Cancel internet and sign up again as new customer?

[Amethyst]

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!

(why aren't long term customers valued the same?).

a.

 

[mountainsoft]

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.

 

[aja8888]

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.

 

[Chuckanut]

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.

 

[aja8888]

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?

 

[MrsHaloFIRE]

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.

 

[CaptTom]

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.

 

[Sunset]

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.

 

[triangle]

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.

 

[wolf]

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.

 

[mountainsoft]

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.

 

[mountainsoft]

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.

 

[dvalley]

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.

 

[braumeister]

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.

 

[wolf]

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.

 

[bushpilot]

I have (in the past) done fine with the quit and change tactic. But, in this "new" house (been here 6 years), we can't get either DSL or cable internet. I bring that up, because the previous occupants had comcast, and we assumed that we would do the same when we moved in. But their sytem is "saturated" here, and they are not taking any new clients. Six years later, still no internet other than via the cellular network.

So ... just be sure you can get back in before you cancel.

 

[Sunset]

I have (in the past) done fine with the quit and change tactic. But, in this "new" house (been here 6 years), we can't get either DSL or cable internet. I bring that up, because the previous occupants had comcast, and we assumed that we would do the same when we moved in. But their sytem is "saturated" here, and they are not taking any new clients. Six years later, still no internet other than via the cellular network.

So ... just be sure you can get back in before you cancel.

How often do you check, because folks must move out now and then, opening a spot. Or you would think their system would upgrade capacity to be able to sell faster services for more money, which would also allow more customers ?

 

[bushpilot]

How often do you check, because folks must move out now and then, opening a spot. Or you would think their system would upgrade capacity to be able to sell faster services for more money, which would also allow more customers ?

You would think so, but I have never found an "opening." Whether calling or online, the result is the same. I try a few times a year. I asked to be on a waiting list, and was told they don't do that.

Once I got through online, and had an installation appointment scheduled. They never showed up, and eventually said the usual - we have no availability in your area. I live in a rural area, outside of a small town.

But I can show you where the cable is, routed right to the house!

 

[pc95]

Spectrum took over Time Warner in our area about 2 years ago.....I was grandfathered in the Time Warners low tier service of $14.99 for 3Mb/s throughput.....it was low but mostly sufficient with occasional service problems or laggings
Recently Specrtrum bumped up the price to $19.99, but also bumped up the throughput to 10Mb/s - now there's virtually no problems - worth the added $5. They don't offer this rate publicly. I was told by a rep, will never see it again if I drop it. I'm actually more happy now with the smallish rate increase. Rarely ever have problems.

 

[GreenEggs]

AT&T jerked me around on the 12 mo $40 intro rate by deciding to raise it after the 4th month to $70. I kept paying the $40 & they cut off my service. I "spoke" to them for hours a couple of times, which was a waste of time.

Spectrum offered $30 per mo, so decided to try them. They had to set a box & lay line because my house is over 450' from the street, so that was going to take 45 days.

In the meantime, I decided to try a Hot Spot. So far the hot spot works, so I canceled the SPectrum installation. I was concerned about them cutting our irrigation & other wiring along the driveway, so was relieved that the hot spot works.

The hot spot cellular data is with AT&T for $35 per month. YouTube posters say it's "unlimited", but that's not the term AT&T uses. Anyway, I'm testing it now & hope we can use it at home, in the RV, and at our mountain cabin. It really stinks to pay $100+ for phone & internet at the cabin since we're only there a few days per month. I'll have to rig up a better antenna they to hopefully receive get data. Crossing my fingers...

 

[Chuckanut]

AT&T jerked me around on the 12 mo $40 intro rate by deciding to raise it after the 4th month to $70. I kept paying the $40 & they cut off my service. I "spoke" to them for hours a couple of times, which was a waste of time.

My local cable company sends me the occasional offer for something similar: TV, phone and slower internet for $40-$50 a month. Then I read the fine print and find out that while I am committed for two years there are a number of services and reasons listed that allow them to raise the monthly fee during that time, but I am still on the hook for two years. Not so good.

 

[zinger1457]

One change I've noticed in my area is that some of the Internet providers have started offering long term lock in rates. CenturyLink offers a lifetime fixed rate for their Internet DSL service for as long as you maintain service. Probably because of the CenturyLink offer my cable Internet provider Cox has started offering a 3 year lock in rate. Not sure if there are any gotchas with any of these offers, I currently have the lock in rate DSL service and it's been working very good.

 

[Souschef]

We had Verizon DSL at 3 MB/s. Frontier bought out Verizon in our area, and I requested a higher speed. Since our area was semi rural, there was no chance of them updating their equipment or getting FIOS.
I called Spectrum and now have 30 MB/s for less than half the price. The old cable was shot, so they sent out a crew to run new cable inside a new conduit.

 

[MJ]

When I went abroad with my wife for about a 1 1/2 months, on my way to airport, I went to the local Spectrum store cancelled my account and returned the modem. Saved 1 1/2 months. When we came back, we dropped by the store and my wife opened the new account under her name although I'm not sure if we needed to do that and got the promo price for another 12 months. If we go away even for 1 week, I'll do the same and when we return, I'll open the account under my name, hopefully we'll get the promo price of the day again.