I am probably the only one who needed several years to figure out what I’m about to tell you. But I’m about to save $1,320 a year and maybe there are a few of you out there who can benefit from what I’m about to tell you.
I’m talking about your monthly TV, cellphone, and Internet bills.
This story starts a few years ago. I was on Time-Warner Cable and was reasonably happy with my TV service and online connection.
But one day I was in Best Buy down on Pico, and someone in the store approached me about switching to DirecTV. The introductory deal seemed almost too good to be true – could cut my TV bill in half by switching – so I said “yes.”
But I kept my Time-Warner Internet service. Satellite services offer Internet, but it’s simply not as good (fast) as cable.
I signed up for a two-year contract with DirecTV. At the end of your two-year deal, your monthly price goes up. WAY up. I guess I figured that’s just the way it is.
Or is it?
Recently I saw an ad for a $49.99 per month deal with DISH TV. That sounded good. I checked my DirecTV bill – I was paying around $150 a month. DISH TV had my attention.
I called DirecTV to see if it would match the price. After many transfers – you have to be really, really aggressive and insist on talking to supervisors – I worked my way up the chain of command and finally, someone said yes, DirecTV would match the price.
It just makes sense, when you think about it. All the equipment is already in place. It costs one of these companies a lot of money to lose a customer.
But when I finally got the price concession from DirecTV, I asked the unaskable: Would DirecTV be willing to rebate me the “extra” amount I’d been charged each month for over a year? That resulted in a quick “nyet.”
So I switched to DISH TV, out of spite.
The odyssey wasn’t over, however. On the morning of my DISH installation, I learned the $49.99 special was for the programming service, but there were lots of extra charges for the equipment in order to match what I had before with DirecTV. Remember, DirecTV had just agreed to lower its price to $49.99 a month. So now I was about to pay $49.99 for less service than I was getting from DirecTV.
So I started all over again on the phone with DISH, threatening to send DISH’s installation guy back home if DISH didn’t honor the $49.99 price, which I thought, included everything.
I even called DirecTV while the DISH guy was here to see if DirecTV would still honor the price-matching deal I was offered two weeks before, but I was told by DirecTV I had to accept it when it was first offered; since I waited and asked for it later, that deal was off the table.
After lots of transfers, I ended up agreeing to an $80 per month deal with DISH. It wasn’t what I hoped for – $49.99 sounded pretty good and by now I had that number locked in my mind – but DirecTV no longer felt right to me. I think DirecTV should have told me I qualified for a better deal long ago.
The point is, the moment your contract is up, call and ask for a new deal. Be prepared to spend hours on this. Be very aggressive, eventually they will give in.
Emboldened by my success, I called Time-Warner. I asked if I could get a better deal on my Internet connection. Within a minute or two I went from $70 a month to $50 a month.
Then I went to the Verizon store at 26th and Wilshire. How about a break on my cellphone bill (which includes two phones and an iPad)? Yup, it was doable. Another $15 a month.
I asked the guy at Verizon why none of these companies ever just told us we could qualify for a better deal. He said it just doesn’t work that way. You have to ask. Deals change all the time, he said. It’s smart to check in every six months or so, he added.
So, it took several hours, but I saved, I think, around $75 a month on TV, $20 on Internet and $15 on cellphone. That’s $110 a month. Multiply that by 12 and we’re up to $1,320 a year.
I think there is a big opportunity for some TV/cellphone/Internet provider to say “we will always give you the best deal available,” but clearly these companies are counting on us to become lazy and passive: When the bills go up after the introductory deal is done, they are hoping we won’t notice or won’t care.
Give it a shot. You have nothing to lose but time and aggravation, but as you spend time on hold, you get angrier and angrier. That will fuel your determination. But set aside the time, you will need it. Stay resolute.
Good luck!
