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Login to post Forums » Off-topic discussion » I hate my cable company!

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Oct. 7, 2008 8:33 p.m. bigbrainonbrad New Reader

So I was in their local office today paying my bill, and I ask the lady at the counter about their upcoming changes in service. The service they are pimping is up to 60 hd channels for free (except you have to pay $15.99 a month for the box). Get home, plug it up, call their number to have my box flashed, go to work. I planned on watching some programs tonight in hd, flip on the box and nada.

When I call them up, I'm told that I'll have to pay this and that. I ask what am I paying $16 a month for then, their response the box, to which I respond does it make any sense to pay $16 a month to get channels that I already received? The young man on the phone agreed that it did not, at which point I asked if I can just take the box back. He replied yes and I hung up.

I really wish that I had other options, but the apartment I live in doesn't allow dish or directv and from what I can tell internet TV sucks! It is just really frustrating, I have had this company for the majority of my life and realized long ago that they sucked in every way shape and form, but I was hoping that maybe they turned the corner. I could swallow the extra $16 a month, but now if I want the hd content I have to pay another $12, bringing my cable and internet bill to damn near $120 a month! Recockulous!!!
Oct. 7, 2008 8:52 p.m. Raze New Reader

you think that's bad, Comcast is raping people like me who live in a condo and unfortunately trees obscure my LOS to DTV or Dish so I am stuck paying get this $150 for BASIC cable, internet and cable telephone, BS, BS, BS, and NO ONE ELSE SERVES MY AREA!!!!
Oct. 7, 2008 9:19 p.m. aircooled Dork

One of the things that pushed me over the edge with my cable company was that they required me to rent the controllers for the box!!! I mean these things are at best $20 retail and they were getting something like a $1.50 a month for them!
Oct. 7, 2008 9:49 p.m. seann Reader

and top of that the service is total E36 M3!

I subscribed to comcast and they had to have a person come out to my house to hook it up. They ask me when I am available to have some one out, I say mornings any day before 9 is best. So they say 9 is the earliest they can make it, I say ok that's fine, they say: Ok we'll be there some time between 9 and 1. WTF! I have to waste 4 hours of my day to pay someone to hook up my cable?

So I stick around till 2 which really screwed me because I didn't have half a day to waste and should have been at the office, and they don't even show up! So I went in to work and called and asked to reschedule and I want the instalation fee dropped. Comcast says: well it says here that the installer was there at 3 and you weren't home. I finally got them to drop the fee and rescheduled for a week later of course another stupid 4 hour window and the installer was an hour late.

first bill I get, the instalation fee is on it and they gave me more service than I signed up for and are charging me for it. It takes 3 months to get that error corrected and have the instalation fee dropped. A few months later the idiots just stop sending me bills but my service keeps going. This happened to a friend of mine and all the sudden they get a bill for all the back service. Lucky for me, when they finally start sending me bills again it doesn't include the back cable. So I got a few months of free cable. But when the bills start coming again, they increased my service above what I want and are charging me for it.

When I finally cancel my cable, I took the box into the office and paid off my cable bill off to that point. Done. Well it turns out they underestimated my bill by 12 cents and so they sent me a bill for it in the mail. Now I have to wast my time a stamp and a check to send them 12 cents.
Oct. 8, 2008 12:14 a.m. MitchellC Reader

I'm satisfied with our provider, Cox. HD channels are included with the box rental, which is about $5 a month.
Oct. 8, 2008 6:12 a.m. ddavidv SuperDork

Death to Comcast. DirecTV for everyone if I were king. I truly feel for those who can't experience the joy of dish ownership.
Oct. 8, 2008 8:09 a.m. confuZion3 HalfDork

You think you guys got it bad? Try managing 10 different Comcast accounts. Welcome to the world of Accounting.

Those E36 M3 heads apply credit to the wrong accounts constantly. I even include the stupid little remittance form with my checks! Additionally, my accounting system prints the account #s RIGHT ON THE BERKELEYING CHECK! They still berkeley it up.

I just got over a two month battle with them because they were billing us twice for one of our offices. Essentially, we were paying for three modems when we only had two. They finally agreed to close one account and, SURPRISE!, they closed the wrong damned account! It took them two months (REALLY?) to correct the issue. Of course, we are sitting on a fat credit right now.
Oct. 8, 2008 8:39 a.m. ignorant UberDork

directv has the best service I've experience. They treat you like a customer, not a leper.

