If we switched to books, we'd have to give up the Consumerist.com...

"Sorry, I'm canceling and switching to satellite."

"Wonder what they would say in those cases if you said, "sorry, I'm canceling and switching to books?"

Probably ask, "What is this 'BOOK' you speak of?"

Just so it is said in regards to isolate TV from internet.

There is a cheap filter on the first splitter in your house the filters TV and phone from internet. There is no magic technology. When I was but a poor college student and worked for MediaOne it was a gold band filter. They cost 2 bucks at most.

I always hate it when phone support people talk out of their rectum.

@ninjapoodles: Book. John Book. I'm a cop from Philadelphia :)

Thank you for the shout-out to Grendel.

I'm in the DFW market as well. The writer SHOULD have switched to FIOS just based on the abysmal service provided by Time-Warner down here.

The $11 is to recover some of the cost for sending out a technician to install the $2 filter. While it does suck, the fact that you want to make a change to your service that involves sending out a technician is not the cable companies fault, so should not be entitled to recover at least some of the cost?

In most cases, you can still get some basic channels with the filter installed. Where I used to work, the internet came through on "channel 56", or the frequency that 56 would normally occupy. Because of this, we installed a filter that only eliminated channels about 56. Its a technical limitation that most companies run into, so if you have "internet only", try hooking up a TV to one of the outlets, you'll likely get some channels.

@bradg33: No. It isn't my problem if their process to disconnect me costs them money. Customer disconnect, due to death at the very least, is a guarantee eventually, so the cost should be built in to EVERY account. If they incur a cost for it, that's their problem, not mine. How about: have a better way to disconnect me than to send a guy out to install a filter.

Um when someone cancels service, that means the cable company has done something so egregiously wrong, they're not entitled to anything. If that would make them go out of business, so be it. When I cancel a service with someone, usually the company has screwed up so egregiously that in my eyes they are entitled to nothing. This is the reason public utilities and cable and internet service should ALL be subject to competition. By the way I would have just written a complaint to the state's attorney general. It would cost them WAY more than $11 to fight prosecution for extortion. And then I would have cancelled BOTH services anyway.

Comcast is a little better because I rarely have issues, but that doesn't mean I don't despise them.

Only $11? Wow, I hate to say this but they're getting off easy. Unfortunatly, as mentioned, most of us live in a cable monopoly. Worst yet, I live in a Comcast monopoly... No FiOS here yet... Not even DSL. Nope, nice ol' EchoStar (dishNetwork) and free Wi-Fi with permission :D.

Apparently someone at TW thinks that this "disconnect fee" is a good way to bully customers into keeping service, and if all else fails, to recoup some of the cost of the truck roll to trap the line.

I understand business concerns and the importance of minimising churn, especially in the wake of increased competition from AT&T/Verizon/&c. However, charging a disconnect fee is a lousy excuse for good customer service. Analogue cable is the only service cable telecoms cannot remotely disconnect. However, that limitation is not the customer's fault and they should not be penalised accordingly.

On the other hand, most cable telecoms do charge an "activation fee" to come out and take the trap off the line when you start service, so I guess a "disconnect fee" isn't amazingly far-reaching.

I guess it's safe to say that good customer service is at best a secondary concern to most corporations these days. Any fee, no matter how arbitrary or unwarranted or sneaky, helps the bottom line out just that much more.

They're just trying to cover their costs a bit. When you have TV and internet, then cancel TV, the company has to send a guy out to put a video "trap" on the line that blocks the TV signal.

The stupid part, of course, is that customers who don't understand the "why" don't know to threaten to cancel ALL services, so that no "extra" trip to put this device on is required.

You should, however, be prepared to switch to DSL in case you get someone like me who, when you say you're going to cancel, say "OK" and cancels the account...

@dbeahn: No, I don't work for Time Warner. That last comment goes back to my days with AOL when I was a tech. People called all the time to "threaten" to cancel to get their free month or 2. As a tech, we weren't required to "save" accounts, so if you called tech support to cancel, we canceled you!

