How to Save Money by Negotiating Your Cable Bill
According to Centris Resesarch, in October 2010 the average monthly household expenses for television were:
- $68 for cable
- $72 for satellite
- $96 for fiber TV
Add in other average costs such as:
- $43 for phone
- $45 for internet
- $97 for wireless
and it’s clear consumers are paying a lot of money each month for communication and entertainment. Today we’d like to provide some links to information that you can use to help you keep more of your hard earned money. If you’re interested in learning what you can do to reduce your bills, spend some time reviewing these strategies to determine what method would be best for your situation.
In a guest post on Get Rich Slowly, G.E. Miller shares his online chat with a Comcast representative and shows exactly how he negotiated a lower cable bill. Miller also shares seven tips on negotiating, including recommendations to do your research and to refer to your competition during your conversation with a service representative. Interestingly, Miller also elected to negotiate over a chat session with Comcast because he heard that the chat session representatives weren’t actually Comcast employees, and may not have had as much of an incentive to tow the company line.
Erica Douglass from Erica.biz shares her strategy to negotiate phone or cable rates by calling and requesting to cancel your service. Douglass offers a six step process to negotiate, including advice not to take the company’s first offer.
eHow also features advice on how to negotiate a lower cable bill. Like the other sites we’ve mentioned, eHow recommends that you do your research and are prepared with offers you are seeing with competing companies. You can easily find information on competitor plans by searching the internet.
To assist you in your research, here are the websites of the major providers in the Milwaukee area:
Have you ever negotiated your cable, satellite, internet, or phone bills? If so, what was your experience like?
Are you an AT&T DSL Customer?
AT&T recently agreed to settle a claim that they placed limitations on DSL subscriber lines, which resulted in customers receiving DSL speeds lower than the advertised maximums.
If you are, or were, an AT&T DSL customer, it may be worth your while to review this claim further.
There are three customer classifications defined in the proposed settlement:
- Group A Benefit: If AT&T’s Records show that AT&T configured the downstream speed of your DSL Service, for one month or more during the Settlement Class Period, at a level lower than the Maximum DSL Speed offered in the plan you purchased, you may be eligible to receive two dollars and ninety cents ($2.90) for each month your service was so configured.
- Group B Benefit: If AT&T’s Records show that your DSL Service performed, for one month or more during the Settlement Class Period, below the downstream speed levels specified in the Settlement Agreement for Group B benefit eligibility, you may be eligible to receive two dollars ($2.00) for each month your service so performed.
- Group C Benefit: If AT&T’s Records do not indicate that you fall into one of the two categories above, you may still be eligible for a one-time payment of two dollars ($2.00).
As this articleon JSOnline points out, long-term customers of AT&T’s service who fall into Group A could receive hundreds of dollars.
The deadline to file a claim is July 1st. For more information and to file a claim, visit DSLSpeedSettlement.com.
Thanks to Milwaukee Consumer reader Jeff for bringing the article on JSOnline to our attention!
Have Cell Phone Price Wars Begun?
At first glance, it appears the initial stages of a cell phone price war have begun since Verizon, AT&T, and US Cellular recently cut rates on their unlimited talk plans. For example, Verizon’s nationwide unlimited talk plan was cut by $30 to $69.99 per month. Of course, now speculation has begun whether the big carriers will cut rates for minutes-based plans. However, there is no indication that the minutes-based plans will be changing at this time. In fact, in this post by Brad Tuttle at TIME, he investigated this supposed price war between the cell phone carriers and discovered that the carriers have implemented new, higher charges for unlimited texting and data plans. Tuttle quotes a Verizon spokesman as saying they think this move will actually increase revenue as more consumers will subscribe to data plans.
As usual, consumers need to read the fine print and understand all of the extra charges involved with their cell phone contract. Perhaps this is a good time to do some price comparison shopping and evaluate your cell phone costs. If you’re interested in doing some price comparison shopping and evaluating your cell phone costs, check out Consumer Reports article on 8 ways to cut your cell phone bill. Consumer Reports points out that they’ve found that pre-paid cellular service is often cheaper than the typical contract plan.
For example, with Straight Talk from Tracfone Wireless, they offer two no-contract plans:
- $30 plan – 30 day plan which includes 1,000 minutes, 1,000 texts, 30 MB of mobile web access, and calls to 411 at no extra charge.
- $45 plan – 30 day plan which includes unlimited minutes, unlimited texts, unlimited mobile web access, and unlimited calls to 411.
We found phones ranging from $60 to $140 on the Straight Talk website, along with two very high end phones for $359 and $374.
Cricket Wireless is another popular no-contract provider with options ranging from $25 to $55 a month. Cricket also has a handy tool on their website to compare their rates versus your current provider. We found phones available on their website from $40 to $140. Two examples of their plans are:
- $30 plan – Unlimited talk, caller ID, and premium coverage.
- $45 plan – Unlimited talk, caller ID, premium coverage, text, long distance, pix, and more. Includes 30 minutes of nationwide roaming per month.
Are you satisfied with your cell phone provider? Do you prefer no-contract providers? What provider do you think offers the best value? If you have any insight to share, please leave a comment.
Cable and Phone rates are negotiable!
Here is a good reminder to call your cable, satellite, or telcom provider to make sure you are getting the best pricing available for your product. The Wall Street Journal published an article yesterday that profiled a consumer who called AT&T hoping for a 10% discount for his services and ended up with a 50% discount!
Time Warner Cable, the major cable provider in the Milwaukee Metro area, is profiled in the article as well. Their spokesman is quoted as saying “The key is to hang on to every possible customer right now”.
To help get you pointed in the right direction, here’s a link to Time Warner Cable Wisconsin.
Don’t forget this advice applies whether you have high cable, satellite, internet, or telephone bills! Make that call today and make sure you have the best rate possible. Also, if you had a promotional price in the past, or do receive one, make sure you monitor when it expires and start shopping around that time.