You always have a choice.. Do what I did and just cancel service.. You'd be surprised at what you do with the free time.
Oct. 8, 2008 9:42 a.m. integraguy Reader

My parents loved the cable system they were with and tho I wanted to get them on satelite...they wouldn't bite. Then ComCast took over their local system. My mom started telling me how crappy their cable was, the service kept going out, the rates were skyrocketting.... I switched them to Directtv and they love it. I thought they might have problems with reception due to weather...nope. The biggest problem is that with cable, and now satelite, they weren't able to use their tv's remote. With satelite NONE of the tvs can use the remote that came with them when new. My brother bought them a new flat screen HD tv...still needs 2 remotes and we've tried a couple "universal" remotes....still need 2 remotes.
Oct. 8, 2008 9:51 a.m. WilD Reader

Broadcast TV for the win. Can't beat the price (free) either!
Oct. 8, 2008 10:01 a.m. oldopelguy HalfDork

I just want to know why my bill is a different amount every month. Since I signed a $xx.xx per month plan, not a per day plan, how can the amount be any different one month to the next? Even my electric bill is more regular.
Oct. 8, 2008 10:19 a.m. carguy123 HalfDork

I've had 3 different cable companies and they are all the same.

Broadcast sucks just due to picture quality and inavailability of the preponderance of the currently available "cable" tv stations and shows.

I am on Dish and am happy except for the fact that I can only record 2 shows at the same time.

Their DVR system really sux. You set the recorder for the show, but it doesn't follow the show, but a time slot. This means that if it is set to start at 9:02 (I don't know why but a couple of them I record do) then you miss the first few minutes. Also if the show starts &/or ends late you lose the last few minutes of the show.

I understand from the ads that Direct TV has a 4 show recorder.

Oh, and picture quality is better on Direct than cable. Cable doesn't have many shows being broadcast in digital, most are still analog.
Oct. 8, 2008 11:13 a.m. jeffmx5 New Reader

carguy123 wrote: Their DVR system really sux. You set the recorder for the show, but it doesn't follow the show, but a time slot. This means that if it is set to start at 9:02 (I don't know why but a couple of them I record do) then you miss the first few minutes. Also if the show starts &/or ends late you lose the last few minutes of the show.
They all work this way AFAIK. I missed the first 15 minutes of the Criminal Minds Season Premiere because of the President's speech.

There is an option to start recording early and end late, see if you have the option set. You may have back-to-back recordings on the same tuner where the previous recording is ending late, thus bumping the next one.

I have the Dish Vip722 and I love it.
Oct. 8, 2008 11:23 a.m. jeffmx5 New Reader

bigbrainonbrad wrote:

I really wish that I had other options, but the apartment I live in doesn't allow dish or directv

The FCC says they can't do that. If you have line of sight to the satellites from your patio, you can install a dish as long as you don't make permanent changes to the property.

Example

FCC Rules
Oct. 8, 2008 11:53 a.m. Dr. Hess UberDork

I had DishTV for about ten years. I finally dumped it for rabbit ears. Seven bills a year for 24x7 comercials and 3 "premium" channels that played 20 year old movies that I either have or aren't worth watching. I miss the Military Channel, but my wife wouldn't let me watch it anyway, so big deal.

I dunno about DirecTV. If you say the service is good... I had DirecPC and it was absolutely the worst customer service I have ever experienced. Well, maybe not the absolute worst, because I tried to help a friend with an alarm company issue once. Let's say the second worst customer service ever. As in, my internet doesn't work. Oh, that's not in the Mumbai script, so one of them 'Mericans is going to have to call you within the next 2 days. OK, call me after 6 PM Central so I'm home. They call at 10 AM. Twice, and they won't leave a return phone number because they don't want you calling them. Don't even mention that anything over 150 megabytes a day puts you into "punishment mode" where they throttle your bandwitdth down to dialup speed. DirecPC/Hughes can rot in hell and take the TV with them.
Oct. 8, 2008 1:18 p.m. 96DXCivic New Reader

integraguy wrote:

My brother bought them a new flat screen HD tv...still needs 2 remotes and we've tried a couple "universal" remotes....still need 2 remotes.