Ha, you still have your internet through them. Did they mention they have a $10-15 a month recurring charge "line access fee" tacked onto your bill if you only subscribe to the internet and not cable tv as well?

Mine does.

No offense, but you should have switched to FiOS anyway. It's not even close.

Verizon bundled with DirecTV - BEST PACKAGE EVER.
I'm never going back to cable.

Hey it's me James, the original Time Warner hater here. Excellent dialog.

I just wanted to add that Time Warner (previously) Comcast cable internet has been fast and reliable that's why I havent switched to FiOS. I pay $44 plus taxes for 4 megabit, (although I never attain that bitrate).

I have isues with Verizon because our neighborhood was a early pilot area for FiOS and they tore up everybody's yards over a two month period installing fiber. They had to replace sod in a number of yards after we complained to the city (we also have a lovely green curbside Verizon junction box box).

To make matters worse they filled our mailboxes with junk mail then sent teenagers door to door to get business. If I was guessing maybe 20% switched to Verizon. Those that have switched have had their yards further...landscaped.

Wait....why exactly did you get cable tv, just get basic and take out the filter yourself....then you have all the channels, you get the discount for the internet...and no one will be trying to tickle your ass....Also, some installers take it off for like $20....in the country....they are so lazy...they will actually do this.....they say "Im gonna leave the box open, you know what you gotta do.." cause they get paid to sit on their ass....cause nobody lives on the outskirts....and this is comcast..by the way...

Also, dish is way better than Directv, if you dont know why, then forget i ever mentioned anything ever.

This theory didn't work for me. After last weekend's Soprano's finale and the horrible state of Television in general and motivated by a misguided desire to SAVE money, we decided to get rid of our HBO. I called Comcast and after saying I wanted to drop HBO I was told that if I got rid of HBO I would loose the special rate having HBO was giving me. My current cable rate with HBO, Cinemax, the Silver package (channels such as BBC America and History Channel International) was 51.98. If I dropped HBO my rate would go to 52.98 just for basic cable. If I wanted to continue getting BBC America, etc I would have to pony up another 14.95, taking my new rate to 66.97 meaning for less service I would be paying 15.00 dollars more. Once told this I decided to cancel my cable all together. In response I was told that since I have Phone, Cable and Internet as a bundle from Comcast, dropping cable will cause my rates to change for both phone and internet. My current phone rate is $19.99 and my current internet is $47.99. Both would go up about $20.00 taking me to $108 (before taxes) meaning my bill without cable would only be $28.00 dollars cheaper than with all the bells and whistles and cable.

I told her this was unacceptable and that I had other options such as going to AT&T. She said nothing would change if I kept my plan as it was but did not offer me any enticements to stay. I carefully asked why Comcast felt it was a good business idea to charge it's clients more for less services and she corrected me, explaining that I wasn't being charged more for less services, I was being charged less now for having more services (a fine distinction). Angry and frustrated I ended the call, had a good anger cry in my office and then called AT&T where (I will save the horror story about getting this account set up for another post) I was able to set up phone and internet for $32.00 plus taxes. If Comcast had simply subtracted the $52 I was paying for cable from my $136.00 bill they would be making $84.00 a month. As it is now, I am going to save $104 a month simply because Comcast tries to trap it's customers into services they no longer want.

Can anyone explain what the benefit of charging less money for more services is? I see this at Best Buy as well where you can get a complete computer system for $400.00 but the individual parts would cost you $900.00. What the hell is that about?

They weren't actually trapping you into service you didn't want - You were at a discounted rate due to a package. By taking away several of you services that made up that package, you were at retail rate. Giving discounts for being in a package is common practice with almost everything sold these days, such as a value meal at McDonald's... You're rewarded for having more of the services provided by that company.

I had a similar problem with Bresnan (owned by Comcast). I called to have my service moved from one apartment to another. Naturally, the service lines were already run into both, but for some reason they wanted to charge me a $19.95 transfer fee. I asked the customer service rep "Why should I pay you for you to keep MY business?" Apparently a little common sense was all they were missing.