Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Comcast: The Hurt Never Ends

lord patton

lord patton

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 6, 2005
1,052
14
Chicago
F. Comcast. F. Comcast. F. Comcast. F. Comcast. F. Comcast. F. Comcast. F. Comcast. F. Comcast. F. Comcast. F. Comcast. F. Comcast.

So I just installed an HD antenna today, and am getting very good reception on the UHF channels. For the wife and I, here in the Chicago suburbs, that's plenty good enough. We can watch Lost, Office, 24, Gossip Girl (I know—guilty pleasure :eek:), and buy or stream whatever else we need.

Perfect right? Cut cable and save some cash, yes?

I just called Comcast, who provides our cable tv and internet, and told them I was going to cancel cable. After the "retention officer" utterly FAILed to offer me anything worthwhile to keep me paying, he drops the bomb—if I drop cable TV, my internet price will go from $43 to $60.

Huh? Is this legal? Anyone have any advice? We're going to call and search and complain and do our due diligence to get this resolved in our favor, but maybe someone here has an idea or two. Unfortunately we don't have any other way (aside from satellite) to get internet her in Lisle, IL. ATT won't have their DSL in town for a couple more years.

Geez, anyone else ever been screwed by Comcast? ;)
 
That's standard practice for cable/phone/internet companies these days as they compete to get people to switch all of that stuff over to a single company. If you bundle services, they knock the price down. You're unbundling, so your Internet price goes up.
 
It's perfectly legal, unfortunately. You're likely in some sort of package deal where they give you discounts for having multiple services. If you drop cable TV, it's no longer a package, thus, the price goes up.

Check and see if you can get AT&T U-Verse for internet and TV. Just because you can't get DSL from AT&T doesn't automatically mean you can't get U-Verse.
 
yg17 said:
It's perfectly legal, unfortunately. You're likely in some sort of package deal where they give you discounts for having multiple services. If you drop cable TV, it's no longer a package, thus, the price goes up.

Check and see if you can get AT&T U-Verse for internet and TV. Just because you can't get DSL from AT&T doesn't automatically mean you can't get U-Verse.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's the U-Verse thing I was actually referring to. The latest dispatch from town hall said it's slated to come in 2010. I assure you, when it's an option, Comcast will never see me again.
 
lord patton said:
Yeah, it's the U-Verse thing I was actually referring to. The latest dispatch from town hall said it's slated to come in 2010. I assure you, when it's an option, Comcast will never see me again.
Click to expand...


Ahh...OK. Well, try the other way around? If all you want is internet, is DSL available? One doesn't necessarily require the other.
 
You had a package deal with Comcast. Your price will increase once the package is broken.

Comcast makes that fact very well known both in advertising and through their sales representatives. It's both legal and completely ethical. It's a standard practice.

By having both a homeline and ADSL here in Japan with my local company, I get a package deal that makes the cost of the homeline almost 0 (ADSL by itself would be only about ¥200 yen cheaper than having the homeline in addition).

I like to have a homeline when possible. I prefer to give certain people my homeline and not my cell, just so that they cannot reach me anywhere at anytime. Honestly, I don't want my work being able to catch me wherever I am. Heck, I don't even want them calling me at home LOL.
 
I'm with you on the Comcast hate. I hate AT&T with a passion, yet I have them as my ISP. Why? Because Comcast is my only other choice. Lesser of two evils, indeed.


As others have pointed out, however, this is standard procedure for ISPs. I have dry loop DSL from AT&T (no home phone line), and they charge an extra $5/month compared to people who have home phone+DSL. Not as bad as your case, but the idea is the same.

I do so love utility monopolies.
 
I know what you're talking about. We had issues where Comcast basically refused to fix a spliced wire and kept on patching it, which did little because once it rained the connection dropped out. Eventually it dropped out all together, so we were without internet for about a month. Luckily, we were able to use an unencrypted signal, but that wasn't too stable. After complete frustration, we switched all of our services to Fios, and it ended up being cheaper with a much faster connection, etc. Anyways, Comcast is a horrible excuse for a cable company and I'm so glad we got rid of them.
 
It must depend on the area. I've had Comcast for 3+ years now in Atlanta and have had almost no problems with them whatsoever. Internet is speedy, cable rocks...I don't know what more I need.
 
Yep, we called to get our cable canceled on a day a couple weeks in the future.

They tried to upsell us to a e-mail forwarding service for $15/month, when that failed, they simply canceled everything that minute -- before we had sent out e-mail change notices.

They also screwed the pooch when they installed service, they took our cable modem and assigned it to the home builder -- and refused to give it back to us. Forcing the builder to call and say the modem was ours.
 
That happened to us when we dropped our cable and went over to DirecTV (much better value then Comcrap by the way). There isn't anything you can do besides switching, or you can try to threaten them by saying that you are going to switch to another ISP if they don't lower your price. That works sometimes.

Don
 
Sun Baked said:
Yep, we called to get our cable canceled on a day a couple weeks in the future.

They tried to upsell us to a e-mail forwarding service for $15/month
Click to expand...

lol, before buying the OTA antenna, I called Comcrap and asked if there was anything they could do to give me a better deal. They said they could add digital voice for just three dollars more a month.

<paraphrase>

Me: "Hi, I'd like to find a way to reduce my bill."
Comcrap: "OK, I can charge you more for services you don't want... it's a really good deal."
 
If you can't get DSL in your area, chances are Comcast knows it. And they'll screw you to the wall.

I would go without television and broadband completely if my only choice was Comcast. Seriously. We currently have DirecTV and Sonic.net ASDL2+ and couldn't be more pleased with both providers.
 
Drop the Internet Too!

I'm sure you have some cost effective options for Internet service in your area. In Houston I have AT&T DSL which works fine for me. Now they are about to offer the whole U-Verse package in our area so I'm getting excited about that.

You can't hate Comcast any more than me...I promise.

John
www.cut-the-cable.com
 
Yep. Pretty standard bundled deal trap. Being in Chicago, you must be in the Qwest area. You might try their optical lines - not great, not bad but sufficient. They seem to always have a cheap deal for the first year, although they'll try to snag you on the bundled deals too. Since they are a broker or whatever for Directv, you might see if you can get your DTV bundled in with the internet.
 
When I saw the thread title, my first thought was of those horrific commercials they make with the tone-deaf people.
 
This is actually the standard from all Cable providers. Althought it sounds like you are getting off light, by only having to pay the regular retail price for their service. I have had several friends who were on Comcast, and dropped their TV service, and had to pay early termination fees, then pay the non-TV subscriber fee for the Internet portion.

TEG
 
Nukemkb said:
Any possibility of using your cell phone providers 'net connection? too slow??
Click to expand...

Sadly, that really isn't an option anymore. I'm not entirely sure about AT&T, but on their data only plans (Air Card type programs), I know Sprint and Verizon have now capped their former unlimited plans at 5GB/month. And I thought Comcast was bad with thier 250GB/month limit.
 
steve2112 said:
Sadly, that really isn't an option anymore. I'm not entirely sure about AT&T, but on their data only plans (Air Card type programs), I know Sprint and Verizon have now capped their former unlimited plans at 5GB/month. And I thought Comcast was bad with thier 250GB/month limit.
Click to expand...

Too bad! I hate that feeling of being screwed with no way out!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back