Logitech sells an amazing universal remote that will control everything. The only problem is it cost about $100.
Oct. 8, 2008 4:04 p.m. SupraWes HalfDork

I watch either on antenna, hulu.com or occasionally bittorrent stuff. Turned the directv off months ago and don't miss it a bit, I still don't have time to watch all the stuff I want to with the other options I still have.
Oct. 8, 2008 4:20 p.m. carguy123 HalfDork

jeffmx5 wrote:

carguy123 wrote: Their DVR system really sux. You set the recorder for the show, but it doesn't follow the show, but a time slot. This means that if it is set to start at 9:02 (I don't know why but a couple of them I record do) then you miss the first few minutes. Also if the show starts &/or ends late you lose the last few minutes of the show.
They all work this way AFAIK. I missed the first 15 minutes of the Criminal Minds Season Premiere because of the President's speech.

There is an option to start recording early and end late, see if you have the option set. You may have back-to-back recordings on the same tuner where the previous recording is ending late, thus bumping the next one.

I have the Dish Vip722 and I love it.

The problem with starting early and ending late is the limit of 2 recordings at one time. If you over lap the times you sometimes can't record another.

One of the DVR systems follows the show so that if it changes times, or starts early or late it still records the show.
Oct. 8, 2008 4:27 p.m. 96DXCivic New Reader

My parents just got cable and I came to the realization that there are only two good channels on TV. Speed and Comedy Central.
Oct. 8, 2008 5:01 p.m. fiat22turbo SuperDork

What is on Speed that is any good?

I usually find TLC, History and Discovery has quite a bit more interest to me than Speed. Certainly not enough to get me to pay $160/month for the full monty cable package in order to get it (at least in my area)

From what I can tell, Speed spends most of their airtime between NASCAR races talking about driver's and crew's lives outside of the racing, spinning whatever they can into interesting sound bites and whoing Pinks in its various incarnations. Every once in a while Speed will show a F1, ALMS, Grand-Am, etc event at 0'dark thirty in the morning.
Oct. 8, 2008 5:05 p.m. 96DXCivic Reader

F1 is the big reason but I have a strange soft stop for Monster Trucks. And also ALMS and Grand-Am sometimes during the day you can get other forms of racing. The amount of NASCAR is really annoying though.
Oct. 8, 2008 5:12 p.m. EastCoastMojo Reader

My cable DVR has a USB on the front, but I am sure I can't expand the capacity by just plugging in a portable drive, right? Anyone have any experience with that?
Oct. 8, 2008 5:16 p.m. Salanis SuperDork

I hate TV. 99% of it is crap. If anything has even the remotest shred of being halfway decent, it will end up on DVD. If I really want to, I'll watch it then.

I also refuse to organize my schedule around TV shows. Only watching things on DVD lets me do so at my leisure. Sure, I could get TiVo or something like that. But that's a big expense on top of exorbitant TV bills.
Oct. 9, 2008 8:39 a.m. DirtyBird222 HalfDork

I've been preaching this for years and if I had the money I'd do it, but someone needs to start a A la carte service. You pick the channels you want, you pay for those, no "packages" or "upgrades" that include BS channels like oxygen or lifetime. I would choose all local stations of course, Comedy Central, History, Discovery, all 200 ESPN channels, TBS, TNT, FSN, SpeedTV, Travel, Bravo (top chef), TLC, Military, Science, and HBO for Entourage and Curb your Enthusiasm.
Oct. 9, 2008 9:19 p.m. EastCoastMojo Reader

Salanis wrote:

I hate TV. 99% of it is crap. If anything has even the remotest shred of being halfway decent, it will end up on DVD. If I really want to, I'll watch it then.

I also refuse to organize my schedule around TV shows. Only watching things on DVD lets me do so at my leisure. Sure, I could get TiVo or something like that. But that's a big expense on top of exorbitant TV bills.

That's the great thing about a DVR though. You can watch only what you want and only when you want to. And you can record two shows at the same time like Ninja Warrior and Bonanza. And you can skip the commercials and rewind live TV, which is incredibly awesome.

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