at most, so it hasn't been a big priority.

The only positive is that my cable internet has been very reliable since the day I hooked up.
Interesting. I have Xfinitity, (comcast), San Francisco bay area. CA. I pay 29.95. internet only. slowest speed. 15mb. (works fine for video's, email, etc.).
On my xfinity site. (login/password), I can check for promotions, and what it costs for various download speeds, and bundles. Also, pay my monthly bill online. You should be able to access this info, without going to brick/mortar store.
I can also switch by just a phone call. If my download speed is to slow, I can call in, pick a more expensive plan, and the CSR, can change my speed via
a phone call.
Also, an Out door antenna, picks up a "lot", of local TV stations.
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Old 11-21-2019, 11:59 AM   #36
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Interesting. I have Xfinitity, (comcast), San Francisco bay area. CA. I pay 29.95. internet only. slowest speed. 15mb. (works fine for video's, email, etc.).
On my xfinity site. (login/password), I can check for promotions, and what it costs for various download speeds, and bundles. Also, pay my monthly bill online. You should be able to access this info, without going to brick/mortar store.
I can also switch by just a phone call. If my download speed is to slow, I can call in, pick a more expensive plan, and the CSR, can change my speed via
a phone call.
Also, an Out door antenna, picks up a "lot", of local TV stations.
You made me curious so I logged on to my account to see what I can see. They have definitely changed it since I last looked. I had to dig down through "show all offers" and "show details" to see what the actual prices are, but it does look like I can downgrade online now. That previously wasn't an option (and was told so in a real time chat once).

That said, it looks like my current 70Mbps plan ($78.95/mo) is no longer available, and has been replaced with a 75Mbps plan ($71.95/mo). It's not much, but I might switch to save a few bucks.

The only other cheaper option is the 15Mbps plan that costs $51.95/mo. I upload and download a lot of files for business and personal, as well as a VOIP service for our home phone, and my wife and daughter are always online with their phones at the same time. I think 15Mbps may be a little too slow for us right now. It's a shame they don't offer a plan somewhere in between, maybe 25-30Mbps.

I use an outdoor antenna to get all of our local channels. That and YouTube videos is more TV than I have time to watch.
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Old 11-21-2019, 12:53 PM   #37
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I didn't think the Xfinity 15Mbps plan would work for us right now, so I changed my plan to the Performance Plus package for $71.95/mo. It looks like they're giving me the $66.95/mo promotional rate, even though I'm not a new customer. I won't complain, but the regular monthly price will save me about $7 per month for the same speeds I have been getting. That's not much, but every little bit adds up.

I recently changed my VOIP phone plan. Same service under a new plan name, saves another $7 per month.

I also dropped the DVD portion of my Netflix plan to save another $10 per month.

So, I suppose it's worth checking with my various utilities and services every now and then to see what new plans are available. They certainly don't switch me to the lower cost plans on their own, even if the service is better.
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Old 11-21-2019, 01:17 PM   #38
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I posted about the Trim bill renegotiation service here not long ago because I too didn't like my Internet bill jump from $29.99/mo to $60/mo. Trim renegotiated it down to $45/mo if I recall. They do charge 30ish% or so of the savings but I was ok with that because I still saved a money for just a couple of clicks worth of time.
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Old 11-21-2019, 01:36 PM   #39
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I haven't checked my bill for a long time; it's just one of those on autopay.

But I happened to look at it recently and saw it was up to $90/month. Started out at $55 when we moved here almost five years ago.

So I examined it and saw that we were paying for much more speed than we need. Getting close to 200/30 which is total overkill for us.

Called Spectrum and after about 20 minutes on hold I got the account downgraded to 70/5 for $70/month. Still faster than we need, but saving $240 a year made those 20 minutes on hold seem worthwhile.
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Old 11-21-2019, 03:18 PM   #40
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You made me curious so I logged on to my account to see what I can see. They have definitely changed it since I last looked. I had to dig down through "show all offers" and "show details" to see what the actual prices are, but it does look like I can downgrade online now. That previously wasn't an option (and was told so in a real time chat once).

That said, it looks like my current 70Mbps plan ($78.95/mo) is no longer available, and has been replaced with a 75Mbps plan ($71.95/mo). It's not much, but I might switch to save a few bucks.

The only other cheaper option is the 15Mbps plan that costs $51.95/mo. I upload and download a lot of files for business and personal, as well as a VOIP service for our home phone, and my wife and daughter are always online with their phones at the same time. I think 15Mbps may be a little too slow for us right now. It's a shame they don't offer a plan somewhere in between, maybe 25-30Mbps.

I use an outdoor antenna to get all of our local channels. That and YouTube videos is more TV than I have time to watch.
Interesting. We also use VOIP. Just a suggestion. For next time.
Go to a lower MBPS rate. If it does not work. Just call Xfinity back. Upgrade to the next higher speed. (every so often, check their website, they are always offering something new).

Just be sure they do not penalize you. "Early cancellation fee", if you are in a new one year promo.

In the past, When I call in to change plans, prior, to expiration of promo.
CSR, said, there is no cancellation penalty fee, IF you are just changing plans. IF you quit Xfinity, they there will be an early cancellation fee.

Hope that makes sense.
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