Just Below The Noise Level

A simple case of economizing.  

Review our expenses and cut where it’s too much or where the service we're paying for really isn’t needed.  So, we looked at our cable bill. Did we really need all those channels we never use? Nope, in fact, truth-be-told, we didn’t need any of them.  OK, but we need the internet, and I’ve addressed that in an earlier post.  So Montse calls them on Saturday,the First of December, and gets their quote obscured in a host of internal buzz word terms that represent ‘packages.’  You have to purchase packages, and those are a combination of different services that come at varying prices; (usually escalating).  No, no no, all we want is Internet hook up.  Well those come in varying baud rates (more/faster is better but also more expensive) and some fast rates are only available in packages, (go back to package descriptions). So to get the really fast Internet of 20 mbps, (million bauds per second), you have to have the basic channel package which was somewhere in the neighborhood of $86.00, so we elected to try it.  That failing we could always get the bare-bones just Internet at the same speed we have, 12mbps, with our current package for the monthly price of $69.95. 

   After several days we reconsidered our choice and decided to drop the channels altogether and just get the Internet. So she called again on Tuesday, the 4^th of December, to change our service.  This new fellow told her the basic Internet service was $72.95.  When she protested, mentioning the price we had been quoted just the other day by a named representative no less (I’ve convinced her to write down the names of the phone rep for future referencing as in this case.) he said, basically, it didn’t make any difference, as he struck to his quote and that was the end of the negotiating. We felt annoyed with their vacillating prices, along with a sense of being held hostage with their take-it-or-leave-it smug monopolistic attitude.  We were also informed in that putdown, to return the cable box and the remote in ten days or we’d be charged a replacement fee equal to funding all of the elementary schools in our county…or thereabouts.

   So on Thursday,the 6^th of December, we brought the box in, and stood in line with other customers doing pretty much the same thing. I was thinking about mentioning how Blockbuster acted smug with their rental choke hold on CD’s in much the same way the cable company was behaving until video streaming happened; then their customers dropped them in droves.  Oppressive smug attitudes do not cultivate loyalty my friend.  While I was rehearsing my comments in my head, Montse prodded me to ask about their basic cable price; which I did, or started to, when she pushed me off to the side and jumped in telling her story (since after all she was the one who had the conversational, and no she didn’t really shove me per se, I’m just being artistic with my imagery.)  The girl and her chatted and it was revealed that Montse was from Spain, so of course speaks Spanish, and that was invitation enough for them to go off  at high speed about I-don’t-know, in Spanish. I spotted verbs here and there and congratulate myself for doing the grammar well enough to get the root word translation.  Eventually the girl reverted back to English and informed me that the rate for basic Internet would be $62.95.

   Now I’m not a suspicious person by nature.  In fact those who have known me for some time would say I’m gullible-efforting to make sense of this world of contradictions.  Meaning, I swallow what I’m told as the truth most times.  So I’m trying to puzzle out how the price for an item could vacillate so much over the very short period of nearly a week?  I mean, this isn’t gasoline for crying out loud.  I could conclude that there isn’t a basic plan. Where actually the service representatives have full free range to charge whatever the market would bear.  Or perhaps the real price is in the low forty(ish) and anything more goes into a collective commission pot that is distributed at the end of each month?  Perhaps because Montse speaks Spanish we get a dual-language and one is the native tongue of the service rep discount?  I dunno, but it’s rather disconcerting to realize I don’t know what my fees are because they shift every day or so.  We’re going to make it a point to periodically call to see what the going rate is from week to week, and maybe get a lower price lock in. 

  I’m no fool, they increase the rates anyway, so does it matter what price you signed up for?  It’ll change, and they’re banking on people being so busy with other pressing demands that bartering cable fees is just below the noise level. If they were really serious they’d outsource their call centers to a country with horrible accents...That’d fix us for sure.