Recently I read an article--I don't remember where--about saving money that asked, "Do you really need Cable TV?"
This inspired me to call Comcast to see if I could reduce my bill, which is about $110 per month if we don't buy any movies. (I have put a block on buying movies so the kids can't do it...we learned the hard way that they didn't understand that some of the on-demand content was free and that some of it wasn't.)
The woman suggested a different package which would give me the kids channels and the necessities like The Weather Channel and CNN Headline News (can't miss Nancy Grace!), for about $40 less per month. We booked an appoinment two days later for a technician to come out to put a filter on the pole.
He came, he installed, he left. When my daughter got home from school, she wanted to watch TV and that's when we found out that something wasn't right....I had only basic cable, nothing else.
Long story short, I spoke to 13 -- yes, 13 -- people at Comcast that day. Apparently, the package that I had been sold was not available in my area, but it took all day to not only find this out, but to make sure that the technician came back that day. (They wanted me to wait until the following week.)
The technician did come back and fix, but I lost an entire day trying to fix the problem and dealing with so so many customer service people who didn't know or didn't care. One guy even told me that he owned Comcast when I asked to speak to his boss. When I told him to let me talk to someone else, he said, "OK, I'll put you back in the queue," so this must be something that happens all the time.
I did send an email to Comcast's VP of Customer Care, Rick Germano, though I havn't heard back from him yet.
So...I havn't been able to reduce the cable bill yet. I'm going to look into Sattelite, because everyone says it is so much cheaper. We just got an HD TV for Christmas, so we need to have HD and both Comcast and Dish Network (or is it Direct TV) claim to have more HD than the other. I think I need to make it my business to find out for sure and get the best value.
