The following contains a rant and some decent advice at the end. I've tagged them so you can skip my ranting and avoid all the venting.
Rant
After canceling my current security monitoring service to move to a new provider at less than half the price (a massive debacle due to a cancellation letter and them not liking the fact that my signature did not match the original service contract from 5+ years ago) and calling the Dallas Morning News about the auto-renewal on our Sunday paper subscription I have found that it pays to contact some of your subscriptions/utilities on a yearly basis and act like a new customer or threaten to cancel.
The newspaper renewal was costing nearly 2x what it would run to go to the grocery store/gas station on Sundays to get the paper so I called and complained (I am 95% positive that I shut off the auto-renewall option last year, but they renewed me anyway). When I asked about canceling and getting a refund, they said they could cut the cost by half making it slightly less than retail.
The Security monitoring service, after a few heated phone calls (why my security password was not enough for canceling and they needed a signature that matched the original contract I'll never know), made me an offer that was significantly less than what I was paying on a monthly basis.
Why is it that a company, once they have you signed up, takes every opportunity at their disposal to try to screw you out of more money? I would think that treating existing customers well would pay off immensely since it has to be cheaper to keep an existing customer than to recruit a new one. Cell phone companies used to be the same way but I have noticed an improvement since number portability came in to the mix.
I almost had the same problem with DSL but when I originally signed up they said that the rate was a promotion for the first year and I asked what happens at the end of the year. They told me to call back and renew for another year to get whatever the new promotional rate was. That ended up cutting our bill by $10/month.
/Rant
Advice
The lesson to be learned here is that on a yearly basis it's probably good to call any subscriptions you have that are auto-renewing, and any of your set fee utilities, cell phone, security, cable, internet, etc. Either act like a new customer (use a different phone than your home phone) or threaten to cancel for a cheaper service and see what they can do to match. In the past 5 months I've managed to free up almost $500/year. It angers me to think that a lot of this money could have been recovered years ago but I was just complacent in accepting the rate hikes as they came along.
Rant
After canceling my current security monitoring service to move to a new provider at less than half the price (a massive debacle due to a cancellation letter and them not liking the fact that my signature did not match the original service contract from 5+ years ago) and calling the Dallas Morning News about the auto-renewal on our Sunday paper subscription I have found that it pays to contact some of your subscriptions/utilities on a yearly basis and act like a new customer or threaten to cancel.
The newspaper renewal was costing nearly 2x what it would run to go to the grocery store/gas station on Sundays to get the paper so I called and complained (I am 95% positive that I shut off the auto-renewall option last year, but they renewed me anyway). When I asked about canceling and getting a refund, they said they could cut the cost by half making it slightly less than retail.
The Security monitoring service, after a few heated phone calls (why my security password was not enough for canceling and they needed a signature that matched the original contract I'll never know), made me an offer that was significantly less than what I was paying on a monthly basis.
Why is it that a company, once they have you signed up, takes every opportunity at their disposal to try to screw you out of more money? I would think that treating existing customers well would pay off immensely since it has to be cheaper to keep an existing customer than to recruit a new one. Cell phone companies used to be the same way but I have noticed an improvement since number portability came in to the mix.
I almost had the same problem with DSL but when I originally signed up they said that the rate was a promotion for the first year and I asked what happens at the end of the year. They told me to call back and renew for another year to get whatever the new promotional rate was. That ended up cutting our bill by $10/month.
/Rant
Advice
The lesson to be learned here is that on a yearly basis it's probably good to call any subscriptions you have that are auto-renewing, and any of your set fee utilities, cell phone, security, cable, internet, etc. Either act like a new customer (use a different phone than your home phone) or threaten to cancel for a cheaper service and see what they can do to match. In the past 5 months I've managed to free up almost $500/year. It angers me to think that a lot of this money could have been recovered years ago but I was just complacent in accepting the rate hikes as they came along.
to make sure that you are not clandestinely being asked to authorize payment in perpetuity....
